Bizarre of Reasons Some Marriages in Nakuru are Dissolving

  Marriages in Nakuru seem to be going bonkers at unprecedented rates. It is not unusual to see unions break up within three months after much public fanfare where couples blew up colossal sums in grand weddings. In some relations where partners do not part ways, or cannot stand the sight of each other, putting up as brothers and sisters, rather than legally married partners, has gained traction and become an ‘in-thing’.

  And there are strange reasons many, especially ladies, are calling it quits and walking out of unions.
 

  Lengthy manhood

  Take the example of a man by name of James* (name changed), a lorry driver resident of a Bahati constituency village. He had been married a record six times, and his latest wife walked out recently. This Bahatian seems to have no bahati or is jinked somehow going by his short lived unions.

  Some of his ex-wives had been overheard making claims the man had a lengthy natural endowment that makes ladies experience torture during love-making sessions. Whereas the glad-to-glad combat should be a pleasurable experience enjoyed by both partners, ladies sleeping with this fellow are said to be looking for the nearest exit and take off at frightening speeds.

  And there is a reason to this. After each sex session, the woman would be seen limping for some days as though experiencing excruciating pains. And by the time the pain had subsided, the matrimonial bed is not a welcome place but a torture chamber of sorts.

  When this writer asked James to confirm the allegations, he rubbished them and denied that he was a possessor of a ‘donkey length shaft’.

  One ex-wife was overheard saying he left him as he refused to be fitted with a rubber band halfway his lengthy manhood which would have made lovemaking an enjoyable experience for the two.

  But John Njoroge, a doctor in Nakuru, believes the issue of lengthy manhood had been exaggerated saying a woman’s vagina can accommodate penises of different sizes.

  “That thing (vagina) is elastic and can stretch to accommodate differing penis sizes,” he said.

  The idea of fitting a rubber band, he said, is only plausible in case it is proven a lengthy manhood is an impediment during lovemaking.

Left a mommy boy

  Susan, on the other hand, who resides at Teachers estate, left a pampered mommy boy who would make comparisons with the way she prepared things or did tasks to the way his mother did the same.

  He had not moved out but constructed within his mother’s compound, and this was the undoing of their short-lived and stormy marriage.

  “His mother exercised a kind of leverage that he had no say to the extent it is his parent who dictated how we lived,” she said.

  She cited examples where he would compare her cooking to his mother’s. “At times, he would complain he preferred his mother’s cooking to mine or tell me the way I was doing things is not the way his mother did,” she said.

  The mommy boy, he added, would spend much time at his single parent’s house when she herself had no one to keep company with. “The mother was overbearing and was scrutinizing every detail of my life and looking to find faults in me. We were constantly arguing with him as he sided with his mother in everything,” she said.

  When she could no longer put up with this, she made her stand known. “I told him he either chooses between his mother and me. And if it was me, we had better vacate that place and lead our separate lives elsewhere. He would not hear of this and I opted out of the marriage,” she said.

  The mommy boy, she said, was not in any gainful employment and depended on his wealthy parent for everything no wonder he is a spoilt brat, as she put it.

Refused to have her child shorn by her mother-in-law

  Ciru, a lady in a Nakuru town estate, walked out of her marriage out of ‘conscience’ sake.

  She had been married to a Luhya man for the past one year until recently when she was exposed to strange cultural practises which made her question the wisdom of getting married to a fellow from another tribe.

  It began when late last year, the father of the husband died and she travelled to western Kenya which was also her first opportunity to meet with members of her man’s family.

  The first shocker came shortly after the burial ceremony. All members pertaining to that household were not allowed to step out of the compound for seven days. And in ‘warding off’ evil spirits and as a part of purification ritual, all members were to have their heads shaved.

  At the time, she was heavy with a child and delivered the other month. Her mother-in-law, who resides in Nakuru town running some businesses, had been against their union from the word go and had done her level best to dissuade the son from marrying her.

  “She kept threatening to invoke a curse on us but the birth of our son changed everything,” she said.

  Her hostility ended and she was ready to bless their union. 

  Then came another shocker she was least prepared for. 

  As the child’s hair grew, she was told it was customary for the mother-in-law to shave the child’s first hair, that is, according to the traditions of that tribe.

  Ciru would hear none of this which precipitated the renewal of hostilities. But when the mother-in-law alleged that her son married a Kikuyu gold digger who was only out to get their wealth, it marked the beginning of their union’s dissolution.

  The fellow stuck his chin out saying tradition must be observed. “Did I marry an individual or their traditions?” she posed.

  She wondered what was important with her child to be shaved in a ceremonious way when it would not add value to the baby’s life. “During the burial, she was also blamed for the death of her husband. She happened to be the deceased’s second wife and nobody really knew much about her background or how she had met with the late,” she said.

Demanded dowry refund to bless the marriage of former wife

  It is not women who are causing a stir by leaving unions on flimsy grounds. Take example of an electronics repairman known as Dan who is also a resident of Bahati District.

  Over a decade back, he held a colourful church wedding which dissolved after only six months. Efforts to reconcile with the estranged wife bore no fruits. But when he learnt she was planning to remarry in church, he visited her parents demanding a dowry refund.

  Preparations were in high gears and he was seen as a party spoiler and summarily shown the door minus his request. The former father-in-law had been paid a handsome second dowry and told Dan to his face that money once paid for the hand of his daughters, it cannot be refunded. He was therefore a sore loser who was described as a baba zero firing only blanks. The chagrined Dan uttered curses that the marriage would be doomed unless he was refunded his dowry in full. It wasn’t long before the lady was divorced and entered into another union which too crumbled.

  Last December, the lady was having her fourth marriage ceremony and Dan was seen as the missing ‘clause’ that was making all her marriages to fail.

  He was called to ‘bless’ the union which was taking place at a Gilgil church.

  Though he graced the ceremony, he left making it clear she was still his legal wife and hadn’t ‘released’ her yet as no dowry had been refunded him, which threw the wedding in disarray. Many had taken it for granted that he moved on with his life considering he is now in a stable marriage after his first two ‘experimental’ ones failed.

  When this writer caught up with him, he said the woman would be dogged by failed marriages all her life unless he was refunded in full and issues her a ‘release certificate’.

  “I was denigrated very much and this had a bearing on my self-esteem to the extent I wanted to take my life. They are getting their due divine retribution owing to their greed for money,” he said. None of the ex-wife’s sisters are in stable unions. It is a case of marriage, divorce, remarriage, divorce or having other men’s wild oats in that homestead.