How the cellphone is breaking marriages in Kenya

Communication in this part of the world has undergone a revolution in just under a decade thanks to the mobile phone. And, beyond communication, it has sprung fresh challenges in marriages and other relationships.

An opinion poll commissioned by the Sunday Nation reveals that, for many a couple, spying on each other has become a fulltime pre-occupation. Many relationships are falling apart courtesy of the small gadget.

Psychologists, marriage counsellors and the church have their hands full trying to restore harmony among couples whose marriages have been put to the test by a spouse’s tendency to scroll through the partner’s messages.

The poll shows that 47.3 per cent of the respondents have been actively engaged in domestic espionage in the last three months.

Children not spared

From spooking their spouses, parents have not spared their children, with 42.8 per cent revealing they secretly read their text messages regularly.

While the advent of the mobile phone changed the way people communicated, it has thrown the lives of people across the social divide into a spin. 

First, few households had landlines. And, where they existed, they did not come with the privacy of the tiny gadget.

However, the last few years have seen a phenomenal increase in the subscribers to the two mobile phone operators in Kenya — Safaricom and Celtel. Safaricom boasts 6.8 million subscribers and counting. It has set its sights on eight million people on its list of subscribers by the end of this year. 

Mobile telephone service has also emerged as the most profitable business in the country, with Safaricom raking in a record Sh17.7 billion in profit before tax during the financial year ending June 30. 

It is the kind of profit other corporate giants like East African Breweries and Kenya Airways look at with envy. 

Safaricom’s chief executive officer Michael Joseph recently attributed his firm’s profitability to the rolling out of their network to the rural areas and the introduction of innovative products and services.

But they could also have something to do with the strange calling habits of Kenyans that Mr Joseph alluded to some time back.

Plainly insane

Anybody could answer the landline including junior. This meant a lady having a relationship with a married man would be plainly insane to call him at home.

With mobile phone, things are fast getting different. A woman seated opposite her husband on the dinner table could be busy texting, “Darling, I’m really missing you...” to some fellow across town.

Mrs Tabitha Murungu, a counsellor with Hearts of Gold, says the coming of the mobile phone has seen an upsurge in clients. They are married and their problems are related to the mobile phone. 

It all starts with suspicion. 

“Where a couple trust each other and are communicating effectively, they would not need to spy on each other. Neither would they have any reason to hide messages they send or receive,” she says.

Off to the kitchen

Indeed, this is how things stand with most couples. Then suddenly, one of the spouses becomes very protective of the handset, never letting it out of sight.

When a call comes through, they dash off to the kitchen or the balcony to take it. With that, the red light is up.

“The other spouse is bound to get suspicious and jealous. They start having the urge to find out what the other one is up to. They will eventually come across messages that expose affairs that their partners could be having,’’ says Mrs Murungu.

But discovering that a spouse is cheating, she says, should not be a reason to break a marriage. She explains that what couples should do is get to the root of the problem and salvage the marriage. Sometimes, couples emerge stronger from such problems. 

The mobile phone is doing a great job exposing cheating spouses, says. 

“What we are dealing with is a deep-rooted culture of infidelity. It is a problem that always leaves deep emotional wounds and, in some cases, affects families, including children, for life.

“Before you treat a sickness, you need to know it exists and it is eating away at your insides. That is what the mobile phone is doing.

Cheating spouse

“The fact that a cheating spouse has not been caught does not mean a problem does not exist,” says Mrs Murungu.

People do not, however, need mobile phones to lead upright lives, she adds.

“Each individual has an obligation to live a life of integrity. When you cheat on your spouse, you fail the integrity test,” she says.

The counsellor, who has just returned from the US where she attended lectures on the lives and works of Dr Martin Luther King, says she met Americans with similar problems.

One gentleman had been forwarding suggestive messages from his partners to his own, no doubt for use in future. 

According to Mrs Wanjiku Gikang’a, a marriage counsellor who also teaches marriage therapy and psychology at the United States International University in Africa and Daystar University in Nairobi, the pain that is being caused by this domestic spy work is unnecessary and can be avoided.

Keep off

“First, it is important to understand that your spouse does not cease being a human being when they get married to you. They need to continue interacting with people of both sexes. All they need to know is the limits.

“Some of the people they communicate with could be colleagues, relatives, business associates and even old friends. Our daily interactions do not necessarily mean or lead to an affair. In fact, they rarely do,” says Mrs Gikang’a. 

She says that it makes good sense to keep away from a spouse’s messages because what you do not know will not hurt you. A spouse might misunderstand a harmless message leading to a serious conflict in the family.

Mrs Gikang’a notes that there are many couples who will never be bothered about who their spouses call and text.

These are normally couples who have a high sense of self-esteem and never feel threatened.

The lecturer says a person who spies on his or her partner is often a very insecure individual. And such insecurity is often brought about by low self-esteem. One might feel he or she is not good enough compared to people of the opposite sex the partner interacts with.

“Low esteem is brought about by the partner’s self image. If a man thinks he is not good-looking, he develops the feeling that his beautiful wife probably compares him to other men. In this way, seeds of mistrust are sown.

“Similarly, when a woman thinks she doesn’t look as beautiful as other women around her, she feels threatened.

“She develops the feeling that in physical terms, she cannot compete with them. She will, therefore, start thinking that her husband is having an affair with any woman he calls or texts,” says Mrs Gikang’a.

Extent of conflict

She continues: “The spying can also be as a result of previous unhappy relationships where one partner had to deal with an unfaithful or negligent partner, and which led to a painful break-up. Where one partner has been exposed to cheating, there is always the nagging fear that since it happened in the previous relationship, it is likely to happen again.

“The need to know what the present partner is doing becomes an obsession and often with painful consequences.’’

The extent of the conflict, Mrs Gikang’a says, will largely depend on how one of the partners views the other and how they react to different situations.

She says: “You will find that in some marriages, one of the partners is always looking for faults with the other. They seize on any weakness or perceived bad behaviour to unleash criticism. If this kind of partner comes across a message he considers suggestive, he will use it to cause a fight which would have otherwise been avoided.”

As a marriage counsellor and a Christian, Mrs Gikang’a believes in the institution of marriage, including that part of the wedding vow saying “until death do us part”.

She says that while working with couples having problems, her goal is always to rescue the marriage.

“Marriage is not easy. There are frustrations that are brought about by high expectations. We have to learn to make concessions and compromises. If we can do this, marriages should not be threatened by the advent of the mobile phone.”

She says that even when one comes across a suggestive message, it should not be the basis for a break-up.

“When one suspects that the other partner is not being faithful, he or she has a duty to help them be more responsible in order to build a strong family.

“A strong family gives the individual a sense of wellbeing and security,” says Mrs Gikang’a.

This, in turn, she says, creates an environment where the individuals are motivated to explore their potential to build a strong foundation for a happy family.

And Mrs Gikang’a sounds out a warning for parents who spy on their children.

Courting trouble

“If you have got to a point where you feel you need to spy on your daughter, you are certainly courting trouble. When they discover that you read their messages, they will become defensive and protective. They view this as an unwarranted invasion of their privacy.

“The view they had of you as their first line of defence explodes and they will regard you as the resident enemy and will stop sharing with you their daily experiences and challenges of teenage. Instead of spying on their children, parents should cultivate friendship with them.

“This will in turn nurture trust and they will be able to talk to them about their problems, including their sexuality. Briefly put, your daughter’s mobile phone is a no-go zone,’’ says Mrs Gikang’a.

Serious problems

Catholic priest Fr J B Ndung’u says that the mobile phone is causing serious problems in marriage.

The church, which also offers counselling services to couples with marital problems, is increasingly dealing with problems directly related to the mobile phone.

“It is true that the mobile phone is breaking marriages. And this is more of a problem of rapid social transformation where values such as trust and responsibility to each other have been discarded,” says Fr Ndung’u.

“What we are dealing with here is lack of trust in marriage. Where trust exists, the spouse wouldn’t care who the partner talks to or texts. They equally won’t bother who is calling or texting their partner.’’

Most importantly, he adds, partners would not have to conceal their messages or their colleagues’ contacts because marriage negates the need for secrets.

“As a church, we are teaching couples to learn to trust. This happens through dialogue and sharing.

“When couples talk, they open their lives to each other and nothing coming through the mobile phone will create discord,” he says.