Toxic men starter pack: Strong, independent women

By , K24 Digital
On Mon, 22 Jul, 2019 00:00 | 2 mins read
Former journalist Esther Arunga.
Catherine Njiru

There’s so much talk about Esther Arunga saga. And we’re all wondering how a brainy woman such as Arunga would be manipulated by a charlatan See where it got her? She’s been reduced to a woman who can’t defend her own child against his rogue father.

I think, Sheryl Sandberg summed it all when she said, of all the choices women make in life, none is as important as whom they decide to marry. You settle with the wrong guy and you’ll take a bad marriage wherever you go. It will be the barometer of everything else you do. 

See, between a woman and her child, no line exists. So, by the time a mother takes sides with a husband who battered their four-year-old to death, her self-esteem must have been reduced to tiny irreplaceable pieces. When such men charm their way into these independent, brainy career women’s lives, the end game is disastrous.

The thing with these Quincy kinda guys is that they’ll pull the woman down to a place of weakness, to make the woman really small and foolish. She’ll doubt her own existence.

So many women— forget the slay queens—serious career women fall victim. This guy. Charming, witty ‘intelligent’ (read confident)—bring up any subject and he will confidently contribute… Introduce the 10th planet, and he will tell you who ‘discovered it’.

Make no mistake, his words are well-coiffed before he utters them. Never mind he has brain the size of a cockroach. Oh, but the confidence? He will successfully convince you that the Zimbabwean currency is equivalent to the US dollar.  

With the benevolent confidence of a wealthy man, he says you wouldn’t even have to work. The offer might not be as appealing to the independent woman, but you’ll take it as a sign that things are actually getting serious.

At this juncture, you only smell roses in a room full of rotten rats. You thank the universe for sending such a wonderful soul your way. 

By the time you realise he was a fake, you’re too deep into it. There’s a child involved. Then abuse. Then these mental issues sort of sneak up on you. When she finally decides to leave, she has self-esteem the size of his cockroach brain. And that’s how they reduce you to their level.

Quincy’s ex-wife talks of a loving, humble Quincy… Look, the thing with these men is they are extremely charming. People on the outside think they are angels. Best advice, take them with a pinch of salt, they taste better that way.

I wouldn’t want to judge Arunga and her earlier decision to stay mum about their son’s death. But again, I know a woman in her default calibre would never excuse such brutality because she feared being lonely. Nope, that right there was the Arunga Quincy wanted her to be. Not the kick-ass career woman we knew. My two cents.

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