listen to the radio,the grapevine on the streets,the gossip in the salon and rumours flying from one housewife to another, go ahead and read the newspapers,magazines and even the blogs and you realise that we women are some of the unhappiest people in the world today.Whether we are single, dating or even 'happily married'deep inside us the unhappiness is slowly tearing us apart.
I recently listened to the radio and a woman called in and complained that her husband had gone ahead and married a second wife and even had a child together and as if that was not enough he would beat her whenever she confronted him on the issue. You could feel her pain, it killed her to know that she was the leading lady no more and it was obvious that she was no longer happy in the marriage...you would be led to think that she would opt out at the slightest opportunity but NO! even after the listeners urged her to leave she firmly said that she wouldn't after all he was still her husband and they are hard to find..unbelievable isn't? and ofcourse the cliche`'mwanamke ni kuvumilia'
And I began to ask myself..Since when did our happiness not matter? Since when did what we would really want not count? Since when did we accept that our destiny is to get married,raise kids,tirelessly care for their needs and that of our husbands while totally forgetting our own dreams?While as mothers we must sacrifice for our families must we give it all that we have nothing left to ourselves? Since when did we accept that our men can have the infamous 'mpango wa kandos' and not question, after all 'men are like that'? Since when did we allow ourselves to become punching bags for our drunken husbands and boyfriends? Since when did we accept to welcome our spouses back in the house in the wee hours of the morning while they were out there doing God-knows-what without question?Since when did our happiness become second to everything else?
I never knew my grand father,I hear he died in 1989 or 88...not even my mum is sure about it.The year was 1967,when my grandmother,a woman born into a world where women had no voice,where women were constantly battered in the name of love,where a woman was only to be seen and not heard,a world bound by tradition,that she took her five young children-the youngest hardly two years old- and returned to her mother's house at a time when divorce was unheard of.I hear he used to beat her alot till she could take it no more. With hardly any education,she raised her kids by her bare hands-literally-she was a farmer sometimes even waking up at 3am to walk to far away farms just so she could provide for them. Mum tells me that though they were poor,they never slept hungry and she educated all of all the way to the university.
Women will not walk out of unhappy and abusive relationships for a number of reasons which according to me stand no ground compared to your happiness and safety. We say we stay for the sake of our children but what we don't know is that by staying in such relationships we put our children at risk and if you are not safe with him, chances are that they aren't either. The torture we experience in such relationships eventually gets to our children and I know that we become even better parents when we are happy within ourselves. Children, therefore, are never an excuse to stay in a bad or abusive relationship.
We claim we stay for the money because we have no resources with which to support the kids and ourselves, I say get up and get yourself a job. I know of women who left when they were nothing more than housewives without even a post-secondary training but are today successful business women. It's never easy at first and there will be many times when you will question your decision but I know that taking this bold step is the first step towards becoming a happier woman and an even better mother because there is life after an abusive relationship. My grandmother took this step at a time when opportunities for formal employment were rare more so for women, yet we are in a world that has provided us with a million opportunities!Why then stay and continue being unhappy?
Iam not saying that we should leave our marriages or relationships as soon as something goes wrong lest I am misunderstood, all am saying is that there is a limit. You need to know when to leave especially with domestic violence. It all starts with a push, then a shove, a slap here and there, a punch, a kick and before you know it it's a full fledged beating. It is always said that a woman undergoing domestic violence needs to negotiate from outside-from a safer place,far away from the marriage.
So your husband cannot be faithful and you know that it pains. You hardly have any self esteem left, he has managed to suck it all. It's the way he looks at you with disgust because you have had two of his children and you don't look as youthful as you did before. You know he is never going to stop afterall the beautiful ones are not yet born. Will you wait till you catch the virus and only then realise it is too late to leave? or will you wait for the day he takes away all your self worth and he eventually kicks you out of his house? So you are a single mother now and society has little respect for you,I ask what's respect compared to your happiness?
So when we go back home, behind closed doors and we cry because we feel worthless, because love has become just but an illusion, because he doesn't look at you the way used to, because you know that he is not about to change, because you cannot take no more....then it's time to take the step,the bold step to re-discovering and appreciating yourself,the step to freedom on the road to happiness...
