They say you can tell a happy wife by how easily she puts on weight. So when it stopped, questions were raised. People talked. The children asked questions.

“Dada, what is wrong with Mummy?” I thought it was the shop draining her energy. She had suddenly become busier, waking up at dawn and doing chores that didn’t need doing. I was going to keep quiet about it all.

Until she started talking to herself. Then it became screaming. And the woman I knew began to look like a ghost of herself.

Mind you, we have been married for 12 years, with two beautiful daughters, a stable job with a good salary, a car, and my wife running our joint grocery shop. We fought, but before dawn broke it was always settled. Ours was a happy family.

It went on for weeks and I still gave it time, but it only grew worse. She started dressing strangely, stopped bathing, stopped taking care of herself and the girls. When you asked her something, she answered differently.

Sometimes she didn’t speak at all. It frustrated me and so I called my mother.

My mother took one look at her, shook her head, and pulled me aside.

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“Your wife has been with another man.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Remember what I told you about our clan. Remember.”

I remembered it well. To me, it had always been folklore, nothing more. My mother used to tell us about the traditions of our clan, both my parents being from the same tribe but different clans. “When a woman from our clan cheats, she goes mad, or worse. It is the law.” When I was younger and asked why, she told me to keep quiet. “You are a child. When you grow up, you will understand.” I waited to grow up to see it. I watched how she used to defend it against my father’s skepticism.

I was shaken, but there was no time to ask questions. I could find answers later.

We bought the schnapps, the goat, and everything else on the long list the elders gave us for the cleansing. We followed every instruction to the letter. And eventually I got my answer. It was her friend Kate. She had been doing the same thing and had told my wife it was just some outdated law designed to keep women faithful while men did as they pleased. “So I should taste the waters.” If anything hadn’t already broken my heart, that sentence did. How do you cheat simply because your friend said so?

I am divorcing her, not because I have stopped loving her but because everyone knows, and the stares and glances I get when I go back home are beyond measure. At first, it was meant to stay a quiet matter between families. But as part of the cleansing ceremony, certain family heads had to be informed, and as the priest explained, key members had to be present or the rites would be invalid. By the following day, to my great disappointment, the whole town knew.

My father disagrees, but I have sent my kinsmen to her family with drinks and the formal return. Her father has understood but has a condition under which he will accept his daughter back: “Go, heal her and bring her back to me in the same health she was in when I came for her hand before he would accept the divorce.”

So she is still here with me. We are here together in love for the sake of the kids. Her situation is on and off. She’s still here with me. She has developed alogia; she can stay for the whole day without talking to anyone if not bothered. I pray and wish her a quick recovery. People are telling me that she is very lucky her situation wasn’t that bad, that some people had worse conditions than her and couldn’t even recover until they passed. That is not even my concern

It’s Not God’s Law For A Man To Apologize To A Woman

In fact, I am very confused about what to do. At times I feel like waiting for her to regain herself so that I can peacefully send her back to her people as her father suggested, but on the contrary, because of the love they have for her, my parents especially my father are saying otherwise.

But the shame and embarrassment I am facing with the thought of people knowing what happened to my marriage is too much for me to bear. The cheating is not what matters to me now, but the gossips behind my back is what is tearing me up and has affected my self-confidence.

—Mr Foli

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