My ex keeps using and dumping women

Hi Kitoto,

I am a 34-year-old woman with a daughter. I had a very bad relationship, which I decided to end six years ago.

My worry is that the guy was extremely irresponsible, and continues to be. He has fathered about 13 children after mine and has dumped their mothers. Worse still, he keeps getting into new relationships, completely unbothered about the risk of contracting HIV.

Recently, he contacted a friend of mine to talk to me so that we could get back together and formalise our relationship.

My worry is that his family doesn’t care about his reckless behaviour (imagine if one of the women was your daughter). He had a son with another woman when we were still dating, then accused the her of trying to trap him with another man’s child.

As time went by, I realised that he was a womanizer and moved out with my daughter. He went back to the other woman and lived with her for a month and got her pregnant with twins. He dumped her once again and came back to me; he claimed that he loved me and said he was sorry. Because I loved him, I took him back.

After he dumped the poor woman, she went back to her parents’ home, where she delivered her twins. Her parents also take care of her older child. To date, this man denies having fathered the woman’s three children.

After a while, he started acting funny. For instance, he would not return home on weekends. This puzzled me, so I asked him what was happening. Unknown to me, he had started a new family in Machakos with another woman, who was heavily pregnant with his child. When he left me, I was also pregnant but unfortunately, I had a miscarriage.

When I was in hospital, I tried to reach him, in vain. He never came to see me, so when I was discharged, I paid my bills and went home. The other woman also delivered but unfortunately, the child died a few weeks later, and was buried in his presence at a cemetery near their home.

One day he came to my place when I was out of town, packed all his belongings and left without informing me. He left my tearful daughter with the house help. I only learnt that he had also got my househelp pregnant, hence his unceremonious departure. I never bothered to ask him about it because I was completely fed up.

One morning as I was preparing for work I received a text from a woman called Esther informing me that they were an item and that I should keep off the man and not bother them. I responded that I would not contact him again and would respect their relationship.

That seemed to make her happy — until he dumped her for another woman after she had had his child. She called to tell me she had found out that the man had been dating another woman, despite having promised her marriage. I told her I was not interested in her problem and asked her to stay out of my life. The man currently has a new catch, who is heavily pregnant.

What would you advise about such a man, who hurts others and feels nothing. He is so irresponsible that he does not provide for my daughter. Worse still, he insults her whenever she tries to talk to him. It hurts her a great deal so I often take her to my brother’s place to enable her to get some fatherly attention.

The dumped women often reach out to me, apologizing for having hurt me and always praising me for being strong. Since I am a Christian, I forgive them; some even say they slept with him in my bed. This made me donate my matrimonial bed and move house frequently.

Currently, he does not know where I live and I have no plans of showing him. I even asked him to take his daughter if she is the reason he’s trying to reach out to me but he wouldn’t do that since he is so irresponsible.

Now all the women he has dumped have ganged up and are planning to take him to court. What advice would you give such a person?

Personally, I want nothing more to do with him because I believe there is someone out there for me. I did my best; I loved him, clothed him and gave him fare even when he was with other women but he played with my emotions, and still thinks I can forgive him. I’m living alone with my child and we are happy, hoping that one day the right person will come along.

This situation needs serious advice because, whenever he meets a woman, he tells her he left me because I was harsh and too strict with him. But apparently, he has since dumped eight women. His family is not supportive; his mother does not care about his behaviour while his father doesn’t talk about it.

Kindly advise because I would like to move on and make a fresh start. We did not formalise out relationship. My daughter is devastated, and this has affected her performance in school. He left when she was in Standard Two, now she is in Standard Six. The sad thing is he doesn’t provide even a single cent for upkeep.

L.A.

Hi,

It is, indeed, hard to imagine that a man would do this to so many women and leave behind many innocent children who might have to live without a father figure.

This only opens a window for us to look into the world of the growing numbers of single women who find themselves with children from uncommitted men in Kenya.

Statistics from the Joint Council on International Children’s Services indicate that “Only 64 per cent of Kenyan children aged 0-14 live with both their parents, and about 13 per cent are not living with either parent.” It is possible that Kenya will soon be among the nations with with high number of absentee fathers.

Another article in this paper in August 2013 reported that “Six of every 10 Kenyan women are likely to be single mothers by the time they reach 45, one of the highest rates of single-parent families in Africa. And according to new research, an increasing number of women are drawn into single parenthood as more men abandon their traditional role as providers for their children.”

A variety of factors, including in-laws, lack of preparation and commitment, irresponsible fatherhood, and the struggle many of them face to cope with today’s pressures, are responsible.

The problem has been compounded by the lack of accountability and the breakdown in family and other social structures. The result is both men and women who do not give adequate consideration to the consequence of their actions.

After going through what you’ve described, I really do not understand why anyone would want to take such a man seriously. You have a great life ahead of you and a daughter to raise. Use your time to help your daughter find the support she needs to make it in life.