Marriage is not an achievement, it's a trap

You've come of age, get married or have children. Your mother, family and friends politely ask of you. Since you are an obedient fellow you decide well ‘where is the harm in that’? and follow the norm. You see that ‘ka-chiq’you keep breaking up with, yeah that one (the Instagram diva) finally gets pregnant with twins. Boss you are doomed. Providing for one kid is a hustle with this economy; tell me about two kids and their mother. Well you can figure that on your own, right? Good luck.

Back to where she's pregnant with twins. She moves in with you in your one bedroom house. You thought you are independent and financially stable until you share that ‘4 by 6’ bed with your soon to be baby mama. You used to pass by your local ‘mutura’ guy ‘Kamaa’ for supper; fried potatoes at 20bob, ‘mutura’ at 30bob and you are full for days. All hail King ‘Kamaa’. Now that you are living with that Instagram diva, supper is half kg of meat daily, shopping every month, salon twice a week, new clothes, shoes and everything and anything your baby mama craves.

You see you've been living a lie all along, taking a loan to service another loan, living large to impress your peers at work and those around you while eating a 50bob supper at ‘Kamaa's’ place. You make your mother and everyone who cares to listen, believe you've finally made something good for yourself, yet you can't even remember the last time you sent your mother some money. She turns a blind eye to your selfishness. May our dear lord forgive you. You used to take loans from friends and colleagues now you upgrade to advance salary and other e-mobile loans; you'll be surprised how many there are. Your dream of owning a second hand car 'poof' disappears just like that. By the 5th month of moving in with 'Instagram diva' you are neck deep in debts, you can't afford to buy ‘bamba mbao.’

You become fat and miserable, not because you are happily married as everyone assumes, but because you're just getting fed well at home but you are still miserable. Your thoughts are no longer yours; you can't even sneeze without permission. You no longer have friends; you become unproductive at work as younger and proactive interns start to give you sleepless nights. You hate that receptionist you've been flirting with before your 'come we stay' engagement with your 'Instagram diva'. You feel like she sees through you since she's now flirting with one of the interns from UON-yes, that one who is always high on weed.

 Your life becomes a routine even stray dogs in your hood avoid you like a plague. You Leave for work early in the morning since you can't stand another second in that house and you return fairly early in the evening for fear of getting thrown out (that's your house remember) well basically you're just there. No friends, in debt, living with a nagging woman obsessed with taking selfies and two kids about to pop out. What can be worse than that? Please do tell. Those who were telling you to get married are nowhere near your miserable life. Not even your mother. She actually hates your 'Instagram diva’ since “she's lazy and proud”. Your mother’s sentiments not mine.

Where do you turn to for salvation? Not even our Lord and savior can be of help at this point. Well He can, you just don’t know how to ask. You loathe the day she moved in, it’s like you lost your manhood that day. Why did you have to do what the society demanded of poor you? That's not even a marriage, that's a union with the devil himself. You miss your neighborhood ‘mutura’ guy; you miss your sweat smelling friends with their annoying pickup lines (which surprisingly work on women, especially older women). You wish and pray everything will get back to how they used to be.

You've now graduated to the next stage of the miserable cycle of life in a 3rd world country. Go to primary school for 8 years, high school for 4 years, University for 4 years; if you are lucky to not have called off a number of semesters for either flopping exams or lack of fees. Get a job which you now realize pays you peanuts since you can't even afford a decent night of sleep. You wish you were brave enough to go solo like Patrick Njoroge, governor of Central Bank of Kenya, single and happy.

If you ask me, I would rather be single and happy than fat, miserable and married to the wrong woman for the wrong reason. Happy marriage to you all.