On Tuesday last week, a few minutes past 10am, Daniel*, a taxi operator in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, received a call from his lawyer.
“Your estranged wife says you have refused to clear your son’s school fee arrears amounting to Sh60,000,” the lawyer passed on the message.
Daniel and his estranged wife only communicate with each other through their lawyers. Until 2021 when Daniel says she left him after he discovered she was unfaithful. The two had lived together as a married couple for five years and have two children.
His eldest son was admitted to Pre-Primary One and is now five years old and the youngest is two. Daniel says she never consulted him before she enrolled him in school. He says he is surprised to know that he had arrears to pay in a school he is unaware of.
Last year, he says she sued him demanding a monthly upkeep of Sh85,000 to cover rent, food and school fees, yet he says his monthly average income is Sh50,000.
“She wants me to cover everything, yet she has a job with a monthly salary of Sh60,000. We have failed to reach a consensus on co-sharing the costs because she is adamant,” he angrily says.
Furthermore, she has refused to let him see his children. For more than one hour that he opened up, he repeatedly said: “She has caused me a lot of pain and she seems to enjoy doing so.
“It hurts me so much that I cannot see my children. Why can’t she feel my pain? I did not chase her away. She just decided to cheat on me even after I sacrificed all my earnings to take her to university.”
Enrolled her for university education
He says although he only managed to complete Form Four, he enrolled his wife for a degree in business administration at Mount Kenya University. On completion, he got her a marketing executive job at a water company in Nairobi County.
“She changed after she got the job in 2019. She would insult me that I’m useless and poor, and I’d just absorb the abuse in silence. Then she started cheating, but I never asked her because I knew she would deny,” he says.
“One day, I went to work, only to return home at 2am to find the house empty. She only left behind my clothes. I was deeply heartbroken. I have since married and had a child.”
He says his current wife is “very understanding and very supportive”.
“I open up to her whenever I’m stressed over my estranged wife and she has been really helpful in managing my distress.”
Daniel represents many men suffering in silence over irreconcilable marital differences but who need a listening ear and understanding because they, too, are human and, above all, get hurt.
Often, society assumes men do not suffer when they are separated from their children, but for men like Daniel, they do. BY DAILY NATION