Why I won't tolerate husband's infidelity
Posted Saturday, February 5 2011
How do you begin to tell some stories? Even for a very good story teller like myself, when it finally came to my own story, I was lost for words.
With whom do you share intimate, personal details of your life? There is the fear. And then there is the embarrassment – of sharing your feelings of humiliation, rejection, desperation, guilt, anger, betrayal, inadequacy? Indeed with whom - family? Friends? In-laws? Counselors?
About four years or so ago, I came across strange messages in my husband's mobile phone. And when I confronted him he looked me in the eye and said he had this problem of getting wrong messages in his inbox – something like wrong number calls.
I did not believe him, but since that incident, he did his best to make sure I could not get into his phone, and he kept it on him all the time. But, of course, he was bound to get careless.
My next snooping session found near-pornographic smses as he was getting organised to go and pay bride price to my parents! I was too shocked and wanted the whole bride price ceremony cancelled.
I wanted to call my parents and tell them why there would be no visit. We discussed it with a friend, and he said, in his own words in the presence of this friend: whatever it was, it was now over. But again he got sloppy, and this year, I came across things that made me literally wake up and smell the coffee!
I am a fantastic snoop, but he is a better liar. To cut a long story short, he has been having an affair or possibly affairs. I found most of this information either from his mobile phone or snippets of paper in the house.
My husband of many years says I am making up all this. He insists I should never look into his mobile phone. But I think being snoopy has helped me know just how human beings can be so deceptive. Am I disappointed? Of course! Will I leave? No, because I put all my sap into what we have together – our home, our children and my current social network.
However, he is free to go and live with the woman he now finds more exciting and I have told him as much.
In the meantime I moved out of the bedroom and I'm now sharing a room with the girls. Children are more perceptive than we think. My daughters, both in their twenties, know that their father has wronged me, and are more than happy to share their bedroom with me.
However, I have not discussed this problem with them, and, thankfully, they have not pried.
My husband has always been well-fed, even when he does not pay the monthly allowance he is supposed to give me. He is well-groomed, thanks to my son and I, whose work involves some travel out of the country, which has kept his wardrobe updated. And a househelp who keeps his shirts clean.
I have a fairly decent job whereas he is self-employed, and most times, ‘business is not good'. So I have always readily paid fees – the two girls are attending parallel courses. I need to see them through school, no matter what.
Meanwhile, I avoid talking to him unless it is very necessary. I no longer cook the awesome meals I used to. I am sure many of you women out there know of the various dishes your men love – that pilau, that ugali and fish, the chapatti on Sunday afternoon, the uji and the egg that only you can fry the way he likes it!
Occasionally, I will do some fancy cooking – for myself and my daughters, or when we have guests. A such times he gets a bonus.
What I find amazing is that he is very, very angry at me for catching him, and he denies the obvious without any shame. I cannot understand it. Or accept it.
The last smses I read made me nauseous. I could not believe I have lived with a man who is so cheap and of such low morals. It is not just the infidelity. It is the bigger picture that actually hurts the most. I keep rewinding the events of the last few years and the falsehoods unravel like a nollywood script.
Like most philandering Kenyan men, my husband never slept out. The latest he got home was 10, and he sometimes would even call to say he was still in the office.
Our sex life died many years ago. As we were still talking openly, and I was gullible, he convinced me he had a diminished libido, the effect of a borderline prostate problem, but which the doctor had assured him was treatable over time.
When I insisted on having sex, he would put me off by insinuating that I was a nymphomaniac, and he had better things to do anyway. Previously, we had a fantastic sex life. And I was never the ‘I am tired, have a headache' type.