Cover Story: Published in the Daily Nation newspaper in the 'Living Magazine' and written by KWAMBOKA OYARO

Affairs of the heart can never be taken for granted, as these married couples can attest. By KWAMBOKA OYARO

The world's most widely read book, the Bible says that true love will overcome even the most daunting problems. Stories abound of people struggling in the face of adversity to be with one the heart has chosen. Just last week prince Charles and his long-term sweetheart, Camilla Parker Bowles, made headline news when they announced their engagement-after 34 years of a courtship dogged by controversy.

Two couples share how love kept them together against the odds.¹

'Alcohol almost tore us apart'

For Eileen and David Ogot, alcohol was what threatened to come between them. ten years after their wedding in 1979, Eileen realised that her husbands drinking was not just a social habit that occasional went out of control, but a real problem. And for the next 11 years, she picked him from bars on the roadside and took him home. It seemed he was more interested in drinking than his family.

"When the children were very young, I was too busy taking care of them to realise that David was not active in their upbrining. I was maing descisions alone" The two go married when they were 20, just after finishing their secondary education. "Nobody really prepared us for the challenges of marriage," Eileen says.

Their first child was born in 1980 and the second soon after. Then David left for India to study.

For the four-and-a-half years that he was away, Eileen worked as a secretary and raised the children with the support of from hers and davids parents. When he returned from India, his drinking was excessive and it had affected his education so much that he came home without a degree.

Eileen says she found it hard to tolerate his drinking and one day, she decided to stop working to to make him realise that he needed to look for ways of supporting the family.

"I just didn't go to work. But after a while I realised he wasn't bothered and the children were suffering. I started making snacks and selling them to make ends meet."

At the same time they moved out of David's parents house where they had been living and Eileen decided to go back to work. "It is hard to depend on other people for your upkeep," she says.

David did not get a job and often harrassed her about how she spent the money she earned.

"He would become verbally abusive if my answers were not satisfactory to him. Meanwhile, his drinking was becoming worse. He would go away and come home after several days looking dirty and unkempt.

Eileen's trust in her husband was being eroded because "there were toomany promises broken, too many hopes shattered and uncertainty prevaled. he told me there were many women ready to fill my place if I wanted out."

Life with an alcoholic was very hard. Many nights David came home in the wee hours and blacked out on a chair or on the floor. She cleaned him, changed his clothes and put him to bed, braving the foul stench of fermented liqour oozing from him.

With david in such a condition, Eileen became careless about her own appearance and neglected herself. her confidence was gone. And with his drinking getting worse, she stopped accompanying him altogether" she says.

One day he ppped into her office in a taxi after many days' absence.

"He was speaking tough and ordering me to pay the taxi driver. When I told him I didn't have any money he became hostile and insulted me in fron of my colleauges."

Despite these humiliating episodes, Eileen stuck to her husband.

She also continued fishing her husband out of police cells and collecting him from wherever he may have blacked out. Each time she told him that his drinking would destroy the family.

"I said to him, 'One day you will come home after a drinking binge and find no one here'. David just lughed or became more agressive."

Twice Eileen packed her bags, but he came back on the home in the nick of time and convinced her not to leave promising that he was not going to drink any more. But even as she packed thoughts of how he would survive nagged her. he could not cook, wash clothes, clean house or work. "I came up with various excuses not to leave him, but deep down I knew the real reason - I still loved him deeply. I could still remember the wonderful man behind the mask of drunkeness," she says.

"I saw the man I loved, the man who humbly apologised and promised not to make me sad again. And I could not imagine leading a life without him."

Friends and relatives advised her to leave David but she jsut couldn't do it.

"I though of the vows we made in front of man and God. They were binding-for better of for worse, in sickness and in health, fior richer, for poorer-and I would decide toi hang on a bit longer."

despite the emotional roller coster Eileen was going through, she waited and hoped and prayed for the day her husband would stop drinking once and for all so that they would pick up the pieces of their lives. That day finally came five years ago. david went into a rehabilitation centre and came out a new man. The couple is busy rebuilding their relationship, as David walks the long road to healing. "We are taking it a day at a time," Eileen says.

¹ Only the story of David and Eileen are given and not of Eluid Ngumi and his wife Monica as their's is not related to alcohol or other drug use

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