The Standard
For Fairness and Justice
April 22, 2009
By Njoks
The atmosphere in the bedroom was tense, so tense you could have sliced it, literally, with a knife. Jimmy had walked in before me so I found him preparing for a shower. That is one of the reasons I loved this man so much — he takes body cleanliness seriously. He is not like other men who check into their homes smelling of booze, smoke and cheap perfume that (we wives like to think) got onto his clothes accidentally from being squashed by girls in the pubs when they squeezed their way through the narrow aisles (all bars have narrow aisles, I guess to maximise on space). My hubby never sleeps with all this club garbage on him, no matter how sloshed he is.
As I watched him undress, sulking and not bothering to even glance in my direction although he knew I was in the room, I began to appreciate him — again. I felt pain at seeing him so angry with me because of some measly Sh20,000, which I had not yet spent (silly me).
My hormones kicked in and messed with my thoughts, and I found myself walking towards my secret hiding place to retrieve the blood money. I knew he wasn’t watching because he was still acting angry (okay, so he wasn’t acting, he really was pissed at what he considered my betrayal of his trust with ‘our’ ATM/money) so my secret was safe. And anyway, any time I discovered he knew where my secret spot was, I would immediately change the location. That’s how canny women are.
When he got out of the bathroom, I softly walked up to him and handed him the money. “I am very sorry,” I whispered.
He took the money, walked to the bed and sat down.
“What’s this for?” he asked.
Repentance mode
“I’m returning your money.” Duh, wasn’t it obvious? I thought. But I did not allow those snooty feelings to show on my face. I was in repentance mode so my tone, body posture and language showed meekness on my part. I needed to make things right with us. I could easily get back that money later using smoother feminine tricks (like seduction). For now, I was desperately waving a white flag.
“Why did you take the chums in the first place?” he asked. His aggression had cooled off somewhat, probably because he realised all his savings were intact.
“I was just pissed off. Blame it on my hormones,” I tried humour to further relax the atmosphere.
“What you did was just wrong,” the hubby said. “I’m not sure I can trust you any more with my stuff.”
That statement broke my heart. I felt my world crumble. When all is said and done, Jimmy is my husband and we are stuck to each other forever — at least until one of us dies. Clearly, I had chewed more than I had gambled for.
Because I found it hard to face Jimmy, I about-turned and walked out of the room to the safety of the living room for some quiet reflection. If trust issues were beginning to creep into our marriage so early, would we have anything to celebrate come our first anniversary?
What about when the baby came? How could we raise a baby when we didn’t trust each other? Typically, when trust took a beating within a relationship (marital or otherwise), love quickly followed suit. When I took/stole the money, I had not visualised a scenario where the hubby and I would walk around the house on eggshells not sure how to treat each other lest the fragile veneer of harmony cracked and broke.
Comment from Leslie
Guess that we all walk on eggshells at some time in our life no matter where we live in the world. How did women get to this place of being considered so inferior, untrusting, unworthy, and the second sex? It has gone on for way too long -and hopefully will change in our daughter’s lifetime.
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