Popular TV presenter opens up on abusive marriage, life as a widow

Maame Akua Oforiwaa Ampadu Austin, a well-known presenter on Ghana’s top entertainment network, Adom TV, has opened up about her unhappy marriage and life as a widow.

Maame Akua experienced love many years ago when she first met her husband, who frequented her mother’s Tema grocery store.

But after a few years, what she had anticipated would be a happy marriage came to an end because of unbridgeable divisions, with abuse at its core.

Maame Akua said in an interview with Mike 2 on Adom FM’s Entertainment Hall that she wed at the age of 18 and that while her husband’s family was very hospitable, he also shown a negative side of himself.

“I married immediately I completed school. I was very calm. My in-laws were very good to me. My first opportunity to travel to the United Kingdom came from his family… I cannot mention my marriage without them and I can never be ungrateful to them.”

She claimed that, despite the love from her in-laws, her husband abused her physically and mentally to the point where she yearned for a way out at all times.

“Every time I finish cooking, I cry for about 15 to 20 minutes before I can even eat. I travelled back home to Ghana and he still followed me here. It’s a very long story, but when you are in a relationship that is abusive, you are always looking for an opportunity to exit. My marriage was like pear shape; one minute it is straight and the next it is curved”.

It took her four years to get the strength to tell her husband that she had decided to leave her marriage after having three children.

She claimed that although she exhaled a breath of relief at her choice, her husband nursed grudges and severed relations with her for years.

However, as a result of co-parenting, they were once again friends, and they stayed in touch up until his death two years ago following a protracted illness.

Speaking about her life as a widow, Maame Akua claimed that she has been living in peace since carrying out all appropriate rites.

She acknowledged that she is currently single and has no intentions of getting involved. The host claimed that if she were to be married once more, it would be just for companionship.