Should women pay their exes spousal support?

It must be so hard to be a celebrity in Kenya.

People treat you quite badly, for one thing. Either they assume that you have all the money in the world – and so they feel like you should be the one buying all the drinks, paying for all the vacations, and picking up every tab possible. Meanwhile, if the current dramas where all these copyright societies and all are anything to go by, there is actually not a lot of money in the pool circulating for artistes, and especially musicians. Gigs for musicians are just coming back. Getting paid through societies and plays is daylight robbery. And it’s a well-known fact that unlike Tanzania, Kenyans rarely, if ever, buy Kenyan music.

So either everyone thinks celebs have money, or they’re completely entitled to them. Do you see, sometimes, how people treat entertainers, as if they have all rights to them at all times? To the point that even if you meet them in a casual situation, like at a party or in a restaurant, you feel like you have a right to tell them to perform, or sing, or pose for a picture, or sign something for God knows who. It’s almost as if celebrities, by the limited Kenyan definition, are not allowed privacy, or alone time, of any kind. Everyone knows your name, so no one leaves you alone.

Which is why, then, when you go to court and file for something, if a court clerk is feeling sufficiently loose-lipped, they can take a picture of your court documents and hand them over to the biggest teamonger’s Instagram channel for the whole world to see. On Wednesday of this week, it came out that a certain fitness trainer with four children and time to kill holding cardboard placards across highways is taking his baby momma to court. Why? He is asking for custody for the two children they had together – I assume, so that he can make a blended family for his new two.

The initial rumour claimed he was asking for child support, which I had a whole article for – because that would have been preposterous. Not that it is particularly unusual for men to ask women for financial support after they go their separate ways. We see it in Hollywood all the time – singer Kelly Clarkson and R&B queen Mary J Blige are just a few of the women who pay spousal support to their ex-husbands, simply because they were making more money than their exes, and so there was a lifestyle their exes were accustomed to, and so, after the divorce, they had to pay to maintain it. But this? For an ex to ask for money for child support? I hadn’t seen this level just yet – and I hope it doesn’t deteriorate into that.

The thing is, this fitness trainer is not the primary caregiver for these children, which means that asking to uproot them from their current home is a move of selfishness as opposed to a move of consideration. The timing is suspicious – he’s waited this long, and his baby momma happens to be dating someone new (and supposedly rich). Why does he suddenly feel the need to be one big happy family?

I’m beginning to think that this is why women prefer traditional relationships. Either you stay and stay, or you go and go without looking back. We’re not doing a song and dance of pretending to care about children we had at a time when we were once in love with each other. Trying to disrupt children at this point feels like what psychologists always say you shouldn’t do – use your children as tools in a battle they had no part in creating, because of your hurt feelings and misplaced pettiness. Think about having children before you have them and bring them into messes similar to your own unresolved issues.

For feedback to the editor email: [email protected]