When Beverline Mbithi left Kenya for Saudi Arabia, she believed the sacrifice would secure a better future for her husband and three children. Instead, she returned to find her marriage in ruins and her husband allegedly married to their former househelp.

Beverline says she met her husband in 2002, after he approached her and confessed he had admired her quiet devotion as she walked to church in her long dresses. Their friendship blossomed into a relationship that survived distance and youthful uncertainty. After finishing high school, she briefly moved to Uganda to reconnect with her mother’s relatives, but soon asked to return to Kenya, driven largely by her desire to be with the man she loved.

The couple eventually married and later renewed their vows in a colourful church ceremony, a public declaration of a union they believed would last a lifetime. Three children followed, and for years, Beverline recalls, the home was peaceful.

That stability began to crumble when she lost her job. With bills mounting, the couple agreed she would seek domestic work in Saudi Arabia, a path taken by many Kenyan women hoping to support their families. They discussed it as a joint decision, she says, never imagining that within ten months the distance would cost her a marriage.

Life in Saudi Arabia quickly turned harsh. Beverline recounts long hours, mistreatment and, eventually, physical abuse. When she told her employer she wanted to leave, tensions escalated. She says she was beaten and fled to a police station, where officers helped arrange her return to Kenya.

While still abroad, she received a devastating call: her husband and their househelp were said to be planning a wedding. On landing back home, she went to stay with her sister. There, her young daughter delivered the confirmation that shattered her. “Do you know that Dad sleeps with Aunty in his room?” the girl asked.

When Beverline finally visited her marital home, she found it in disarray, the ceiling damaged. In the bedroom, she says she discovered an onion stitched together with black thread, containing a note declaring love between her husband and the househelp. She prayed over it, convinced that dark forces had invaded her home.

Confrontations with her husband turned bitter. In public, she says, he was violent and dismissive. In private meetings with relatives, he briefly expressed a desire to return to his family, only to later insist he wanted a polygamous arrangement.

Today, the couple lives apart. Beverline, who has since trained in beauty therapy, is rebuilding her life but admits her heart is still tied to the vows they once renewed. She says she continues to pray for reconciliation.

“You remember what we said at the altar? Until death do us part,” she says, her voice breaking between hope and heartbreak.