I Hate My Husband

“A house where a

woman is unsafe is not a home.”

Woman, Liberia

I’m playing with the kitchen knife in my hand. Running my forefinger back and forth the recently sharpened blade. The man with a turban passed by yesterday. He is a man of few words and often does his work silently. I do not even know his name yet he has always sharpened my knives.

I watched him pass the blades, one by one, on that spinning, metal wheel he uses, his foot on the pedal below, his brow furrowed in concentration. I then paid him 100 shillings for his services. The next time I will need him is probably after a month, when the blades would be blunt again from all the chopping, scraping and peeling I do in the kitchen.

I turn the knife again in my hand. My husband lies sprawled on the living room sofa, snoring loudly, mouth slightly open. His lips are a garish red and swollen. The pungent smell of alcohol fills the air. I do not go near him. I do not even want to be near him.

A short while back, he was upon me with kicks and blows. I did not scream the whole time. I stopped screaming long ago when I realized that none of the neighbors came out. And if they did, it was not to my rescue, but to watch the spectacle unfold from their verandahs, for their next gossip session.

The women were the worst hypocrites. Pretending to sympathize and offer advice the following day when my husband was away at work. The men would avert their eyes whenever I bumped into them. Like they needed to carry the shame from one of their own.

I have received all kinds of advice. The most outrageous being to burn my husband with hot oil. I toyed with the idea of it for a while, then remembered my children. One 5 and the other 7. What would happen to them if I got jailed for causing serious bodily harm to their father? My in-laws would probably be too resentful to look after them in my absence. My parents are long dead.

And so I stopped screaming whenever my husband would pounce on me for the flimsiest of reasons. If I got any injuries after a beating, I would hide myself indoors until the wounds healed. It was the only way I could avoid drawing unnecessary attention to my already pathetic situation. When the women ask if my husband stopped beating me, I feign a genuine smile and say we resolved the issue. It always satisfies them.

Again, I turn the knife, wondering how many seconds it would take to drive it into my husband’s bare chest. Many times, he beats me without his shirt on. Like he is working in the quarry and I’m the stones he is supposed to be hammering into smaller pieces. Just what would turn an educated, enlightened man with a good job into a habitual drinker and wife beater? I often ask myself.

My husband designs buildings for a living. He is very good at what he does and very much respected at work. I have seen some of his completed projects. Marvels of architecture. He makes a lot of money too. It can afford us a decent life. But while he creates beautiful things for a living, he destroys happiness in his marriage.

Had I known the once loving, intelligent boyfriend would one day morph into a violent husband, I would not have said yes to his marriage proposal. This has been my reality for the past 6 years. Almost the entire duration of my marriage. Ever since he demanded that I quit my job as a secretary, saying I could not be trusted not to flirt with other men. I’m not even allowed to have friends. His reasoning, female friends are bad influence.

I place the knife on the kitchen counter then on second thought, decide to hide it in one of the rarely used kitchen drawers. There is just no point in committing such a heinous crime. I’m not a murderer. But then, I do not know if I can trust my husband with a newly, sharpened knife in full view.

Image sourced from tembisan.co.za