I met him when he had been widowed and left with two kids. I became his confidante. He told me he was on the verge of divorcing his wife before she died. “We are not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but she was a cruel woman,” he said. He was the one married to her so I believed him. I stayed by his side as a friend, and our friendship blossomed over time. The kids even liked me. I enjoyed every time we spent together because he was such a nice guy. He was quiet and had an almost nonexistent social life. All his life revolved around me and the kids. It felt nice. 

Soon enough, I had moved into his house and our marriage certificate was signed. Yes, I married him. Shortly after marriage, I got pregnant. It took a physical toll on me so I lost my job. That was the year 2019. It was also then that I started noticing some weird behaviours in him. The behaviour continued even after I had the baby. He would give me the silent treatment and refuse to touch the baby. He also refused to help me out with chores when my maid left. I had to do housework all by myself just one month after I had delivery via CS. I was concerned but I wrote it off as a normal transition. And he started behaving better after a while so I forgot about those terrible months. 

In 2021 I got my first job since I lost the other one. He seemed supportive at first but later, he started getting insecure. I used to leave the house at 6:00 AM and return past 5:00 PM, while he left for work at 9:00 AM and returned before 4:00 PM. The disparity of time made him insecure. I couldn’t be there for him as often as I used to. I couldn’t iron his clothes and do some of the cooking so I got a maid to take care of those things.  

Two weeks into the job, he started giving me the silent treatment and would sleep at the edge of the bed, refusing to touch me. Then he came home one day and violated my body. I call it sexual abuse because he never told me about it or prepared me. In fact, I was asleep when he did it, and I woke up to find him panting on top of me. I thought he would stop but he continued this habit every night until I started hating myself. When I begged him to do it normally, he would just turn around and go to sleep.

The change in him was drastic. He started demanding to go through my phone to check who I talked to. He even wanted to take my phone away at some point. When I refused, he threatened me; “I bet your work colleagues don’t know that you are a married woman. I will come to your workplace and tell them.” He then texted one of our family friends that he should stay away from me. Then he told my family that I was having an affair so they should talk to me. 

All this was happening too fast and I was confused. One day, I was in the sitting room with the kids. We were playing cards while he was in the bedroom. I heard my text notification chime, only to check and see that he had texted me; “Massy, why are you trying to kill me? Why are you poisoning my food?” I did not know what he meant so I didn’t know how to reply to him. So, I went to him and said, “If you think you have eaten poison then go to the hospital.” But he refused to go. He said he had vomited the poison.  

His behaviour kept getting out of hand, so I begged him to change, but he wouldn’t. It got so terrible that I started having anxiety and panic attacks. I began to hate nights because I associated them with suffering.  

Another day, I was minding my business when he told me, “Massy, I don’t want you chatting with anyone. I do not want you to touch your phone past 9:00 PM and I want you to go to bed when I tell you to. I also want you to change your friends. In fact, you don’t need friends.” It was that day that he called me a whore and said I was the worst wife on earth. He then demanded we get a divorce and then later acted as if he doesn’t remember that he said it. He has done so three times now and I think he meant every one of them. So I started looking for a way out.

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I talked to my family and they have promised to confront him and probably dissolve the marriage. Most people are suggesting that we go to therapy but he has refused. He denies he has a problem, even when he hit me hard and injured me. He blames me for every horrible thing he does. He says I make him do those things. He goes to sleep and wakes up going through my phone. I have often found him stalking all my friends and reading my conversations. 

When I look at him and everything he has done to this point, I get the feeling that his deceased wife was not cruel. She is rather the one who suffered his cruelty. I don’t know the cause of her death but if I don’t leave this marriage, I will be next. Now, I am looking for a job in a faraway town. That way whether he agrees to dissolve the marriage or not, I would be far away from him with my child. I feel bad about leaving my stepkids behind because that will mean they will be losing another mother. However, I don’t see any other way out of this situation. 

—Massy, Kenya

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