Secret accounts, pain and betrayal: Why money breeds conflict with your honey

When Issac Otieno married 11 years ago, he was an accountant, earning about Sh50,000 every month. His former wife had just graduated from university and was job-hunting.

“I shouldered all our financial responsibilities and even gave my wife a monthly allowance for clothes, toiletries and other needs,” Mr Otieno begins.

For the two years that his wife stayed without a “proper” job, he says that they rarely disagreed about money, and that his wife gladly made do with what was available. But that was until she landed a job that paid almost three times more than his.

Mr Otieno claims that after just a few months into the job, his wife started to “disrespect” him.

“She occasionally accused me of lacking ambition because I had been in the same job for years and kept pestering me to either look for another job or demand for a pay rise,” he says.

It still galls him that whenever his wife bought something, she would make a point of letting almost everyone they knew, especially family, that she had bought the item herself.

He cannot count the number of times that he went to work without breakfast because his wife had either already left for work, was busy reading for an exam or completing an assignment since she had enrolled to study for a Master’s degree as soon as she got the job.

Without consulting

But these are not the only woes that besieged this disillusioned man. He says that his wife started making major financial decisions without consulting him. For instance, she transferred their two children to a higher cost school and moved the family to a more expensive neighbourhood. He says that when he protested, she retorted that she would pay the school fees and the rent herself, so he had nothing to be worried about. “Within just a few months, I was feeling really worthless because my wife wasn’t hiding the fact that she did not need me,” he says.

Unable to find formal employment, Kimani finally settled for a taxi driver’s job three years ago.

“The job doesn’t pay much, so I am unable to pay for my children’s school fees or pay rent,” he says, adding that it still pains him that his wife does not let him forget that he is a “failure”.

Interestingly, several other men had stories with a similar ring — that of women who develop an inflated ego when they either start earning more than the man or when they become sole breadwinners.

“Women who have their own money are pure trouble, they are double trouble if they earn more than their husbands because they think it gives them the license to do whatever they want,” shoots Benson Kyalo, a 35-year-old, who has been married for five years and has two children.

Mr Kyalo says that he deliberately set up a beauty salon for his wife to discourage her from seeking formal employment because he feared that if she started making more money than him, she would become “kichwa ngumu” (big-headed) like one of his friend’s wife.

But women say that it is men’s insecurity that creates problems.

“Men are intimidated by women who earn more than they do,” says Brenda Kigan (not her real name). Brenda had to give up a high profile job at a local bank two years ago because her husband of eight years just couldn’t reconcile with the fact that she was taking home more money than he was. She claims that when she got the promotion, which came with a significant pay rise, he did not bother to hide his displeasure.

“He started picking fights and coming home late, and when I questioned his behaviour, he would retort that I had no right to control him just because I was earning more than he was,” she says.

He would also accuse her of caring about her job more than him and their two children whenever she got home late or had to work over a weekend.

Unable to withstand any more the petty squabbles that were threatening to take apart their once stable marriage, Brenda handed in her resignation and got a lower paying administrator’s job at a college.

But why does this happen? Shouldn’t couples welcome added income in these hard economic times?

According to marriage counsellor Salome Mwangi, money empowers and with it comes financial freedom, which goes on to open up numerous opportunities that had been beyond the reach of the jobless spouse. 

Payslip contents

“When the dependant spouse starts earning their own money, the provider is forced to acknowledge that they aren’t needed, that they aren’t indispensable — some individuals find this difficult to reconcile with,” she explains.

Interviews with married individuals also revealed that a significant number have no idea how much their spouses earn.

“I meet all the financial obligations at home — I pay the rent, buy food and pay school fees for the children; why should I disclose how much I earn to my wife?” wonders Simon Motari when asked whether his wife is conversant with his payslip’s contents.

But men are not the only ones keeping their spouses in the dark about how much they make. Mary Mumbua says that every year, for the last four years, her employer has given her pay increments which her husband of five years knows nothing about. In the company’s last financial year, she received a bonus of over Sh70,000. Her husband never got wind of it. What does she do with the extra money?

“I have an account that my husband knows nothing about,” is her prompt response, adding that the savings are for “a rainy day”.

The danger of this, warns marriage counsellor Salome, is that it sows seeds of distrust which steadily poison the marriage until the couple starts to question why they are together.

Secrecy also makes it difficult, even impossible, for the couple to plan and invest for their future together.  

Other financial secrets that today’s couples are keeping from each other include assets such as parcels of land and rental houses. In most cases, secrets of this magnitude come into the open when the dishonest spouse dies, making the living partner to wonder whether the marriage had been a sham.

Source: Daily Nation