Right after SHS, he found me and made me fall in love with him. I was seventeen, going on eighteen. I knew about love, but I didn’t know how much it burned or how it led people astray from their future. He was mature, had a job, and had a business going on. I loved him because of everything he did for me and with me.
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We dated for only a few months, and I got pregnant. While I was shaking and not knowing what to do, he was calm and almost unaffected. He said, “I’ll take you home and marry you. You don’t have to be scared.”
He did just that, but that didn’t stop my parents from calling me an embarrassment and a black sheep of the family. My mom almost shunned me. My dad said I’d stabbed him in the back and didn’t deserve to be called his daughter. I think they agreed for the man to marry me so they could get rid of me from the house.
My dad told my boyfriend, even before the marriage, that he should help me go to school after I delivered. He promised he was going to do exactly that, so we got married traditionally and I moved in to live with him, barely an eighteen-year-old wife. I didn’t know how to be a wife; I didn’t even know how to be myself, but I tried, though I made a lot of mistakes.
I had the first child, a girl, and two years later, another child arrived. I was home, not doing anything, because he didn’t want me to. He would go out there, pick women, do whatever he wanted to do with them, and come home to insult me—that I was good for nothing and a drain on his pocket.
I wanted to sell; he said no. I wanted to go back to school; he said his money wouldn’t do that. Later, he told his friends that he would not take me to school so I wouldn’t be better than him in life. I started regretting life. I was miserable, and my kids were sharing the misery with me. Sometimes it was hard for us to feed while he gave money to the women he dated.
He was dating one lady, Lucy. He was splashing money on her and didn’t even hide it from me. One day, I called Lucy on the phone and begged her to leave my husband alone. She listened to me talk, and then she said, “Oh wow, I didn’t know you could speak English. He said he picked you up from a village and your parents forced him to be with you. The way he painted you, I didn’t think you’d ever been to school.”
That day, I cried. I was still in my twenties but was looking like I’d crossed the forty line. I told him, “I want to go back to school, please help me.” Again, he told me he didn’t have the money. My family wasn’t well-to-do, and I knew that apart from education, there was no other way to make it in life, so I spoke to a man I knew who agreed to help me through school on one condition: that I would date him. I agreed.
So we were texting about plans to go back to school and plans to meet and have sex. My husband saw the change in me and started going through my phone. I knew it, but I intentionally left the messages so he could read them. By the time he read what was happening, I’d started sleeping with the man, and we were talking about it through chats.
He took screenshots and started spreading them. “I’ve caught her. You see, she’s sleeping around?” He sent the messages to everyone who had a phone. He was deeply hurt and was shaking anytime he talked about it with me. Honestly, I didn’t care. The only thing I cared about was my parents and how they were going to think about me. The rest—hmmm.
Weeks later, when he had calmed down, he asked me how much I needed to start school. We did the maths, and he gave me half of the money, saying that was all he had. I spoke to my parents, and they also decided to help me.
I started university, and because of the kids, I had to go to school and return. It was quite a distance, but I was determined. After giving me half of the money, he didn’t add a pesewa to it. I was struggling and was thinking of dropping out. And then I met a lecturer who lived not far from my home. I would go to school with him in his car, and he would bring me back. My husband saw this and started his accusations again. He said I was cheating. He attacked the lecturer and warned him to stay away from me. Meanwhile, he had Lucy and other women in his life.
Slowly, I graduated. I met good men who helped me genuinely without asking for favors in return. I also met some who were honest enough to tell me they would help only if I agreed to date them. But in the end, these people contributed to helping me complete school.
While doing my national service, he asked for a divorce, saying I was sleeping with the men in my office. Meanwhile, those men didn’t even see me as beautiful. Once they knew I had kids and was married, they stayed away from me. I didn’t explain myself; I asked him to go ahead with the divorce. He couldn’t. We lived in the same house and slept in the same bed, but we said nothing to each other.
I finished national service and started working. I got a job in a different town. I stayed there working for three years. When I came back home, his women stopped coming. He left the kids on me the very day he talked about divorce. It didn’t bother me; I knew I could do my best.
After three years, I came back to town and still live with him. He asked for a divorce ten years ago, but he still hasn’t been able to carry it out. He doesn’t talk to me, and I don’t talk to him too, but I live in his house, taking care of the kids he has abandoned on me. He brings women home. I don’t mind. He would call someone a wife today; tomorrow that person is no longer there. But I’ve been here, living in the same house in separate rooms. We don’t talk. We cross each other’s paths daily but say nothing.
Contents
What Nobody Tells You About Divorce
I’m not going anywhere. Taking care of the kids alone is too much for me, and I can’t add rent to it. Staying here without paying rent helps me save and also take care of the kids. I’ll be here until maybe I get a job that pays so much that rent wouldn’t be an issue. It’s crazy, but who said life isn’t crazy?
—Lydia
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