How wives stop the ‘other woman’

By NDUKU MUEMA.

A recent media report claimed that Michelle Obama, America’s First Lady, had banned actress Kerry Washington from the White House for being ‘too flirty’ with President Barrack.

The report further claimed that the First Lady even has a ‘watch list’ of women that are to be kept away from her ‘cool’ 50-year-old husband.

Not long ago, then First Lady Lucy Kibaki was breathing fire when then President Kibaki, who was equally furious, called a press conference to declare that he only has one wife. This was after a section of the Kenyan media reported that the then president had a second wife.

The enraged First Lady asked journalists to raise any questions about the first family then or forever hold their peace.

But away from the glare of media, ordinary women use wild tactics to protect their men from women perceived to have ‘ulterior motives’. Some succeed. Others fail miserably.

Dottie, a 33-year-old corporate executive, says that she does not like women who laugh at all the jokes her husband cracks during social gatherings. Whenever that happens, she makes a point of keeping a very keen eye on the culprit and monitoring her every move.

“Women who laugh even at the driest joke or mundane statements my man utters make me suspect that they are up to no good, so I watch them. In fact, I glare at them.

“When they go the washrooms, I follow them and tell them in no uncertain terms to keep off my man.  No apologies. I even confronted one woman who kept calling my hubby to her place of work at odd hours, and told her off,” Dottie says.

sim-card swap

Catherine Nduta, 28, a housewife, says it was evident that her 33-year-old husband, a businessman, was cheating on her with a young college girl. This was based on some information she had gathered from her husband’s mobile phone inbox.

“I found an M-Pesa message about some money he had sent a certain woman, and I decided to call the number. I found out it was a college girl from a local university, and I was furious!” she says.

The mother of a four-year-old girl says her husband kept meeting business clients late at night and having out-of-town trips every other weekend, even when his car hire business was not that demanding.

It was during one of these said business trips that she decided to play him big time. She knew his phone PIN number so she swapped his SIM-card with hers and deliberately let him carry his mobile phone with her SIM-card in it.

“As soon as he left, the college girl started sending texts and calling. It was evident from the texts that the two were to meet at an exotic place outside town,” Nduta says, adding that she felt aggrieved and cheated.

Catherine assumed her husband would return after realising he had been duped, but, unfortunately the ‘devil’ came back three days later, having unmistakably spent time with his campus squeeze, as the rendezvous had already been set.

“I went to his parents’ home, threw a tantrum, and told his father that if my husband didn’t stop his nonsense, I was going to revenge by sleeping with one of his friends. And imagine that ‘goat’ is still seeing that stupid girl,” she says.

For Doreen, a 25-year-old PR practitioner, having girlfriends who are single is a no-no. After a colourful wedding, she says she noticed that some of her single girlfriends were getting too cosy with her husband.

“I didn’t feel secure with some of my single girlfriends wanting to always hang around him,” says Doreen.

Because they had began making passes at her man, subtly, she ignored their calls, ice-cream invites and girls’ nights out.

She now prefers hanging out with married women. Even then, she ensures they are a bit older and not as good looking as she is, for strategic reasons.

“I also use the baby as leverage. I have subtly enforced a curfew on him by insisting that he reads bedtime stories to our daughter every night and takes us out every Sunday. When I get a feeling he wants to sneak out, I prod Baby and tell her to tell Daddy she wants chips!” says Doreen.

With today’s advanced technology, other women have also decided to keep tabs on their men’s activities on social media. Joyce Chemutai, a 28-year-old banker is one of them.

“My job is very demanding, but I still get time to see what my fiancé is doing online, especially on Facebook and Twitter,” says Joyce.

 She is worried the IT specialist could use social media, where he spends lots of time foraging on this and that, to start fooling around. She says that she is particularly keen on whose photos and status updates he keeps commenting on or ‘liking’ because that is always a sign that something could be cooking. She sends friend requests to women she suspects to be up to no good to monitor their moves.

“I make my presence on his wall felt by writing on it and commenting on his updates and photos. I use all the sweet names we call each other to scare off any potential ‘competition’ and make it clear this man is taken,” says Chemutai, who has ensured that his relationship status on Facebook reads ‘engaged’.

Although she worries that she has no idea about what he does on chat and inbox, which she can’t access, Chemutai is quick to assert that “at least I’m in-charge of what I can access”.

Other women have gone overboard and tried charms and witchcraft on their husbands. Strange as it may sound, one Diana Mwikali, a hairdresser in Nairobi’s Eastlands has ‘protected’ her husband.  She has enlisted the services of a witchdoctor to ensure that her husband and father of her two sons does not stray.

Diana says that her husband has a weakness with women, something she hates.

“I got advice from a friend on how she had tamed her straying husband. I contracted the services of a witchdoctor who makes men only rise to the occasion when with their wives,” Mwikali shyly says. 

She confidently argues that she is very sure that she is the only woman he can sleep with. How true or practical this is is a story for another day.

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