Asor Letters: Champions League, COVID-19 and sex

Dear husband,

Would it come as a surprise to you if I told you that I wish the football season never got suspended?

Yeah! I am certain you would open your mouth while reading this letter but do well to close it lest houseflies find a new abode.

I admit to all the times I nagged your behavior whenever the football season started, but I refuse to accept all the blame since you decided to choose the Champions League over me. I’m sure if there were Losers League, you would have still preferred that to spending quality time with your wife.

You know, the only times that I was a football fanatic was when Ghana Black Stars had a match or whenever I saw a fine boy on the park with the twenty-two men chasing one ball. That is how I ended up an Arsenal fan some years ago because of Theo Walcott. Now, I do not even know the name of the Arsenal coach.

Nonetheless, I tolerated your obsession with watching football for hours and ignoring me as if you lived by yourself. You could not even pretend to enjoy my company every time I joined you to watch the matches.

How was I supposed to understand what was happening on the field if I didn’t ask questions like why the referee’s blowing his whistle when someone is clearly about to score a goal? Why doesn’t he wait for the goal to be scored before saying it’s a foul or whatever? Sometimes I would hide the TV remote from you which worsened my plight as you would go out to watch the matches with your friends in pubs.

During those lonely moments, I would quickly blame your actions on your passion for football and hug myself to sleep. I did not wish to accept that my husband is glaringly and shrewdly denying me any sort of intimacy.

Ever since we got back from our honeymoon, I can actually count the number of times we have had sex. I had no inkling that I possessed the abilities to seduce my husband or any man for that matter, yet I find myself literally begging you for sex. How did this happen? I thought men were the chasers.

As an adoring girl growing up, my Pentecost Church Sunday School teachers made sure the thought of sex alone was an abomination. In a way, I concede that it was one of the reasons why it took me so long to agree to be your girlfriend.

We are not in normal times as this Pandemic is wiping away all the smirks and smiles off our faces, but in a twisted kind of way, I was hoping that this lockdown would grant us a fresh start since there’s no more football or any kind of balling going on. Seeing as we have now been forced to be in each other’s presence 24/7, I found no reason for you, my husband, to still be stingy with sex.

Yet you have developed a new attribute – from celibate husband to paranoid husband. You consume all sorts of news on COVID-19 whether they are true or false. It is ok to be cautious and smart in these times but I could still not fathom why you moved to the second bedroom, drowning any chance of showing you my newly learnt seduction skills as if Corona Virus is sexually transmitted.

This would have been a perfect opportunity for us to bond in a dance to Lord Paper’s new song Asabone, but since you will not grant me an audience, this is my sanitized letter for you to come back to your senses before Akufo-Addo declares that the lockdown is over.

If there’s anything that this period has taught me, it is that, we should learn to be appreciative and not take things for granted, like the rare moments I get to watch you cheer your team to victory or loss.

Remember however that our marriage is not a football game because the day any of us loses is the day we play the finals as a couple.

Your Disgruntled Sex-Starved Wife