She wants to give our marriage a five year break, should I let her?

Today I was invited to discuss a topic at Dembe Fm, a Nation Media Radio station. Bina Baibe, a famous presenter played a recording of a listener who has been staying in Pakistan for years, he has or he is married with four children. Six months ago, he had an argument with his wife who told him that she was tired of the whole marriage life, she asked him to give her a break. After a long argument, the husband gave in to her demands thinking it was a short period and maybe she was suffocated and really needed a break to set her mind straight.

L-R Christine Nakalungi and Bina Baibe. My Cinderella Story Photo

To his shock, the wife told him that she needs a break of five years. Whaaatttt? My eyes widened and my jaws dropped, “who even does that?” I asked.  Before I could step in with my wild views, Bina signaled me to keep on listening. “She gave me six months to come back home or she was going to take my children to a police station” The listener narrated. “At first, I thought it was a joke but did not want to risk so a few weeks to the end of the six months, I went to Uganda. I just boarded an airport taxi from the airport and on arrival at our home, she just looked at me with disgust, no welcome at all; I teased her but she wasn’t interested. I called out the children to get my stuff from the taxi but she told me the children were sent to their grandmother. I wasn’t amused at her decision but kept my cool. I had come back home to take care of my children and they were not even around!”

By this time, I had got my peace with the idea of a break but I knew something wasn’t right. The question is, should I give her this break and what will happen within these five years?

Reported by Christine Nakalungi

 

If you do not believe in Valentine’s Day, do not ruin it for others

Valentine’s Day is here and as many people are preparing to celebrate love, booking for dinner, googling on how to spoil your lover on Valentine’s Day. There are people who try to talk you out of it. “Valentine’s Day is evil; do you know the origin of this day?”  Well, there are many days marked red on our calendars and truthfully we have nothing to do with them or even have an idea on why they are public holidays. But that is life, you go with the flow, if you find other people celebrating life, love, power, marriage, birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Eid and other days, get in the tide and celebrate with them.

Most people who are in relationships feel they should celebrate this day, take her out, and make her feel like a queen. Does that hurt anyone? No. As a matter of fact, it just inspires others to believe in love more.

You cannot force everyone to believe in what you believe in, but if it makes someone happy do not discourage him or her.

is your relationship on a rock, this is the day that might save it…create an impression and make her or him feel like a queen/ king.

 

Regardless of what you think is right, make sure your partner is in consent. You might be the kind that calls Valentines Day evil and yet your partner believes in it so much.  How do you handle this? Most people are extreme about things and you wouldn’t want him/her to go with anyone who chooses to treat them the way they dream.

Search for a good heart not a pretty face

Not all that glitters is gold and never judge a book by its cover are age-old adages that I am sure most of us have heard of. Like many will agree, inner beauty is hard to see since like the joke nowadays, we don’t move around with x-rays.

Beauty is attractive and just as most women are attracted to successful men, a man who has eyes on a beautiful girl can even pay with his life just to have her.

A beautiful face is like a trophy or a jewel to show off to your friends but a beautiful girl who can’t run a home is not worth that ring.

Marrying a beautiful face without a good heart and brains will be like buying a good LCD TV. All it can do is entertain visitors but aside from hiking your Yaka bill, it can never add value to your home.

When Polo asked us to organise a surprise birthday party for his new found girlfriend, we were all excited. Polo had finally got someone to call a girlfriend! We all knew this girl was special.

We did our ‘girl things’ and setup quite the party for her. When she arrived, she wasn’t that stunning. She was wearing a pink nurse uniform with her hair held up in a simple puff. The sneakers she wore and the backpack on her shoulder made people whisper in confusion.

Cynthia had beautiful eyes but truthfully she was far from the breathtaking princess we expected. After she shed a few tears of joy, she gave Polo the biggest bear hug, stood on her toes and whispered something which made him smile. Polo held her hand as he gave a speech of how he met Cynthia.

One fateful night, while Cynthia was on a night shift at a clinic in Nansana, Polo was attacked by thugs as he drove back to Kampala from Kakiri.

They beat him and left him for dead. Luckily, he was rushed to the clinic by good Samaritans and Cynthia took care of him. He spent a number of days in that clinic but it turned out that his worst nightmare was actually a blessing in disguise. Polo met this kind and caring nurse and he couldn’t miss the opportunity of dating her.

Meanwhile, Polo’s beautiful now ex-girlfriend was called in after they had admitted him but since she couldn’t get the directions right, she never showed up.

Polo was nursing wounds and a heartbreak but like they say, all things work out for good. From the days Polo spent under Cynthia’s care, he was able to see beyond her ordinary face and the pink uniform.

“At her age, Cynthia can handle children, youth and even adults, she is good with everyone. I am sure she will take good care of my children and I won’t be alone on my deathbed,” Polo said.

We always thought Polo was unlucky with love, he had dated the most beautiful girls but all the time he was looking at the face and not the heart.

By the time they were through with cutting the cake, everyone was glad Polo had met Cynthia. You know beauty fades, but a beautiful soul lasts a lifetime.

Christine Nakalungi

kalungixtyn@gmail.com

Twitter: @kalungixtyn

Don’t regret the choice you made

Cartoon by Atukwasize Chris Ogon

I stared as she massaged the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. Emmanuella was lost in thought.

She kept ordering for more drinks. I walked to her table, and as I waited for my milkshake, I tried to speak to her.
“Hey, is anyone picking you today or will you drive yourself?” She gave me this piercing look that reminded me to mind my business.

I kept trying until she got tired of the mute mode. Before the night ended, we were the best of friends. Emmanuella was pondering whether to elope or call a lawyer to officially end her marriage.

She whined about her sister who hadn’t supported her marriage to David, a few of her other uncles also thought she would have chosen a tribemate. But she loved David (then) and the tribe wasn’t a thing to stand in her way.

After two years, Emmanuella got into a serious fight with David that she wanted to close that chapter. She always knew the guy wasn’t perfect but then, she never expected it to get to this point. “I wish I had married Moses” she abstractedly murmured.

“Who is Moses?” I asked. She smiled, “Moses was one of my friends. He loved me but David and I have been there for each other, we are each other’s shoulder…” her voice dropped and sadness filled her eyes. She sipped her drink as she tried to hold back the tears.

I did not know what to do, I am not a counsellor and I don’t know David but somehow I wanted to help. Luckily, the beer got to her stomach and she rushed to the bathroom. I picked up our purses and followed her.

I locked the door behind us and asked her to go ahead and cry. Believe me, I regretted this advice. She cried like a baby and I could feel her pain. However, I didn’t know what to say afterwards.

We kept quiet and I was stuck with her for the night, I couldn’t let her drive in this condition so I offered to drive her home. As we sat in the car, I remembered what our high school senior woman told us. We are all victims of our own decisions. Our decisions will either pave way for our success or they will torment us for life.

Much as you don’t need a week to think about the kind of food you want to eat, you might need more time to think about marriage, the number of children, career and business among others. All these are not emotional decisions. You are required to be sober while making them but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are the best choices.

“Happiness is a choice. You can choose to be happy. There’s going to be stress in life, but it’s your choice whether you let it affect you or not.” Valerie Bertinelli said. Some choices we make in an effort to correct our wrong decisions might be more harmful.”

What Emmanuella needed wasn’t to end the marriage but time to rethink whether David is worth to be thrown out of her life. When we arrived at the gate, the security guard opened the gate and a man rushed out of the house…”Oh, my God, where have you been?” His concern proved to me why she had called him her shoulder. I whispered as she gave me that drunk childish goodbye hug… “Everyone needs a shoulder to lean on, don’t ever let yours go.”
Christine Nakalungi

Twitter: @kalungixtyn

If he cheats with you, he will cheat on you

Cheating is not a mistake, it is a choice and a game that an individual willingly subscribes to. No one is born a cheater but it’s a habit that keeps growing.

Most times a person will cheat not because he is tired of his wife but just for the sake of ‘exploring’. Someone will give you a million reasons to justify his/her actions but in the end it comes back to greed.

A cheater is someone who is unable to appreciate what he/she has and allows the desire to have more becomes a motive to ride on.

He is so consumed by the act that he doesn’t have time to appreciate true feelings. He has mastered the heart of a woman, knows what to do and say.
He accepts to set aside his ego just to get what he wants. He can spend all the money just to catch the prey.

His ‘I am not happy with my marriage’ speech is so touching that you are tempted to believe him when he says; I will leave my wife and marry you.
Most men claim that sex outside marriage isn’t cheating. As long as he still comes back to his wife and children. Well, that’s not how a woman will define cheating.

Cynthia switched off her phone for more than a month and we were tempted to pay her a surprise visit just to make sure she hadn’t locked herself in the house and drank poison.

When we knocked at her door, she peeped through the curtain but refused to open. “Go away…” she shouted. We threatened to sit at her balcony and eat the pizza we had brought for her. She likes pizza so she gave in to the blackmail.

She had lost a few pounds and her hair was in the wind, her eyes were swollen and she looked dehydrated.

Her house was a mess; popcorn allover and her fridge was running out of groceries. She had put a few photos of her and Stephen in the kitchen but she had cut out his eyes.

How do you deal with such a mess? Stephen had promised to marry her, she hadn’t known he was married. After she broke the news that she was pregnant. Stephen also broke the “I am married’ news.

It was too late for her to walk away; she was already carrying his baby. For the first three months, Stephen behaved well but afterwards, he cut off communication and sent his sisters to break up with her on his behalf.

With all the stress, Cynthia got a miscarriage. She felt the disappointment and had no idea where to run to. She loved Stephen and wished she could get him back.

A man who is capable of cheating on his wife will not think twice leaving you bruised. I mean, if his conscience didn’t stop him from defying the ‘for better for worse’ vows…nothing can.

Careful when you fall for a cheater, to him you are just a stop over and not the final destiny. He will jump on the next hot girl on board and leave you with a bleeding heart.

Christine Nakalungi

Frustrated married man Vs desperate single woman

Dear married man, never tempt a desperate soul.  A frustrated married man and a desperate single woman should never be left alone in the same room.
Whereas a married man is searching for a breather away from his nagging wife, the poor single desperate woman is looking for warmth and someone to make her feel worthy.
A frustrated married man is not thinking straight, all he wants is someone to help him forget about the misery in his marriage even if it is just for a few minutes, hours, days or even months. He desires to be in control again, come back home late and have sex anytime he desires to. All he desires for is someone to rekindle the frame.
The desperate woman is however searching for somebody to fill the void, anyone to show off to her friends and family. She is tired of people labeling her ‘single’ and she wants to prove to them that she too can be in a relationship. She is no longer looking for a career man with a big title and coming from a good family. At this age, she can’t afford to, she is so desperate that she will marry anyone fate brings along.

Cartoon by Chris Ogon

These two people have a lot in common, but in the long run; they will both crash. The married man might die in his own movie, when he actually falls for the woman he was intending to have for a one night stand and same with the woman, she might end up getting attached to someone who is unavailable.
The truth is, this man might never leave his wife and children for this woman and if that ever happens, he might never settle with her just as the saying goes, “if he cheats with you, he will cheat on you.” So the only thing that will stand between them is tust.
It is okay to be desperate but avoid making a permanent solution in a temporary situation. You might find yourself jumping from a frying pan to a burning furnace. Be in control when you are lonely, don’t allow emotions to cloud your judgment. A married man should never be the soft pillow to lay your loneliness on and you should never open up that door. Once it’s open, you might not find the energy to close it.
Dear married man, be kind enough not to take advantage of a vulnerable desperate woman. You are not what she needs, and vice versa. All you need is a weekend away from home, get fresh air, re-watch your wedding video and go back to your wife.
You will not stay, and you will not fill the void in her heart, she will not be a solution but rather a danger that will destroy you and your entire family. If one woman (your wife) is stressing you, my dear, two women will drive you to Butabika. It might seem harmless in the beginning but after you have stepped in that ditch, be sure to come out dirty and bruised.
My dear desperate single woman, being desperate is like being drunk; it will not last but what you do when you are drunk can affect you when you sober up. Do not allow to be desperate that you hold onto somebody and let go of yourself and your dignity in the process. Do not let the pressure force you into settling for less than what you deserve.
This kind of relationship is not built on love but on selfish desires. It will not last but  will cause a painful scar that will haunt you all your life.

Christine Nakalungi

Boy, I ain’t your mama

Cartoon by Atukwasize Chris Ogon

Like Adam and Eve, we were brought together by reasons we have long forgotten. Before you put me into your home, you treated me like a jewel, took care of me and warmed me with kisses. What has changed now?
You always took time to study my feelings and expressions, you could tell the pain behind my smile and you held my hand every time I was nervous.

You taught me to trust and love again. I opened up to you and I was proud to say “I DO”. But as time passed, you got so comfortable that you forgot about your obligations.

I am your woman and not your mama. I appreciate the fact that you chose me, you saw a life partner in me and you entrusted me to be the mother of your children. I accepted your marriage proposal not because I saw a dad in you but because I saw a man I can grow old with.

I am your wife, treat me that way. I agree, I will listen to all your issues, stay on your bedside, make you a good meal, lay on your (our) bed and make our home comfortable.

Your duty is not only to leave Kameeza money and just walk out. I need you to get involved, check on the children and spend sometime with me. When you are home on weekends, don’t just caress your lazy body and play video games as you watch me do all the chores (Oh, I need to remind you am not your maid either)- get up and help me out. Don’t just pay school fees and bills, take time and help our kids with homework, fix the tap and teach them how to drive.

Don’t just tell me what you want to eat on the weekend, join me in the kitchen and let us do it together.
When the babies cry, don’t call me out of the bathroom; you are their father and bonding with them is all I ask. Figure out why they are crying and spank them when need arises.

Take some time off and treat me like your wife, caress me, find out why my hair is messy or why my skin is reacting. I need you to be involved, take care of me as I take care of you. Give me that massage on the weekends and lets play hide and seek together.

If I choose to make you a good meal, do your laundry and remember to change your socks everyday, do not confuse my care for responsibility. I am not your mama who is supposed to do that, but your wife who cares.

Don’t be shy with me, I have seen the whole of you and there’s no need to pretend. When your friends visit during the weekend, don’t just sit there and watch me playing mother- we are a couple. Let’s make your friends envy us. Get the table ready as I warm the soup; be involved in the home management other than just playing the head.

Do it when I am still warm, don’t wait for me to quit the entire game and then you remember your duties as a husband. No matter how responsible or old I look, remember, I am your woman and not your mama. Just like Jennifer Lopez said, “we used to be deeply in love, can’t we go back to how we was?”

Christine Nakalungi

Twitter @kalungixtyn

kalungixtyn@gmail.com

Dear 40+ year old, do we need to drag you to the altar?

Why in the world are people choosing to be ‘single and searching’ for life? Are you searching for gold or you are hoping that God will miraculously create a different species of women? We understand that your first crush got married to your best friend; your second girlfriend was snatched by the rich neighbour and your baby mama chose to raise your child with your cousin. But life goes on.

The belief that you are too good for any woman is deceitful and misleading. You cannot say that for all the women God created, you cannot find just one who is good enough.

Have you for example, noticed that all the women you rejected or dumped are getting married every weekend and living ‘happily’ ever after, while you, Mr ‘single and searching’ keep contributing for their weddings and being the best man or MC?

Don’t you ever get tired? Isn’t there a vein in you that seemingly desires the life that all your buddies have? Are you such a rock that no woman can penetrate to your heart? Or maybe your heart was made of the material Jericho’s walls were made of (although even those eventually fell).

We have heard all your stories and honestly, we are tired. You are not a man until you are able to conquer your fears. No one will ever trust a man who can’t even keep a relationship for a month. You know that quote in the Bible that says, “A poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words aren’t heard”? Well, a man, however good-looking and accomplished, is to the society, just a boy if he is not married. It’s even not acceptable to give you a front seat in church or at the party.

Cartoon by Chris Ogon

Also as the years go by, we keep finding excuses for your singlehood, many of which will stain your dignity. And then you will blame the society if they say you can’t ‘perform’. Or you will get into a fight with the girls who will run away just because their parents told them you are married to a ghost. You live the society no choice but to fill up the jigsaw puzzle with their own pieces.

Career is not a woman; it will not create you a family. When you pass on, we don’t want to remember the engineer; we want to remember the husband and father. However ambitious you are, getting to the epitome of your career without having a family leaves you as an empty vessel because in the end you lay in your cold bed, alone. It’s people like you who force death to take you before time, just because there’s no one in the house to rush you to the hospital or call an ambulance.

If the government set up a ministry and appointed me the head, I would drag all these so called senior bachelors to the altar.
Girls are here praying to God for husbands and you are there playing hard to get. Let me tell you, at that age, you don’t even have a choice to be picky. You just marry the next girl who passes by or else, we will drag you to the altar.

Christine Nakalungi

The mares of being a mistress

Karma won’t just stop playing around. When you take what is not yours be it a job, house, land, child, bread, husband – yes husband, somehow he will just come back to the owner. The bitter truth is, in most cases it’s a raw deal. Somehow he will find his way to the genuine owner.  Many men never really leave their wives. After years of tears and agony, when  Justice Kisaakye lost Kitimbo (her husband), and property worth Shs350m to Nakadama (mistress), court last week finally ruled that she is the rightful owner of property ending a six year dispute with her mistress.

A case in point is Emma who has four known courtesans and none of them has a home. His wife has the attention. He leaves work daily and goes straight to his favourite drinking joint and heads to one of the them for the night. Surprisingly, even at 4am, he will hoot at the gate for his wife to open. That’s how karma acts. Being used is not a good idea. Women deserve better and a mistress is not anywhere close to good.

You think you are more attractive? It really doesn’t matter. Find your man. It is not enough to sit there and wait for what couples have worked so hard to achieve and break the bond that has taken them years to build. Life as it is, is not kind to mistresses. All the ladies I knew of who dated married men at campus only made away with ice-cream, a little upkeep and an abortion. That’s how callous men can be. They eat a whole cake and pay you peanuts. They will never introduce your sorry self to friends or colleagues as a significant other.

Some seem to get away with it, like Faith, the self-proclaimed wife. Her “husband” constructed a small house for her on his wife’s property – just next to her co-wife. If you visited her, you would think it was the first wife’s store. She seemed content until it dawned on her after three years of blindness that the first wife’s house is just so huge – so now she now wants another house.

Having a mistress is not cool either. That’s the ultimate betrayal of your wife unless of course it was an arranged or political marriage.

And then, do you want to be his children’s nanny? Belinda fools me she is happy. Of course I can’t believe her. One night she called me desperately asking for Shs150,000. I offered it without seeking a reason. A week later she told me she had asked for that money to carry out an abortion. David was not ready to father a child with her. He had told her, “I have four children and my job doesn’t pay so well. We can have a child later”. To this, she obliged and aborted. He did not spare a coin to contribute to the abortion. A week later, he shows up and wants to actually sleep with her.

That is blind courage, knowing you can only live in a moment and not the future because the relationship is a smoke screen and you have no illusions about it! That’s why you find mistresses very healthy when they are mistresses and have accepted their place.

Belinda takes care of the bills. She joins queues to pay water and electricity bills for him and his wife plus the children’s fees. I asked her why she had suddenly chosen to waste her beautiful self by becoming her lover’s maid. She naively said she loved him. Yes – sometimes the mistresses love more than they should and they are not awarded in equal measure.

In an equally crazy case, Benon married a beautiful young woman who had given his first wife sleepless nights. The church wedding was celebrated in the most extravagant manner. 20 years down the road, Benon is back to his first wife and the two are planning their wedding. At 56, Stellah is getting back what she lost years ago. Just so you know, man shall not live on sex alone. Character and submission is everything. Most mistresses can’t give the two.

In the end, it’s not worth it. Have you ever asked yourself why the mistress is an attention seeker? We must all agree that it is not easy sharing that little time with his work, children and wife, and the numerous relatives. Being a mistress is like chasing a mirage hoping water is near. But you never get to have it because it was not there in the first place.

Ethel Watsemwa

He who fears to be hurt, should never love

“He who fears the thorns should never crave the rose,”

Love is beautiful, it feels so nice to love and be loved. A soul that is loved and pampered is everyone’s envy. The glow on her face supersedes even the annoying daily schedules. The thought of him brightens her day and her eyes are blinded, she can’t even see the fault that others see in him.

However, to some people, love is just a sweet dream, a bedtime story and nothing more. When you wake up, you feel the thorns, your heart sinks and your appetite dies.
This is what we call real life. Before you choose to step in the ocean, keep your other foot at the shore.

Life is a ‘bed of roses’ beautiful, lovely but once you lay on it, you can never escape the thorns. When you choose to love get ready to be hurt, to share and to spend some nights awake.
At a certain age, we stop searching and just settle with what we have. As you grow, you realise that not all dreams come true, you smile at your childhood fantasies but appreciate and work towards reality. If you fail, you are bound to marry every year and have four children from four wives.

“He who fears the thorns should never crave the rose,” goes the old adage. Relationships and marriage are for strong people. People who don’t threaten to divorce every moment something goes wrong. An Adult who doesn’t run to his/her parents or senga every time they are starved. Or a bold woman who doesn’t call her ex every time kameeza money is not enough.
When you choose to move in with him or her, we believe that you are ready for whatever comes with that decision. Of course, it will not be as soft as you expected but who says you are supposed to rush out of the examination room because the exam is tougher than you expected.

When you choose to love get ready to be hurt, to share and all the package that comes with commitment

As we sent off a friend for marriage, his aunt shared an old story of a dog on a bridge.
Sometime back, a dog crossed the bridge to search for food. It was rushing that it didn’t pay attention as it passed the bridge. After getting its prey, it started to walk back home but as it stepped on the bridge, it noticed another dog below it with a much bigger prey.

It tried so much to ignore but eventually greed caught up with it, it wanted to get the bigger animal the below the bridge had. How could it keep its meat and still get the other?
It had to make a choice, either to just go with the meat in its mouth or drop it in the water, dive in and get the other meat from the ‘other dog’. It gave in to the latter.
Little did this dog know that ‘the other dog’ in the water was actually its shadow and not reality. In the end, it lost out on both targets.

That’s life, if you are not satisfied with what you have, in an effort to get more, you might end up losing even what you have.
Husbands, treasure the wives you have, she might not look as good as your neighbour’s wife but she belongs to you.

Regardless of the hurt and challenges the two of you go through, nothing is permanent and if you shift your eyes from what is around you and concentrate on what you have you will realise that – a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Christine Nakalungi