Damaris Mutunga, a Nairobi mother of one, has spoken candidly about spending over a decade financially sustaining a man she deeply loved, only to discover that he had married someone else.
Her story begins long before the relationship. Damaris grew up as one of four girls born to a mother who was only 19 at her birth and had all four daughters by the age of 23.
Her parents separated early, and her mother later battled alcoholism before leaving the children in the care of relatives. Without access to formal education, Damaris started working as a househelp at eight years old, earning KSh 250 a month, a wage she says she never personally received.
“I never received it at any point. I didn’t even know anything about money. I mean, I couldn’t know anything about money at eight years,” she recalled.
She moved between relatives before a childhood friend helped her relocate to Nairobi, where she eventually found her footing and, later, love.
Where Damaris Met the Man She Trusted and Loved
After fully relocating to Nairobi, the mother of one met the man she thought was the love of her life at a Nairobi church.
Having never been in a relationship previously, Damaris was open with him from the start, telling him she had never dated anyone before. The two began a relationship that would stretch from around 2012 to 2022/2023.
From early on, she became the financial backbone of the partnership. He was unemployed, and she covered his rent, daily upkeep and personal expenses without hesitation.
“He would actually ask me for money to trim his beard, and I would give him the money,” she said.
She went further, giving him access to her ATM card so he could withdraw her salary directly.
“I used to give him my ATM, and then he would withdraw my salary and take the money for rent and shopping. Then he would leave the rest of the money in the house for me to find,” she explained.
Damaris insists that financial calculation played no part in her choices. Every December before she travelled home, she gave him KSh 15,000. She also contributed KSh 7,000 towards an electricity installation at his family home, believing it would one day become her own.
“I loved him wholeheartedly and with every fibre of my being,” she said. “I didn’t fall in love with him so that he could help me. All I wanted was for us to build one another.”
She held onto the hope that he would eventually find employment and the two would build a shared future. That hope was shattered when she discovered he had married another woman, bringing a painful close to more than a decade of sacrifice and devotion.
Damaris shares taking KSh 100k loan for boyfriend
Among the most painful details Damaris shared was her decision to take out a KSh 100,000 loan at the man’s request, so he could launch a business in Gikomba market.
The venture reportedly did well for a while, but she never pressed him for repayment because, in her mind, the money was not a loan at all.
“In my head, I was helping my man using my own money. So he was mine and my money was also mine,” she said.
By that point, the two were already trying to raise funds for a wedding, and Damaris says she was fully committed to building a life with him. She paid rent, covered household upkeep, bought him clothes and supported his various financial needs throughout their time together.
The Betrayal She Did Not See Coming
While Damaris was planning a future with him, she later found out that the man had been making trips to Embu with a friend to pursue another woman, whom he eventually took to their bishop for a blessing.
When that relationship allegedly collapsed, Damaris came across the conversation logs between the two and reached out to the woman directly.
The other woman, someone Damaris recognised from church crusades, was reportedly unaware that the man was already in a relationship. “I told her that I think the girl he was talking about was me,” Damaris said.
After confronting the man and telling him it was over, she asked him to return her house key and a woofer. What followed was something she had not anticipated.
Damaris alleges that the man came to her home while her child was at school and assaulted her.
“He came and beat me up. I was alone in the house; the kid was in school. He beat me up because of that,” she recalled.
She says the attack forced her to look back at a pattern of behaviour she had normalised. “He’d beat me up, then go silent, and then I had to apologise. Like, he’d beat me up, but I was the one who had to apologise.”
Looking back, she also acknowledges that the warning signs had been there from the beginning. The man had reportedly insisted on keeping their relationship secret, refusing to be photographed with her and deleting pictures whenever they appeared together.
“The first red flag was that he didn’t want me to tell anyone that we were dating,” she said.
Damaris admits she did not recognise these signs at the time. “I had never been in love, so I had no idea how it should be. I also didn’t know what red flags meant.”
The man at the centre of Damaris’ account has not been given an opportunity to respond to the allegations.
