He Promised Forever Then Married Someone Else

"My name is Julius. And you are?"

"I'm Mercy."

"Nice to meet you, Mercy."

"Nice to meet you, Julius."

He settled beside me, grabbed a bottle of water from the table, and took a sip. "Is this program ever going to start?" he asked. "It's almost 8 PM, and we're the only ones here." I replied, "Maybe others are still on their way. You know how it is with African time. Let's just hope it begins soon."

He looked at me and asked, "What was your name again?" I hesitated to respond since I had just introduced myself. Noticing my expression, he joked, "Don't worry, I'm just teasing you. So, Mercy, do you always have this much patience?" That question sparked a conversation that lasted the entire night. We were so engrossed that we didn't even notice when the program began. I learned a bit about him, and from the way he asked questions, I felt he gathered quite a bit of information about me too.

When they started serving food, he said, "Just tell me what you want, and I'll get it for you." And he did. He was enjoyable to be around and straightforward. He seemed like a man with nothing to hide. He remarked, "At my age and with my experience, if I ever try to hide who I am from a woman, then I don't deserve to be the man I aspire to be."

We exchanged contact information and began our friendship from that moment. In our next meeting, he shared what he did for a living. On another date, he told me I was interesting and wanted to learn more about me. After a month or two of friendship, he revealed that he had been married for two and a half years. I asked, "So why don't you wear a ring like most married men do?" He replied, "I don't wear a ring because we're in the process of getting a divorce."

I maintained my composure, but inside, I wanted to scream, "Why on earth are you getting a divorce after just two and a half years of marriage?" Perhaps he sensed the questions in my eyes, so he continued, "People often ask why I'm getting a divorce, thinking there's no issue that married couples can't resolve. We've tried to work through our differences, but it hasn't worked out. We're not bitter; we're just getting a divorce because it's what's best for both of us."

People often don't know what's truly best for them. They pretend to understand, but most of the time, they don't. I believed that before marrying his wife, he thought it was the best decision for both of them. They got married, so why now consider divorce as the best option? I asked him, "What changed?" He answered, "A lot of things stayed the same, and that's our problem. Usually, things change, and you embrace the change, but in our case, nothing changed."

Julius was a nurse, and his wife had once been his patient. Just a year after they met, he married her. She was in a wheelchair due to an accident that had brought her to the hospital where Julius worked. She came from a wealthy family. After getting to know each other well, Julius proposed, and she accepted. However, when he spoke about his marriage, he said, "I married her not for her money, but perhaps out of pity and because she was vulnerable."

Of all the reasons to marry, pity and vulnerability are the worst combinations. According to Julius, the woman agreed to marry him because he was patient with her during her hospital stay. People forget that nurses are trained to be patient because they deal with patients, but that doesn't mean they are patient in their personal lives. Julius and his wife both made mistakes, and that was why their marriage couldn't last.

I've always been cautious with others, but Julius had a charm I found irresistible. I admired his intelligence and how he made me feel when I was with him. When he proposed, I told him, "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere, and I can wait until your divorce is finalized. No matter how long it takes, I'll wait." After that day, I was unsure of my role in his life. Was I a friend? A girlfriend in waiting? Or a future wife? Nothing seemed clear anymore. I was waiting for him to be free before I could embrace him, but time dragged on, and my heart grew restless. So, when he leaned in to kiss me one night, I didn't resist.

We kissed that night, and the next day, things escalated further. It was exhilarating, and for the first time, I felt a sense of calm in my heartbeat. I was a girlfriend in waiting, but I had kissed him and slept with him too. So, what was I to him? Sometimes, a woman has to do what she has to do, so I dove in and loved him as if my life depended on it. His divorce took longer than expected, but I was patient. I believed he would finalize it so we could have our happily ever after.

Six months into our relationship, it became official: their divorce was granted. He told me, "You're no longer my wife in waiting. You're the real deal." I should have felt happy, but a part of me wondered about the feelings of the woman who had just exited his life. I asked him, "Was she happy when the divorce was finalized?" He replied, "She wanted it as much as I did. I guess she was happy."

The beginning of my relationship with Julius was near, and I couldn't wait to be his official girlfriend. At this point, you might call me naive, foolish, or ignorant, and you wouldn't be wrong. Looking back, I question why I made him my everything. It’s not like I hadn’t been in love before, so what was it about him that made me so blind in this relationship?

To this day, I have no answer to that question.

Nothing changed between Julius and me. He remained the caring guy who always thought of me and tried to give me the best. I was the bubbly girl who built a sandcastle around him, believing that not even an earthquake could shake the foundations of what we had built together. But then the waves came, and everything I had constructed crumbled into the sand. It turned out that "nothing changed" was just as devastating as "everything changed."

Julius didn't change toward me, and I didn't change toward him, but after a year and a half together, he married another woman. Surprised? I was too, and I never saw it coming. Not even a hint.

He traveled to Kisumu for just a week and got married there. Men can be quite the magicians, can't they? Just when you think you've seen it all, they pull off a trick you never thought possible. Who was the woman he married?

They met on Facebook around the same time he was finalizing his divorce. I still don't know if he met her before or after me. During our relationship, he frequently traveled to Kisumu, claiming he was visiting his parents. Sometimes he would say, "Next time, it will be you and me, and I'll introduce you to my parents." But the next time never seemed to be right. It was always an excuse—his mother was sick, his father had been bitten by a snake, or his brother had swallowed a coin and was in critical condition. I was always waiting for the right moment to be introduced.

He married someone else while I was under the impression that I was the one.

I needed answers. I deserved to know why and how everything went wrong, but I decided to give myself some time to finish crying first. I didn't want to call him with tears in my voice. I wanted him to see that I was strong and that no man deserved my tears, especially not a cheat like him. He wasn't going to call me to confess, so when I felt ready, I called him. He didn't answer the first or second call. Hours later, I saw he had called me back.

I told myself, "Stay calm. Don't act foolish. Remember, no man deserves your tears." I answered the phone. "Why did you do this to me?" I asked. He replied, "Mercy, please let me explain." And then my foolish heart betrayed me. It started racing. I felt anger rising, and I began to shake. Tears streamed down my face as I asked, "What can you explain? Are you such a coward? Why couldn't you just be honest with me?"

I couldn't keep it together. I cried the entire time he was on the phone, trying to piece together his excuses. He apologized, and I told him to go to hell, where he would never find peace or happiness. I hung up and cried even more. This story I'm sharing isn't an old one; it happened just a month ago, and I still find myself in tears.

—Mercy,  
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