







STAFFORD is a broken man.







Today, the 61-year-old is forced to sleep at friends’ homes and scurry around seeking meals in Lawrence Tavern, St Andrew. At times he says he is even forced to survive on $100 or less per day.





This fate has befallen him because of a failed marriage that left him penniless.





"I married a woman with six children, went to the Cayman Islands to work and I sent back over $1 million in remittances to her to build our house," he said while unravelling piles of receipts from a brown envelope he has kept over the years.





"When I returned to Jamaica the house was built but she obtained the title in her name and the name of other family members. Then it reached a point where my services were no longer needed and I was put out of the house."





He added: "Every day you get up and see where women are being abused, but there is nothing for men and I don’t know if it’s because we don’t come out and speak. But I’m not afraid to talk. I’ve worked assiduously to support this woman and her children and I’m the one who was spurned."

He said the abuse he has suffered has taken a toll on him emotionally and mentally.





"I can’t believe I’m in this situation. Maybe other men will come out and say they are among others being abused by other women. [Hers and her children’s behaviour] made it clear that I had no say in the house and that they didn’t respect me. Emotionally and mentally it was not good, and if I was violent a lot of things could have happened," he said.





He was fortunate to have been accommodated by a family for the last three years, but he was given notice to leave in September.





Now he says he is at the point of suicide as his attempts to get work have failed because he is retired and he is not financially able to go from place to place and search for employment.





"When you hear someone commit suicide, don’t say anything ,and I am talking without water in my mouth. My shame is gone because you don’t know what they’re going through. It has come to a point where I can’t find food to eat and I don’t know where next to rest my head," he said.





He is also appealing to anyone who can help to do so as he would be grateful.





"If it’s even a board and zinc structure where I can go in front way and come out back way. Just somewhere to live," he said.





A shop owner in the district corroborated his account of things.





"Him situation stay bad, bad. It flat, low. As we would say, nothing nah gwaan. Is God alone why him no gone crazy yet. Trust me, he needs the help," she said.