My wife is ‘married’ to the bar

 

These women rock their wedding bands like all other married women but rarely spend time with their spouses Instead, they prefer the company of other men in bars and endless partying as if they were still single

In the midst of the loud bar chatter and boisterous banter as a live English Premier League match goes on, Martin keeps checking his phone after every few minutes. He seems to be waiting for an important phone call.

Finally, running out of patience, he makes a call, irritation evident in his voice.

“Amefika? Bado? Sawa… (Is she there yet? Not yet? Okay…)” he drifts off, throws his smart phone and drops his face on the bar counter. He has a sad, angry look.

 “That was the house girl. My wife, she has not been home since Thursday evening. She didn’t even go to work yesterday and is probably in a bar somewhere…drinking all the alcohol she can get men out there to buy her,” he tells the gathered group of friends who are looking at him awkwardly.

The father of two explains, in his moment of vulnerability, that it is not the first time that has happened, it is a continuing trend that has become part of their five-year marriage.

See, Martin met a hot, tattooed accountant at his work place, the two dated and eventually got married. Though they used to party almost weekly in their courtship years, he had expected the fun streak to die down with time, but she has, apparently, not gotten the Memo.

“She still parties like she is single, every day and once she leaves on Thursday, we see her on Sunday. Even the two kids we have did not put a stop to her habits. I can’t stop her or convince her to stop,” he says in a resigned tone. “That is one fight I can’t win.”

Martin’s wife visited bars even when she was pregnant, not to drink but to hang out with strangers and ‘fun’ men. She is in at least three WhatsApp groups of members who frequent the neighbourhood bars, and she is very popular with the men around the estate.

“I have tried family and religious interventions, but she does not want any interference with her love for hanging out in the bars. It is like she is avoiding her own home. Sometimes, she gets locked in by the barmaids because she refuses to leave,” says Martin, who cannot stand the embarrassment of going to the bars to look for his wife.

Being a staunch football fan, Martin occasionally goes for a drink as he watches his favourite team play.

“As a man, I had sworn never to marry any woman who takes alcohol, but love got the better of me and here we are. I am hopeless, but I get cheerful when she eventually comes home,” he says, adding that she somehow always has an explanation much as he knows she lies a lot.

Martin’s friends and those who know him in the estate fail to understand what goes on in his mind.

“I don’t know what is wrong with the two of them. If my wife was like that, she’d be long gone. Come home late, let alone sleep out there without my prior knowledge, utahama kwangu (and I will kick you out),” says Andrew, who knows Martin’s wife and has actually drank with her till morning on several occasions.

These women’s love for hanging out at the bar is baffling, especially in our kind of society where spending days on end in smoky joints is more synonymous with miserable men who are running away from their homes and only want to go there after everyone is asleep. Actually, it is these men that these women like hanging out with for the attention and ‘free’ booze.

They can outdrink any man out here, and are more attuned to dirty bar talk than the comforting words to a child doing their homework. Worse, they don’t give a hoot about what their husbands think about their choice of lifestyle. Others find convenient reasons as to why they are avoiding their marital homes and beds.

Either he never pays attention to her, is suspected of having a yet-to-be-proven affair or no longer shows interest in her sexually. Armed with this and some money, at times from the very same man, they get attention from elsewhere.

Unlike Martin, Mburu can’t even walk into the neighbourhood bars to confront his wife. She won’t be there in the first place. The lady, a renowned shoe merchant at Gikomba market, just disappears for binge-drinking around the country, her husband only knowing of her whereabouts when she comes back, or through drunken posts on her social media accounts.

“My wife simply disappears to go drink,” he says with a straight face. “What type of woman does that; just wake up, decide to go and not even inform her husband?”

According to Mburu, who is a teacher, theirs is an imbalanced marriage because his wife earns more than he does, even with the addition of the boda boda business he runs on the side.

“My wife is financially independent. She does what she wants because she can afford it. Every time I try to reprimand her for her wild ways, she changes for a few days then goes back to her ways,” he says.

One woman is said to spend more hours in bars around Ruaka than she has in her sitting room. The mother of three is a divorcee, the husband moved on to someone “he could control”, according to her.

Ruth, or ‘Mama Yao’ as she is known in her social circles, has no regrets about her bubbly life, explaining that just like men who like watching football or those who like prostitutes, she has the right to choose what she wants and enjoys.

“I started having affinity for bars after I got married,” she says with a smile, exposing a missing tooth.

“Oh, that…,” she says after I notice it, “I lost it in a fight I had with this lady who confronted me because her husband used to prefer hanging out with me to going home. The entire estate knew about the two of us.”

The fight happened in the same bar we sat in, a contest the barman reveals Ruth won. She explains that she has never seen anything wrong with visiting the bar, so long as her family was well taken care of, and she did not miss work.

A few gentlemen coming into the bar came over to say hi to her and one can tell the warm reception she gets from fellow patrons.

Had she, at any point, done what most men fear when it comes to partners who drink: cheat?

She laughs awkwardly, then took a sip as she thought about it.

“I have made out with a number of men… married, single, strangers but I eventually went home to my husband. That is most important. He was just too insecure and he never liked alcohol, so the separation became inevitable. Most of all, his family and friends did not approve of my social life,” she says.

According to Martin, eventually the psychological trauma a man feels with the habits of his wife bear down on him more than the insecurity one feels.

“The looks and whispers one sees and hears from family members, friends, neighbours and colleagues is too much. Add that to the insecurity of not knowing what man your wife is currently entertaining and it all becomes a mess. Married women should never be allowed into bars without their husbands as company,” he opines.