Woman ends 27-year marriage over debt

A businessman’s failure to pay his debts has broken up his 27-year marriage.

The woman, who complained her husband had sunk into so much debt she was no longer happy in the marriage, was granted divorce, ending a love story that started in England in 1989.

The couple relocated to Kenya in 1993. They raised their three sons until 2014, when the woman moved out of their matrimonial home in Ruaka, Nairobi.

High Court judge John Onyiego granted the woman, only known as CH, divorce from her husband identified as KRG after she complained that she could no longer live in a marriage riddled with unpaid debts.

She said the man had failed to meet his family’s upkeep and that she had to carter for household expenses as the man even had run-ins with police over the debts.

Although the judge found that financial embarrassments and debts in a home could not be equated to cruelty, he allowed the woman to move on with her life as she had already left her matrimonial home four years ago.

No proof of cruelty

“From the petitioner’s submissions and testimony before court, there is no evidence or proof of cruelty meted out against her. Mere financial embarrassment or inability leading to accumulation of huge debts by a husband or a spouse cannot be equated to cruelty,” the judge ruled.

He continued: “Each party should be let free to move on with his or her life. There comes a time when even twins have to part ways in life and each goes his or her way. For all intents and purposes, the marriage between the two has irretrievably broken down as the parties have been living separately.”

The woman told the court that she was an interior designer while her husband owned a company where he was a director.

According to the woman, her husband’s debts had caused her embarrassment as debtors and police officers kept knocking at their door demanding pay.

She claimed that her husband had been held by police several times after his debtors filed complaints.

The judge was also told that the man could not meet the family’s financial needs, so the woman had to cater for the children’s upkeep, school fees, and rent.

Court record say that the two had lived in Westlands, then moved to Loresho, then Kileleshwa, and finally in Ruaka.

Although it was not disclosed whether the man had the means to repay his debtors or not, the woman told the court that the debts were enough to demonstrate that he was cruel to her and that they had caused her extreme stress.

Foreign marriage

CH first went to the magistrate’s court, which ruled it had no powers to hear a claim emanating from a foreign marriage. The case was transferred to the High Court on July 7, 2017. The man did not counter the allegations.

Justice Onyiego found that although they were married in the UK, there was no mandatory requirement that foreign marriage be registered in Kenya.

“What is required for a foreign marriage to be recognised in Kenya is that it must have been contracted in accordance with the law of that particular county (foreign country), that the parties must have had the capacity to marry, which law must also be consistent with Kenyan laws. From the marriage certificate attached, both parties at the time of their marriage were adults of sound mind and of the opposite sex,” the judge ruled.