Could my husband be a psycho?

Angry young African man screaming at woman

I met my husband Paul after I just turned 35. He was about 42 and looking to settle down.  He seemed like a nice enough guy; polite, well-educated and amiable.

I was also keenly aware that years were running out fast for me, at least where my biological clock was concerned. And I was ready to wear a ring on my finger.  So when he proposed to me, I said yes.

This is despite the fact that I saw some glaring red flags. The first was that every time we visited my sister, the one with three children, we would scorn at the state of disarray in her house. Not cognisant of the fact that there were two toddlers in the house; my vivacious two-year old twin nephews.

 Also, his relatives didn’t seem to like me much. They would always treat me dismissively every time they found us hanging out together, and when I stated my concerns to him, he would say that that is how they were, that I would get used to it. But I ignored them, after all, what 40 year old didn’t have some oddities?

So a year ago, we walked down the aisle in a lavish ceremony in Karen. It was a beautiful day.I was so happy.  The plan was that after our honeymoon, we would move in together in his Hurlingham House. It was after all the nicer bigger space compared to my South B one-bedroomed abode. Life was good, until it wasn’t.

CONTROL-FREAK TENDENCIES

I am a lawyer at a Nairobi firm; a well-established firm. My pay is good, It can afford me a comfortable lifestyle.

At the end of the first month together, Peter came down to the living room with a big folder. He wanted us to decide how we were going to budget our money together. He asked that I change my salary account details to his, so that our salaries would be under one account from whence he could allocate the money to our various needs.

 I was shocked by this request. Here I was a woman in her late 30s who had taken charge of her own money all her life and now would need to be asking someone for my hair styling and manicure fees. So I objected, and he went ape-shit angry. Never seen him so mad.

He threw the folder down, walked out of the door and drove away. He resurfaced two days later and by then my mother had asked me to be the Proverbs 31 woman; meek and submissive.

He hugged and kissed me as soon as I told him I thought he was right. But what I went through the next few months had me marching up to HR and rescinding my previous salary instruction.

This move got him moving out of our bedroom to the guest bedroom. Mind you we were five months into our marriage. How were we going to make babies if we weren’t sleeping together?

CURFEW

After our honeymoon when life resumed to normal, he asked that I had to get home by 6.30 pm every day. Said that I wasn’t a single girl anymore and that I also couldn’t hang out with my single girlfriends because they would corrupt me. I remember looking at his face for a sign that he was joking.

Well, he wasn’t. I wasn’t about to be dictated to who I could or couldn’t talk to so I just said yes and went on living as before. After all, he gets into the house at 10.30 pm. No chance of knowing what I do or don’t.

From not wanting me to visit my mother or use my phone over the weekends, I have realized that I really don’t want to have babies with him. I want to leave him. Being a lawyer I know that I can’t get a divorce in the first three years.

I am bidding my time. He is a self-centered egoistic man in his 40s, and now I wonder why my sister would ask me how he had remained unmarried for that long. I know the answer now.

Because smarter women saw through him. I am saving up my money, afraid of investing thanks to the volatile matrimonial property laws we have. I don’t want him to get away with a cent of my money. And while at it, I am on the least fail-proof contraceptive method in Kenya. So help me God.