LESSON SIX
I will never forget 5th March 2012. That was the day I came
face to face with my husband when he came strolling down the stairs to find me
waiting near his car at a block of flats in Langata. When I had called him
earlier, he had told me that he was in Nakumatt. I was convinced that he was
lying to me. He had lied to me many, many, many times before. In
fact, he had lied throughout our marriage.
I never checked up on him at all before this day and in fact, I knew
nothing about anything when I was standing there at around 10pm and said,
“David, I thought you told me you were in Nakumatt?” And he responded and said,
“I am going there now!”
I later discovered that the person from whose flat he had emerged was
his 20-something year old receptionist. I also later discovered that he had
been having an affair with her and she had replaced his previous receptionist who he had been dating, according to him, from
before we were married.
On that day, I was at our home in the evening reading a novel I
enjoyed. The novel was about a broken marriage. Needless to say, I did not get
to finish it because what I had been reading as fiction became my real life.
Prior to that day, I would never have believed that my God-fearing, Seventh day
Adventist, religious church-goer of a husband was an adulterer and in fact felt
no guilt or remorse whatsoever about his affairs.
He assumed that by the time I found him at his girlfriend’s flat, I
knew everything. That night he transformed into a monstrosity. He followed me
home and the first chance he got he ranted and raved at me telling me
essentially that I was an obstacle to his happiness, burdening him with
responsibilities that he never bargained for. Other than that, I was nothing to
him. I found it hard to believe him.
In the course of the days that followed I was told things like:-
1. When you told me you didn’t trust me, I
just laughed because I never asked you to trust me!
2. I don’t know why you keep calling her a
receptionist. You like looking down on people. I don’t know why you think
you’re so special just because you are a lawyer. She respects you so much! She
has never attacked you in any way! I am not like you, I treat everyone the
same.
3. I do not believe in marriage or love.
4. I married you to please my mother. People
used to tell her all the time about how even though I have succeeded
financially, I will never amount to anything because I am not married. After I
got married, they used to say ok he’s married, but why don’t they have kids.
After we had a daughter, they used to say ok he’s got a child, but he doesn’t
have any son. After we had our first son, they stopped talking and now my
mother is happy.
5. Ok so I commit adultery, even you lie.
The Bible says that all sins are the same.
6. Don’t think you are cleverer than your
mother. That Bible you keep reading all the time carrying it around with you is
what will drive you mad like her. The Bible is just a guideline.
7. She was so distressed when she found out
that I was married. I could not just break up with her like that. If I tried,
she threatened to kill herself. I had to do it slowly. That’s why it took me 9
years.
8. When we had our daughter, she had
promised that she would be the one to give me a son. When you then had our
first son, she was so distressed that I had to send her to America to recover.
In addition, I found all the emails my husband had been exchanging
with his previous receptionist and read through them all. I was unable to
recognize the 19 year-old boy of a husband of mine writing those emails and
some of the things I read there were just unbelievable. I got to know his current
girlfriend’s phone number and just as well, it turned out that the last 5
digits of her number were identical to the last 5 digits of his number. How
romantic! On those evenings when I would sit there, 9 months pregnant, watching
my husband eat the food I had cooked and waited up to serve him after coming from work to make him happy, he would be texting her. I would sit there just praying for sanity as I watched him texting and turning the phone away from my line of sight somewhat like an excited 16 year old.
Sometimes when we were asleep late at night, she would call. I suppose
she knew then that their affair was no longer a secret. I was usually awake
because I had a baby to take care of. If he didn’t pick the call, I would go
look and see her number on the phone and wonder what the call could possibly be
about other than just to let me know she was around. I also wondered what she was doing awake. Other times, if he was
awake, he would actually pick the call and go out of the room to go talk to her
and then come back to bed!!! Can you believe this?!
I did not believe that this was the same person I was married to and I
still think, no, something somewhere went wrong one day and he lost his mind
and then he was in the process of making me lose mine too. It was a competition
to see who would enter the asylum first. Thankfully, I had previous experience
in dealing with mental patients because I once tried to live with my mother a
short while after getting her off the streets and I almost lost my mind then.
In August of that year, the receptionist posted a picture on face-book
of her pecking my husband on his forehead and when I told him off about it, my
nephew, who I was raising, being the one who had showed me the photograph, and I had been trying
hard to prevent him from finding out about what was happening because he was
sitting a national exam that year, he retorted by saying it was just a peck!
Obviously I had gotten married to a polygamist and I didn’t know. His
bloodline must have never featured a monogamous man probably for millions of
generations. The enemy we fight is lethal. Had my husband been straight with me
from the beginning and told me what his intentions really were in marrying me,
if I was still interested, I would have drawn up a contract to ensure that I
would have equal rights and that our co-wives and co-husbands would be selected
by mutual agreement.
From 5th March 2012 to 17th September 2012 when
I was admitted in hospital under the care of my mother’s psychiatrist, my life
was spiraling at full speed to a grand finale of me ending up like my mother.
17th September 2012 was the final time that I pleaded with
my husband to stop his affair with his receptionist. I really had no better
title to refer to her with. He did not even explain to me what I was meant to
call her. Her role at his office is to sit at the desk at the entrance right
next to the front door and pick up calls and welcome visitors into the office.
I was at the admission room and my husband was there with me. Our
recently born baby was still breast-feeding at around 5 months. I was losing my
mind. He knew that. In a lucid moment, I said, “David please, just get rid of
that girl and let us fix our marriage for the sake of our children.” The answer
I got shocked me into delirium. He said, “I cant do that! If I did that she
would kill herself. Imagine someone killing themselves using my name. I could
never live with that!” The next thing I knew, I was groggily waking up the next
morning after being tranquilized that night. God Almighty!! That was me!
I could have died that night. No actually, I died that night. The me
who woke up the next morning was completely lucid and alive to the following facts:
1. Whatever lay ahead in life was bigger
than the battle of the titans.
2. I was not fighting human beings. I
was fighting against spiritual wickedness in high places. My husband and his
compatriots are just vessels. (Knowing this, I am so thankful that I am not like them!)
3. The battle is the Lord’s.
4. God is never out-numbered or over-powered.
5. My enemies are under God’s firm control.
6. Anyone who strikes me, strikes what is
most precious to God.
7. GOD HAS A MONOPOLY OF POWER. Yes people, all
power belongs to God. Even your enemies are empowered by God.
I never communicated at all with my husband’s girlfriend. She knew me
well. She had even been to our home for my son’s birthday party. The same with
his previous receptionist/girlfriend.
When I left him, it was very clear to me that the receptionist was the
one he wanted to be with. They clearly deserved each other. He had told me that
she is special and makes him happy. He was renting her flat for her and
educating her in university. He even used to buy her flight tickets to go see her mum from my aunt’s travel agency!
They continued their affair openly with no shame, not caring about the
havoc they were causing jeopardizing the future of the children of the home they were
breaking by mistreating the woman who was responsible for the care and
nurturing of those children. I was so sure that as soon as I left he would move her into our home,
which I had spent millions re-decorating in the hope that we could start afresh
and make things work. To facilitate that, I left him everything and only took
what was evidently mine, including the kids, obviously.
It came as a shock to me when, after I left, he then said that the receptionist meant nothing to him and he was going to get rid of her! After a while, she disappeared from his office. What am I missing
here? Is it not a tad bit late to be thinking of working on a dead marriage? When
I decided to end our marriage, I took our wedding bands and disposed of them in
a burial ceremony which symbolized to me that our marriage was dead and buried
and I told him as much. When the person who hurt you insists on remaining the
same after you have changed, there really is nothing that can be done to make
any relationship with them work out.
It saddens me to imagine that people can joke with the life of another
human being in such a callous way. Can a man really destroy the mother of his
children for fun?! His wife, maybe. But the mother of his children? Was that
affair purposed only to destroy me?
When my husband went about soliciting
happiness from other women, what did he tell them was wrong with me, his wife? My best guess is that he must have told them the same thing he told me about them. That I was so obsessed with him, I threatened to kill myself if he did not marry me; so I trapped him! God Almighty!!
My husband shamelessly walked around the town I was working hard to
build a home and career and raise my children in, defaming and slandering me to
his peers and to the young women who hold PHDs in sexual immorality and
everyone else associated and connected with this crowd in which he found his
happiness.
On this quest to show women that I can help them find happiness, I have no choice but to clear my name in the process.
Summary for This Lesson:-
Marriage can kill but
the same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in you. Marriage is worth
the risk. But only when God is before you.
Tip for this lesson:-
Trust only God.
God is your strength
ReplyDeleteIn the epic battle of Mahabharata, Krishna told Arjun to fight and wage a war against his own brothers. For a common man today, this would deem to be a sin. However, the moral behind the Bhagavad Gita is never have any attachment for anyone or anything whether it is your husband, wife, siblings or millions. It is those attachments which constantly hurt us. Only make sure you do good deeds and you will be rewarded justly by God, keeping in mind to do justice at all times, even if it means waging a war against your own for purposes of destroying evil.
ReplyDeleteTrue. We serve one God.
DeleteAmen to the Summary to the lesson. I am beginning to see you differently and I like that!
ReplyDeleteNjeri I have shed some tears for this story sister woman coz I have traveled this dark highway before, I'm so very proud of you sister for sharing.
ReplyDeleteYou have a great heart!
ReplyDeleteAm following through the lessons but for this i couldn stop shedding a tear. asking mydelf why a man created in God's image and likeness would do this kind of acts to a woman who dedicated so much effort to make all things work for their happiness. but again towards the end my tears are dried up by the fact that despite all this, God's grace was sufficient. it is a high time het us women learn to trust in God alone. The Bible says in Jeremiah 17:5 that cursed is the man who trusts in man....Psalms 118:8 says that it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. I thank God for your life Njeri. You and all women will surely reach to our destiny through the highway to heaven. Be blessed.
ReplyDelete