Mercy explains her experience of living with a man who is 20 years older than her. The 25 –year-old secretary narrates how life has changed since she met her husband.
“It’s now three years since I got married to David, a man I loved because I knew my future would be bright. I met David in Naivasha during a seminar. We exchanged numbers and started communicating thereafter.
After six months of dating, we decided to settle down. Initially everything was okay; my husband treated me well, he would give me Ksh 10,000 every week for shopping as well as anything I wanted. We stayed for 5 months and I got pregnant.
During my pregnancy, I discovered he had another family in Busia.I realized this when I found this message in his phone: “dear, please send me the money I asked for our child’s school fees. He was chased out of school and it’s almost exam time”.
When I showed him the message, he responded, “Yes that’s my family. Next?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a family before we got married”, I bitterly questioned. I never liked his final reply. Instead of explaining to me in a polite way, he said, “this is my home, if you are tired, you can as well go, the door is open”.
I felt the earth to open and swallow me, but I told myself, “maybe this man has some issue that’s troubling him, he might change”. I decided not to respond.
Something strange happened as time went by. He used to give me at least Ksh10,000 per week, with time the money reduced to Ksh2,000 .My husband used to call me ‘babe’,’honey’,sweety’,he suddenly started calling me Mercy. The regular chats we used to have on WthatsApp reduced to at most once a week.
It’s now three years since we got married but I regret marrying him. We have different tastes; sometimes I want to listen to RnB and Bongo but my husband prefers Rhumba, which is not my taste. Every evening when I want to watch a soap opera, he tunes to KTN News. His phone has passwords but he wants mine not to have passwords. Sometimes I feel like going out but he is not ready for that. He says I am now a wife and not a girl to be pampered.
What irritates me most is the fact that he has another family and he now calls me a second wife, a title I didn’t want. If I knew, I would have married my age mate”.