I stayed

LIFESTYLE

REBECCA KUKU meets a mother who has endured a troubled marriage – for the sake of her boys.

I’M ONE of them who stayed. I’ve been reading stories about strong women who left their violent marriages and homes to start their own lives.
And their stories are amazing and courageous.
But I want to share my story too. I am a woman who chose to stay and I think that women who stay are also strong and courageous.
And this is my story, the story of a woman who stayed.
I met my husband in school and shortly after graduating, we moved in together and have lived together ever since in a de-facto marriage.
Things were good in the start as all things are but after I gave birth to my second child, my husband started having affairs. It got to a point where he wasn’t afraid to take his “girlfriend” around in public. Everyone knew he was having an affair, our friends, our families, even our church mates.
My family, told me to leave him. They told me, I was educated and had to find a job so I could take care of the two boys on my own. But I stayed. Slowly, I began to cut off all ties with my family because I didn’t want to listen to all of them telling me to leave.
One day, on my first born son’s 13th birthday, he brought her home to the party. I put my foot down and said no, but he beat me up in front of all his family.
No one said a word or intervened. He punched me in the face and told me I was just a woman, my job was to clean the house, cook and raise the kids and I had no right to interfere in his “personal life”.
When I tried to talk again, he punched me a second time and I fell on the ground. He was going to kick me when my two baby boys came running out of the house.
We both pretended like nothing happened.
There was silence everywhere. My older son asked what happened to my face and his father told him I was clumsy and had just tripped and bumped my face on the stone path.
You see my husband was violent and had affairs but he loved his sons and always gave them the best of everything.
He would come home and beat me up in the room and tell me not to scream and scare the kids that if his sons heard me cry, he would kill me.
He would buy them food, pay their private school fees and ensure they had everything they needed.
Sometimes he would bring his girlfriend home and introduce her as aunt from work to the boys and tell me to cook dinner for them.
I was not just physically abused, but physiologically too and even sexually.
My family had long given up on me, and all my friends just disappeared.
I stopped going to church because even at church, I could still hear the whispers.
I knew what people were saying behind my back but how could I leave? My sons adored their father. To them, he was a hero.
In their eyes, he could do no wrong, for when we were with the kids, he was the most loving husband.
To leave would mean breaking down their world, telling them that their father was an adulterous man who had extra-martial affairs that their father was a wife-beater who beat up their mum.
So you see, I am just like the women who left, the women who walked away but I chose to stay because I am a mother.
A mother who would do anything for her sons, to ensure that their happiness is not destroyed.
Different women, different situations, different stories but at the end of the day, every decision that a woman makes, whether to stay or leave, comes down to the welfare of her children.
I am tired of the whispers, the gossips. If you don’t know what one is going on, never assume.
If you left then congratulations. You are a strong and brave woman. If you stayed, you too are a strong and brave woman.
You see, those of us who stay know the consequences.
We know one day he just might beat us to death. But we stay, because like I said, at the end of the day it’s about our children and their happiness and welfare.
My heart is broken, this is the man whom I loved, who I gave my life too, my youth, everything.
This is the man who promised to love me. His betrayal everyday cuts me to the core.
I feel the pain, the fear, and the shame every time he beats me, every time he ridicules me in front of his girlfriend and believe me, I too want to leave like all the other women who have left.
But I chose to stay, because I love my sons.
I’m not saying that GBV is okay, that you have to stay.
We all have different situations, mine is one where my sons don’t know and are too young to know.
And I will stay until such time as when they are old enough to see and understand for themselves because I will not be the one that breaks their hearts or ends their love for their father.
I stayed because I am first and foremost a mother.