I have been married for 16 years. We have a 14-year-old son, and until December 2021, we were genuinely happy. Then my husband cheated on me with a woman eight years older than him, a divorced mother of three who also happens to be a psychologist. That was the beginning of everything falling apart.

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We separated, and I kept moving. I went back to work, I rebuilt myself, and somewhere along the way I made a friend online. We talked a lot, about my life, about the marriage, about the betrayal. She was comforting in a way that strangers sometimes are, because she did not know me and had no reason to judge me. So I told her everything I could not say to my family. I told her when I got a promotion. I told her when I met someone new, how that first meeting went, and when we eventually started dating. She was also someone who dabbled in spiritual things, so I went to her for direction sometimes. You know how it is. How the future will go, and what will happen.

In 2024, my husband came to my door on his knees. “I did not know what I was doing,” he said. He brought people I deeply respected, and they all said the same thing: give him another chance. So I did. As a wife and a mother, I made the choice I thought was best for my family, which was keeping us together. I threw the betrayal behind me, I buried the lies I had uncovered, and I decided we were starting fresh on a clean slate.

But we both lost our jobs in September.

After that, my husband started staying out overnight. He would come home at any hour with some food and a little money for upkeep, as if that was enough. My siblings stepped in to cover the rent because they knew he usually lands solid jobs with NGOs, and they trusted we would eventually pay them back. We were managing, barely, but managing.

Over Easter, my husband took that same woman to our village, to his parents’ home, and came back acting like nothing had happened. I found out when I saw her WhatsApp status, a photo of him sleeping while they were traveling back to the city. This is the same woman who destroyed my marriage the first time. When he came back in 2024 asking for forgiveness, it was reportedly because he had found charms in her bag. He said it himself.

And the friend I made online, the one I had been pouring my heart out to and telling all my problems, turned out to be my husband’s side woman.

That is how my husband found out about the man I was dating, even though we were already separated at the time. After that, he refused to pay our son’s school fees and left the entire burden on my shoulders.

In retaliation, he refused to pay our son’s school fees and left that entire burden on my shoulders

This woman has done something to him. I know how that sounds, but I have watched this man change in ways I cannot explain through logic alone.

Now he has a job, a short contract, and instead of sitting down with me to figure out how we use this window to build some stability, he is out there with her. When I bring up my concerns, he throws the separation period in my face. He calls me disrespectful, a witch, bad luck.

I have done 16 years. I have survived fights, I have watched him beg, I have seen us at our worst and chosen to stay anyway. But ever since that woman came into his life, mine has turned upside down in ways I am still trying to make sense of.

Men Don’t Like It When Women Do The Paying

So I am standing here not knowing whether to stay or go. Whether to keep fighting for this marriage or finally accept that some things cannot be fixed. I do not know what she has done or is still doing. What I do know is that I am tired, and tired is not a feeling you should have to live inside of.

—Nguli

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