Maina And King’angi In The Morning: What Would You Do If Your Partner Brought Home HIV?
Maina And King’ang’i this gloomy morning decided to continue with yesterday’s controversial and shocking discussion or rather a variation of it: when your partner brings home a disease.
This was brought about by a caller who called in and said that his partner brought home THE disease… HIV and now he is HIV+ and he doesn’t know how to deal.
Good questions were asked such as how do you start seeking treatment, how do you even bring up that conversation.
The first caller was a woman and said that she had an infection she’d never had before and she had to go to hospital and because she and her husband live in different towns and she had always suspected her husband was cheating. Her hubby’s lover came calling and informed her that she needs to have herself tested and checked. The couple has now separated. I can’t blame her because during the other woman’s courtesy call she found out that the woman was also being cheated on (didn’t know the other woman could also be cheated on) and apparently the courtesy call was because the other woman found a used condom and she thought this her man dey cheat only it turned out that this new “other” woman na wife! Never mind the fact that this woman also married! Uncle Chim Tuna na shocked-o and I vex! How does this man cheat with multiple women and him no use condom?! Forgive the pidgin! How does a man with a wife and children cheat and endanger his wife’s life by having unprotected sex? That “husband” be wayo! HOW?! The woman says that she’s now been separated for 4months but she’s now undergoing counselling and her advice to other married women who live in different towns from their husbands to insist on using a condom because these men are cheating. She also insisted that men should respect their wives, a message I cosign entirely!
The next caller called in to say that she found out that she was HIV+ 6yrs ago when she was pregnant and she went for her routine clinical visits. And her husband who brought home the HIV virus has adamantly refused to use condoms &/or ARV drugs. When she informed him that she was positive, he was unfazed. And though they are still sexually active, the chap refuses to use condoms and though she was vexed, they’ve never had this discussion and she intimated that he has made her life so miserable and at this point I can’t help but exclaim, “Why not leave that useless man? He has given you a death sentence and yet you still make love to him? Have you never heard of re-infection? This your husband is killing you! That ewu is no longer your husband, he’s turned to your executioner!”
A man called in next to admit that he’s confused after finding out his wife has been HIV+ since 2005 and he hasn’t even confronted her. He saw a prescription card for ARVs and she has never told him. They’ve been married for 9yrs and she’s been positive for the last 7yrs! They have been active without protection all this time! And Maina did the right thing by advising him to go for a test and he even promised to follow up and check up on him next week. The poor man’s wife will be returning tomorrow and he said he’s confront her. Ladies and gentlemen, is nothing sacred anymore? If even the sanctity of marriage is no longer hallowed, then what is?
A man called in to ask why these problems seem to be between married couples? he gave us his experience of how married men cheat small girls with pocket money then they leave these girls burning with diseases. The girl admitted that she is only “chopping” the man’s money. He asked where the good old days went. The days when married men were role models and you could say that you wanted a family like so and so’s. Where are the role models? why are we so happy and confident to be talking about the wrong things we do yet we only whisper the good? This is a man indeed!
