Here’s why you should never tangle with married people

There is a Swahili saying, loosely translated reads, ‘Do not bank on two people that share a bed every day, for years.’ It is basically warning you that if you try to come in between a married couple, you will get burned. They might have been quarrelling the entire day, but when they get to bed, you have no idea what might transpire between them under the cover of shared blankets.

I learnt this lesson decades ago as a single young woman who tried to act mediator – nay, I took sides with my married girlfriend -when Mary shared her woes with me. I felt that Peter was mistreating my friend. “Leave him!” I told her and as a true friend, I spent a whole Saturday helping her pack and move into her new house while he was away. Talk of moral and immoral support. In the blink of an eye, I found myself ‘kwa mataa,’ truly feeling like the deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Barely forty-eight hours had passed before a very angry Peter called me and told me off.

“Go get married and leave married people alone!” Wueh!

As you might have guessed, Peter found his wife and the next morning, they happily packed her stuff, and she moved back to their home. Even her hitherto welcoming landlord was happy to refund her deposit. Once I got over my shock, I felt like a professor of relationships. To-date, I will not help anyone pack from her matrimonial home, because wueh!

But this unity of the two goes beyond the conflicts. There are couples who want to involve you in some unscrupulous, almost clandestine activities, of course without the knowledge of their spouse.

“Don’t tell John.” They then go on to either ask for a large loan or invite you in some event that they do not wish their spouse to know about. If you enter some arrangement without the involvement of one person in a set, when the deal goes south, do not go running to the spouse who was in the darkness. For example, if Peter asks you for a loan and you give him, but then he fails to pay as agreed. If he is alive, follow up with him until he clears it. But some people will go after Mary, asking her to pay you back while she was not even aware of the loan in the first place. If I choose to give you a loan, I have no business harassing your spouse to pay me back, if they were not part of the arrangement.

No longer two but one

If you go getting pregnant with a married man, you have no business pursuing the wife for your child’s upkeep! I once asked a woman whether she knew that she was ‘death’ when she told me about the relationship she had with a married man.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he made a vow to his wife…until death does them part.” She gasped as I continued,

“Yep, you are playing death. Stop calling her.” He had ended the relationship and was ignoring her. Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned. She was one angry scorned woman.

“He used me and dumped me like garbage!” She fumed. Her revenge? To constantly call his wife. His wife ignored her too. She became livid and turned to harassing the wife, which made the man angry. He threatened her, and she wrote to ask me what to do especially because she had loaned the man a substantial amount of money and he did not seem keen to refund it. She had handed it over in cash. There was no proof about this exchange.

“Just leave married people alone. Do not get involved in their scams. You will end up with mud on your face.”

Based on both the Biblical books of Mathew and Mark, the married people make this vow, “Therefore, we are no longer two, but one flesh.” The officiating priest usually turns to the congregation and reads. “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” If the two want to separate, leave them at it, but do not be the one that severs their union, or you could experience wrath beyond yonder.

Karimi is a wife who believes in marriage. [email protected]