'My wife's boyfriends used to beat me up': Antony Ng’ang’a on living with an abusive wife

Speaking candidly on Citizen TV’s Shajara with Lulu show, Antony recalled meeting his then-wife in 2016 and they got married immediately. According to him, their marriage was troubled from the very beginning.

“I would leave for work at 5 am and come back around midnight. One day a neighbour called me and informed me there was a man in our house and he left immediately after I got into the house. This was after the neighbours told me they spotted my wife with other men,” he recalled.

“She started drinking and  I would meet her holding hands with other men on the road and every time I asked, they would attack me,” he added. 

Antony stopped sharing his bed with his wife and moved into their children’s bedroom then one day the wife informed him that she was done with their marriage and left.

“She took the children with her but returned them in the morning including the one who was three months then, I begged her to stay especially for the lastborn who I believed needed her mother, she refused,” he said.

Juggling work and raising his two children became a challenge for him, causing him to lose many job opportunities because of the children. He recalls how they could not afford food or house rent and sometimes they would end up being homeless.

“I would leave my children unattended and go look for work and this used to worry me a lot, sometimes I would come home with nothing forcing me to give them water because I did not have food for them,” he said.

Ng’ang’a started falling sick and he was not aware of what was ailing him.  According to him, he weighed 28 kilograms and his hair started falling off.

“On Sunday morning as I was getting ready for church, my hair fell into the basin while taking a bath. I still did not know what was ailing me. My neighbour advised me to go see a doctor because I had wounds on lower stomach,” he said.

In the interview, Antony painfully recounted how he found out that he was HIV positive and thought that his wife had infected him because of her unfaithfulness. He later found out that his wife and their two children were in fact HIV negative.

‘’The doctors thought I had quit taking my ARVs but that was not the case because I did not know my status.  I was shocked because I was not even aware of my status, I took several tests and they all confirmed that I was positive,” he said. 

According to him, he was in denial because he was always faithful and never slept with any woman other than his wife. Today, he believes that he might have been infected while rescuing people involved in a road accident.

 “I called my wife and asked her why she infected me thinking that she was the one who have me the virus but it turns out she was negative. Then I remembered there was a time I rescued people involved in an accident and I got some wounds in my hand and hand blood all over, I suspect I got it from there because my wife is the only woman I ever slept with,” she said.

Today, Antony has accepted his status and is living a healthy life. He says he has no intentions of marrying someone else out of here or infecting the partner.

“I would never want to infect another person it is so unfair; I just want to raise my daughters and provide them with a better future. That is my main focus right now,” he said. 

According to him, they rely on well-wishers and getting casual jobs is very difficult.

“If I could get a small business like a kiosk or chips vending then I would manage to cater for their needs,” he said.