Tough job to break a woman’s heart

By Timothy Bukumunhe

The writing on the wall was pretty explicit. My two-year relationship with Martha was over.

We were in my opinion just hanging in there for the sake of it. I guess. Though I considered my relationship with Martha over, there was just one little nagging problem: I just could not bring myself round to tell her we were through.

Every time I tried to tell her the news that I was moving on without her, something always cropped up to prolonged my agony. Either the phone rang or there was a news flash on television or I got a lump in my throat and could not say the few words –– “listen Martha it’s over. It has nothing to do with you, it’s just me.” I had spent the best part of the day rehearsing, so I did the next best thing.

Over a period of five weeks, every time I went over to her house for the night, bit by bit I packed whatever was mine, without arousing suspicion. I started with the CD’s she had borrowed, then the books and clothing –– anything that she had borrowed went, until I had cleared her house of everything that belonged to me.

By the time she found out, it was too late. I did not have to deal with the traumas of breaking up –– no tears followed by streams of mascara rolling down her cheeks. And no endless questions asking ‘but why –– I thought we were happy?’ That evening I sat at home alone, liberated and feeling ever so pleased with myself at the pathetic way I ditched her, while listening to her calls as she sobbed endlessly whenever the telephone answering machine picked up her calls.

Ditching a girlfriend is not an easy thing for some men. While they may have taken charge during the relationship –– coming across as confident and very together, when it is time to end the relationship some men are reduced to nervous wrecks.

David Mukasa did not have the guts to tell his girlfriend, Beverly Namboze, that their 18-month-old relationship was over. “Beverly has always been an emotional girl. She would cry about everything. Once when I told her I was going out alone with the boys and she cried. She kept on saying that because I was going out with the boys I must have met somebody else who was more attractive than her,” he says.

He goes on to say “we were living together at the time and the only way I could get out of the relationship was to pack up my share of the household property and just leave.” One morning he drove her to work and made out like he too was going to the bank. “Rather, I had taken the day off and simply went back home and packed all my stuff. I was done by 3:00pm. Throughout the day she kept on calling me asking me what I wanted for supper, oblivious of what was happening.”

“At 5:30pm when I was supposed to have picked her up, I did not and turned off my phone. According to friends it took her days of tears and time off work to get over what I had done to her. When I saw her a couple of months later, she said she was not really angry about the relationship ending, but the way I had handled it. To ease her frustrations, she broke the side mirrors on my car and said she hoped I rot in hell, before storming off.

Jimmy Mwambi, an accountant who lives in Jinja chose a different method which is less appealing. “When Helen came round to spend the night, I already knew this was the last night we would be together. I suppose I should have told her before I got her into bed but something kept on whispering to me “just one last time, take her to bed then tell her afterwards.”

“When we had finished as she blissfully savoured the sexual experience we had just shared and without thinking about it, I blurted out that I was seeing somebody else.”

“Helen went into frenzy and started screaming which drew the attention of my neighbours. She ripped my clothes, smashed the television set and destroyed everything in her path as she made for the door like a hurricane out of control, all the time shouting out “so that is what you have always thought of me –– a prostitute!”

For his actions, Mwambi had a high price to pay. Helen’s brothers came round hours later and gave him a thorough beating.

Hannington Balikuddembe who looks after his father’s farm simply turned up at Club Silk holding hands with another woman.

“I could see Sarah, my very soon to be “ex” standing with a group of friends all looking at me in disbelief as I worked my hands all over the body of my new catch. Sarah got the message. She was obviously drunk when she turned up on my doorstep the following day to apologise for whatever it is she had done to sour the relationship.

She had not done anything bad. I simply got bored of her. Anyway, I just looked at her as she blurted out her apologies then slammed the door in her face. It was a cruel way to do it, but it was the best way I felt I could handle it.”

But hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Olivia, who used to work with a major hotel in Kampala did not take it lightly after being ditched. While her man was out in town serenading the new woman in his life. Olivia drove to his house and lay in wait. When he turned up in the wee hours of the morning with her replacement, as they opened the front door, she sprang out of nowhere, rushed past them and locked herself inside his bedroom.

There she proceeded to destroy everything that belo-nged to her rival. To cap it all, as she sat on the bed smoking away and feeling happy with herself, she saw her rival’s contact lens case. Calmly she opened it up and proceeded to extinguish her cigarette on her lenses!