My husband knew he was fatally ill…yet he deceived me into marriage

“When I met my husband, he was open about wanting a serious relationship and after dating for a few months, we got married. Before then, when we were intimate, he would push away any talks of protection, saying it was not necessary since we were going to get married. He wanted us to get pregnant as soon as possible and I didn’t mind because I was not so young either.

I got pregnant just before our wedding and about four months after, my husband fell sick. He was in a lot of pain and after self-medicating with strong pain medicines for a while, he agreed to see a doctor. However, days after his supposed appointment, I discovered that he’d gone to a traditional healing centre instead and was using local herbs to treat himself. I got worried but he assured me that the treatment was working and he was alright. He acted okay as well so I let it go. 

Besides, being pregnant at my age was not the easiest thing and I was struggling with my own issues as well. So it was quite surprising when about a couple of months after he started his treatments, he became violently sick. It was the middle of the night and his painful moans woke me up. I had to get a neighbor in the next apartment to help me take him to the hospital because he could not even move. At the hospital, they referred him to a university teaching hospital and he was admitted immediately. That was when my panic set in. I began to ask serious questions and the doctor told me that my husband had lung cancer and it was at the very last stage so there was nothing they could do for him except help him die in as little pain as they could manage. I was shocked. I asked questions about the disease and from the answers I got, it was obvious that he’d been sick for a long time; he just forgot to mention it to me.  

My mind flashed back and I realized the signs had been there – the pains, his small disappearances (probably for treatments or to hide the worst of it from me) and his constant medicating which he always explained away. As the tears rolled down my face, I wondered what my tears were about – his dying, my soon-to-be single parenthood or the fact that a dying man had tricked me into marriage. With some reflection, I remembered his excitement at my pregnancy and realized that having a child before he died was probably his plan – he was an only child so this was very possible. When his parents came to the hospital and I looked into their eyes, I knew I was right. My marriage had been a deception from the start – they had looked for a vulnerable woman like me who desperately wanted to settle down and tricked me into this situation. I was furious and I was sad at the same time. Within a month, my husband passed away and I was left alone to manage the last stage of my pregnancy. I now have a baby girl and it’s been a few years since. I am grateful for my child and while it’s not supposed to matter how I got her, because I desperately wanted a child, I do not have very fond thoughts of the man who deceived me.