The Sunday Mail
LOVE AND BEAUTY with Mainini Beatrice
This week we are doing things differently.
I received this handwritten letter almost a month ago with instructions from the writer to publish it without fail “to save other women who may be going through what I went through”. Since then, she has sent three more handwritten letters; personally dropping them off and wanting to know when they would be published.
And today we publish one of the three.
Dear Mainini
There are things that happen in our lives that we take for granted, ignoring their importance. We hear them on radio, encouraging us to seek counselling if we ever have marital problems but ignore them and think they are crazy.
One preacher from my church once said that the devil wants us to keep our problems to ourselves so we continue to suffer because he knows that once we tell someone, we may get help. He wants us to suffer so he forbids us to seek help.
Let me say today “whatever it is, open up and avoid suffering”.
From the moment I got married, almost 10 years ago, my life has dramatically changed. I was not happy but I did not realise it because I believed love would conquer all.
I suffered emotional abuse from both my husband and his relatives but still did not realise it, until much later.
He cheated on me on numerous occasions, but being the blinded by this thing I believed was love, forgave him and kept holding on. Years passed by but nothing changed. I somehow still hoped that things would change and we would eventually “live happily ever after”.
Midway he abandoned me without disclosing to me that he too, was unhappy with me and was leaving me. He did not want me anymore.
“Daddy”, for that was how I fondly addressed him, went to South Africa where he had planned to start his new life. But he made me believe he had gone to work for us (me and our lovely daughter).
He only revealed later that he had actually tried to run away from me and the kid. He had left me pregnant but we both were not aware of the pregnancy.
He left us to “start a new life with a new woman”, to quote him.
Unfortunately a tragic event occurred within his family and he had to come back home. He pretended to be happy to see me, the girl and the bump that was developing in my tummy. And poor me, ever so much in love failed to realise that I was being played. I am not sure where and how he left the “new woman” when he came back.
Before long, we realised that he had been infected with HIV.
The moment he broke the news, fear crept and settled in me. To me, it automatically meant I was also infected.
The pregnancy, coupled with the new discovery of his HIV infection was like a death warrant to me.
After he broke the news of his acquired status, I could not muster the courage to ask how he could have possibly picked the virus.
All I remember muttering to him was that I was scared. It took me three months to get the courage to also go and get tested because, to me, it was obvious that I was also infected.
I would pray every morning for those three months hoping the prayers would change “my positive status” for the sake of the baby I was carrying.
I never stopped loving Daddy, instead the bond was strengthened and I would avoid any discussions on the virus line for fear of stressing him.
Unbeknown to me, I was only worsening my situation.
I later went for HIV testing and hola, I was negative and I thanked my God! But still, that did not solve my problem.
We did not seek couple counselling and my negative status became a source of added resentment from Daddy.
Although we used protection, I was scared that I would one day be infected as well. I always imagined the condom bursting. What it then meant was that I no longer enjoyed sex with my husband because of fear.
With hindsight, couple counselling would have benefited us both. Bottling it up as I sought to protect my love and marriage destroyed these very things.
I eventually was diagnosed with stress. I was always off sick from work thereby destroying my career as my employer later terminated my service, cutting off my only source of income.
And the biggest mistake of it all was that I finally decided to have numerous extra-marital affairs from which I foolishly believed I would derive happiness to counter my unhappy marriage.
Daddy soon discovered these relationships and a few months ago, he walked out on me and our two girls.
And today, I am 35, unemployed, unhappy and a divorced mother of two.
The only positive I have now is my negative HIV status.
If only we had sought couple counselling, we could still be together.
***
I think this letter says it.
Send your feedback to [email protected]
