Why Nairobi marriages flop

December, the month of love, is gone; thousands of come-we-stay marriages consummated, the dust settled on expensive honeymoons. But as newly weds settle down to the financial ravages of January, a sobering fact: Three out of ten people would not marry their current spouse again, according to an Infotrak survey. The survey, Status of the Institution of Marriage in Kenya of 2011, revealed that more than 60 per cent of Kenyans are unhappy in their marriages, 29 per cent of marriages are headed for the rocks, with more than half of the respondents reporting serious conflicts in their marriages at least once every month. And nowhere, perhaps, is this truer than in Nairobi. Atta Gori, a PR consultant and happily married family man, says the city comes with unique challenges that can easily cause a couple to drift a part. “My wife and I spend on average four hours daily in traffic between Ongata Rongai and Nairobi, where we both pursue different vocations. It is stressful and tiring. By the time we get home at around 8pm in the evening, we are both tired. Yet we still have to help our seven-year-old sons with homework, put them to sleep, take a bath, and have dinner. “We sleep late on full stomachs, barely half an hour after dinner, because we have to wake up in the wee hours of the morning. By the end of the week, we are exhausted. The weekends are no less busy with church activities, laundry, chamas and family engagements. Nairobi life is tough and miserable. That is why I miss village life, which, unfortunately, I can only enjoy only once a year,” he says.
Mueni Wambua, a city resident who describes herself as a ‘realist’ concurs, saying, “There is a sense of ‘community’ in the village that keeps couples together. They ask themselves ‘if so and so’s marriages broke down, we need to check ours....’ But in Nairobi, it’s every man for himself and peer pressure and the stress of keeping up with the Kamaus can put a lot of strain on a marriage.” So couples live under one roof, do communal shopping and pool their finances together to pay bills but retire for the night in separate bedrooms or, if in one bed, separated by an invisible ‘wall of China’. They might be seen together in social places, in church and family functions, yet the spark died ages ago. Couples locked in loveless marriages often say it “for the sake of the children”. But prohibitive legal costs – estimated by a local daily to range between Sh200,000 and Sh500,000 - and messy court process littered with dirty linen discourage troubled couples from terminating their marriages while others hang on because of family influence or religious factors. Nairobi-based relationships expert Dr Chris Hart, however, says there are lots of couples who are very happy in their unions. “It’s just a small group of people who are unhappy and unfortunately they are prominent. This makes them noticeable - hence making them look like they represent the bigger picture of the state of marriage in Kenya. But in the real sense of the word, the institution of marriage is way better now than it was years ago,” explains Dr Hart. But he points out that the problem for Nairobi couples could stem from being uprooted from rustic rural settings with a different culture to an urban jungle.
-The Nairobian