He did not marry the maid

Last time I wrote an article on the extent at which people are abusing the bride price so that they can acquire wealth using their female children which later results in their children being abused in their marriages.

However most man that I talked to regret ever paying the bride price in the first place not because it was expensive.

They say this regret is due to the fact that their wives are not behaving in a manner which is expected of them once they get a maid.

This prompted me to write on this issue.

It is very normal for a woman to get a maid or a house keeper as is the case with many working women who are forced by their busy schedules to hire a maid to look after the house and the kids when the woman is at work.

Most husbands do not have a challenge with their wives hiring a maid.

Infact some suggest their wives look for maids so that the wife gets time to rest.

However it gets problematic when wives end up abusing this privilege.

Honestly ladies if you were a man, would you like it when your wife makes the maid to do everything

The maid made to wash everyone’s clothes and is also given dirty sheets to wash, socks and underwear. Men don’t like it if their undergarments are washed by someone other than their wives. If the maid can wash his socks, then what is the wife’s duty?

Most women who do this don’t go to work which makes one to wonder what they spend the whole day doing as they heavily neglect their wife duties for their maids.

Most of the man that I talked to regarding this subject showed dissatisfaction with the way their wives behave once they get a maid.

Some opened up and said they are having intimate relationships with the maids and how they wish they were single again because they can’t wait to marry their maids who are showing more dedication to them other than their lawfully married wives.

These days they do everthing

Honestly how can we women blame our husbands for having these intimate relationships with maids after exposing their underwear to the maid?

These days they do everthing 

60 percent of the men that interviewed said there is nothing they hate the most like their lazy wives who are even failing to clean  their bedrooms and make up the bed

Deciet

Everyone has a past and we should not condemn them because they have one.

Very few people refuse to get married to someone who has a dark past if they love that person.

This means that it is imperative to tell the person intending to marry you everything that they need to know about you so that they marry you knowing

However this is not the case with some ladies these days that hide some dark aspects about their lives which end up haunting their marriages in the future as we shall see in the story below.

Real life story

Roy and Cleopatra were married for 10 years and were blessed with two kids. In all their years of marriage Cleopatra and her parents never told Roy that she had a child before she wrote her ordinary level. This was because she got married at her late thirties and they did not want anything to scare the only man who was willing to marry their daughter.

Rather they made the child to go and stat with Cleopatra’s maternal grandmother in Matopo as the child’s father had declined paternity on the basis that he was not the only man in Cleopatra’s life by the time she got pregnant.

Little did they know that the truth would always come out and would destroy everything that they tried to protect as Roy was severely disappointed when she got the news that his wife of 10 years had kept such a secret from him all these years.

Perhaps if Cleopatra and her family had not been deceitful in the first place, her marriage would not have collapsed.

Just like women they cry after a dissapointment

How it happened

Roy was at home with his wife when a man that they both did not know knocked and asked to speak to them.

The stranger said that he had been sent by the family of one John that Cleopatra had a child with and they wanted to be allowed to take care of their child through paying school fees and being given access to their child.

Cleopatra started crying and failing claiming that they might have been some misunderstanding somewhere but it was too late because Roy asked her to pack her bags and go.

When I asked Roy why he could not forgive her, he responded by saying

“There is nothing more painful to a man than discovering that he married a decieptfull woman .

Staying with a radio

 

being a radio scares the man away

I remember very well when I was staying in the rural areas that our radio which was the only source of entertainment was always unless when someone decided to switch it off.

They were days when as children we forgot to switch it off and would wake in the morning and discover that the batteries would have gone flat because the radio would have been playing the whole night.

Some people cannot sleep if a radio is playing the whole night

How about a man who stays with a radio which only switches of whenever the batteries are off because they need a recharge.

Iam not referring to the real radio

To me a talkative wife is not different from a radio.

Imagine feeling scared to go home and getting angry whenever it’s time to dismiss from work because you know that you will not have a peace of mind because of your wife who is always complaining and is unable to shut her mouth.

I know some are asking themselves why one would have married that kind of a woman in the first place but let’s not forget that people pretend whenever they are in need of something.

There are a lot of people who pretended to be something they are not so that they could get something.

This means that a man can marry a woman thinking that she is quiete and cannot hurt a fly only to discover that he married a disco machine which makes the loudest noise.

Imagine , some wives just complain to their husbands about things which are not even worth complaining

Typical of a radio, they don’t shut up unless you slap them or unless you threaten to divorce them.

Imagine someone complaining because as a man you lost your job.

Did you ask for it in the first place?

No

Then why give a man a sleepless night because they lost their jobs.

Some men are now popping high blood pressure pills because they married radio wives who complain and yell at everything with all their power regardless of how small it is.

As women we normally condemn men who sleep out and those who delay going home but have we ever asked ourselves why such men do what they do.

Of course we don’t
Bible verses support that nagging and complaining wives are not good.read more

They will be running away from the radios that they would have married which would be giving them a heart attack
Lets meet again

He struggles to put food on the table

Asibhadaleni makhiwa literally translated (let’s pay my customers) is what the conductor said.

As usual we passed our five rand coins forward.

Men at work

Surprisingly the conductor kept on asking for his money.

Some thought he had miscalculated whereas some passengers just laughed thinking that he had gone crazy.

But he continued asking for his money .

He got very angry and told the driver that four people had not paid as his money had a$2 shortfall.

What surprised me is that every one kept looking at the back

Did it mean that all the people from the back seat had not paid their kombi fare?

I would have understood if only one person had not paid but four people.

I could smell a rat .

There was a motive behind every one from the same seat not paying.

Suddenly the driver stopped the car and asked with an annoyed voice for money from the back seat.

Asidlali lapha makhiwa, sisemsebenzini asilandanga kuzodlala la.Imuli zethu ziphila ngemali yonale eliyala layo(we are not playing here, can we have our money.)

One of the four men from the back seat replied in a manner which was communicating to the driver that he was inferior and said:

“We don’t pay in this kombi, it belongs to our relative, oh! by the way you are the new driver who took over from that one who was fired last week”.

“I don’t care who you are and where you come from; you have to pay”, replied the driver.

Suddenly a fist fight erupted

I don’t know how the kombi owner got to know about the fight

I just heard the driver saying yes sir over phone and he later apologized to the four men at the back seat who responded by smiling

I then wondered how the driver and the conductor survive with their families.

This incident made me to wonder where they get the money to support their families if they have a gazzeted amount that they should give their employees by the end of the day which in most cases is more than $US 50 whereas these days most people are unemployed which has resulted in a few people going to town.

Yet as women we never stop demanding even when we know that our husbands’ jobs are not paying.

We don’t care and simply opt for fancy expensive things other than affordable ones.

Men suffer

How does it feel?

From a heavily drunk man who used to go to church with his wife but changed his ways when his first son was forced to runaway to South Africa after being mistreated by his step mother who is the drunkard’s wife

He told her that has a son 13 year old son with another woman before their marriage and she smiled and told him that everything is okay.

She said his child was as good as hers.

She beamed and promised to be a good mother to his son.

He was impressed and wondered what he had done to have a good woman like that as his woman.

She would make it a point that she asked about the child whenever they met

They would talk with the child over the phone for a couple of minutes before sending him money via ecocash so that he could buy whatever he wanted to buy.

What more could he hope for….

He had found a woman who would take good care of his thirteen year old son who was a product of his first failed marriage.

Without any second thoughts he married her and took his son to stay with them so that he could go to a good school.

Soon everything took a different turn; it started with her ensuring that his son was busy with household chores which included washing dishes and cleaning his bedroom.

Things continued taking a turn as his son was now cleaning the whole house, washing their clothes and cooking whenever his father went to work.

Failure to oblige resulted in him not given food

Neighbors tried to talk to him and he thought they were jealous as he had not married their daughters.

He ignored everything the neighbors said and listened to everything his wife said.

His son started to lose weight but he never noticed as he was blinded by the love he had for his wife which made him to be under the impression that everything was under control whereas nothing was under control at all.

His eyes were opened when he was welcomed by the news that his son had been missing for two days when he got home after his field visits to Tsholotsho.

A police report was made but his son has never been seen ever since

Six years have elapsed.

His son’s friends say he said he was running away to South Africa because of his step mother who was maltreating him.

Yes he now has other sons from his current marriage but at the expense of losing one.

Why did she agree in the first place to something that she knew she would not manage?

Relatives part two

I don’t understand and I don’t think I will understand soon.

The relatives who visit without the men’s knowledge issue captivated me to go out and look for more men so that I could find out whether the issue is a challenge to most men and how they try to cope up with it if it is indeed a challenge.

Little did I know that I would come across someone called Cebo, a recently married man who would tell me an interesting story that I decided to share with you today.

Cebo has been married for two years and has a one year old son. When his wife gave birth he suggested that she could go to her parents as per custom of which his wife refused and suggested that her mother would come and help her to adjust into mother hood instead of her going to the village.

I understand her reason and support it fully

Who goes to the village after giving birth and spend close to two months

It was possible several years  ago but these days with the rate of infidelity in marriages…..go for two weeks and you will find him already having a girl friend (its my opinion).

According to Cebo his mother in law has not gone back to the village ever since that time. Every month she asks for money to buy those at her homestead groceries instead of going back.

I wonder whether she is still helping her daughter to adjust into mother hood

Who knows?

This made me to put myself in Cebo’s shoes and wonder how it feels to spend the honeymoon phase of your marriage with your mother in law.

Remember that these people have not been married for even five years yet the mother in law is now camping at her newly married daughter’s place without any remorse or regret.

Those who are fully vexed with the Ndebele culture know and understand the nature of the relationship between a mother in law and her son in law. Though some of the norms have been abolished in some families, there are some families who still embrace them and ensure that a son in law and his mother in law don’t cross the boundaries .For example these two individuals are not expected to see each other eating as it is a taboo and the son in law cannot put on a short in front of his mother in law.

Since Cebo and his wife are renting a two roomed house in Pumula, his plate is always left at the kitchen which has turned to his dining room while his mother in law will be eating with her daughter in the sitting room watching  television.

“I can’t remember the last time I watched television in my own house since iam not comfortable to seat in the sitting room with my mother in law.

“If there is a football match, I have to go to a sports bar in town to watch the match …”

"I can’t chase away my wife’s mother because she is my mother too."

Cebo is one of the men who are inconvenienced by their wives’ relatives and they suffer the impact in silence.

Remember…..its what they meet as men once they get married that iam concerned with…

I did: There comes the relatives

I did: There comes the relatives: Forgive me for poking my nose on other people’s business but with this one I had to do so I stood outside the gate and list...

There comes the relatives

Forgive me for poking my nose on other people’s business but with this one I had to do so

I stood outside the gate and listened

I listened so that I could get a deep insight on what men meet when they do tie the knot.

I opened my ears wide when my neighbors who have been married for close to ten years yesterday had a heated argument started as a minor misunderstanding which ended up attracting the whole neighborhood including me as they yelled on top of their voices and exchanged sharp words 

with extra mouths

  My ears could not contend some of the words as they were sharper than a double edged sword.

If only other neighbors had not intervened we could be talking of something different

I was shocked when I later asked the then sobbing woman regarding to what had caused that serious mis understanding.

She gave me a reply which made me to think about something which had never crossed my mind until yesterday.

“I told her that my young sister is coming to spend the August school holiday with us and he said I should have discussed it with him first before coming up with a decision first...”,she said

“This is my blood sister that we are talking about……I don’t understand …what difference does it make…., she added sobbing even more which made me to leave her as iam not good at comforting a crying person (believe me)

This then tempted me to find out more and since my male neighbor was already fuming and ready to exchange blows with anyone who tried to intervene in his family affairs, I then decided to interview some of my married male neighbors so that I could get to understand how men feel when their wives relatives start trooping their houses.

Fending for more mouths

I got to understand a few issues that I would like to share with you today which are as follows:

• Men don’t feel free to do as they please in their houses once we bring our relatives.
• No matter how angry we make them to be, as long as our relatives are around, they bottle everything because they are afraid that our relatives will have a wrong impression about them once an argument erupts their presence.
• Most men are strained and are already finding it hard to support their families hence an additional mouth means more pressure and more expenses for them.
• As women we don’t like it when our husband’s relatives visit us such that it is only our relatives who swam our homes while we fume overnight and not give our husbands peace whenever our mother in laws visit.
• Men discuss with us whenever their relatives are planning to visit while we do the opposite when it comes to our relatives.
• When our relatives are around, we take an advantage and disrespect our husbands knowing that they can’t do anything as long as our relatives are around.
• Women become wasteful as a way of trying to please their relatives whenever they are around.

Really…this is food for thought

So women …. Always remember this when you plan to invite your mother for the holiday instead of his mother…..remember this is an opinion

Let’s meet again…

The bride price

They say lobola brings families together but now

It all started when he said I love you and you did not deny that love. In fact you embraced it and highly treasured it….

Then came……the bride price (roora/amalobolo) for him to start a family with his woman. Iam not saying as women we should be taken for free as this would attribute to violence and abuse.

As a woman my parents also received their part of the bride price when I got married to my husband.

Iam not against the paying of bride price but iam against its abuse which leads to a man regretting ever marrying you in the first place.

He started by prophesying his love for you and is now getting married to you out of all the ladies in the world.

By the way, let’s have it in our minds that he could have married someone else who is prettier and  more reserved than you are….but he chose you.

Why then do we (women) agree with our parents when they change the bride price from its cultural use of bringing families close together to a symbol of accumulating wealth.

Long ago even the poorest  man could easily marry but these days, he can only do that if he opts for cohabitation which is now the most preferable way.

By the way iam not against cohabitation because people are free to get married anyhow as long as they will be happy in the long run.

Iam  only against it if it’s forced cohabitation especially in our Zimbabwean culture.

Imagine if you were a man and you are asked to pay a bride price which is comprised of fifteen cows, ten goats and almost ten thousand dollars because you told someone that you love her and she also felt the same way.

Let’s be honest……it’s really painful because your aim as a man is to start a family not to become an entrepreneur  (making a wife investment).

If  you support your parents charging a bride price of this nature then I guess you will be happy when after marriage you start sleeping on an empty stomach.

In fact it does not stop there……there comes a fancy wedding which is mostly funded by the man after paying an abnormal bride price.

 Should he steal so that he can make you happy?

Don’t get me wrong but iam just trying to put myself in a man’s shoes and imagine how I would feel if the same thing happens to me because I did say I love someone.

Trust me, iam not saying man should not pay bride price …..But what iam advocating for is a reasonable bride price which does not scare away the men or our potential husbands.

I salute and respect those who came up with the idea of paying bride price but I hate those who use the bride price as an excuse to get rich through their son in laws. 

If you want to get rich …work hard…….don’t use someone else’s son as a tool to get what you never worked for in life.

Giving the man a thought……..until tomorrow 

Betrayed

Happy moments for Mhere

I was shocked when I read in the newspapers that Mathius Mhere’s wife of six years was cheating him with his best friend Gift.

I would have been less shocked if she was cheating with any other man other than her husband’s best friend. Yes cheating is bad and is something that should not be tolerated.

Imagine how it feels when you are cheated with your best friend that you have helped several times to launch and have a stable music career If she is meant to be promiscuous couldn’t she have found any other man?

I can’t imagine how it feels when a man is cheated by the two closest people that he has; a wife that he has spent almost a decade with and a friend that he has spent his entire life with.

It’s heartbreaking when it’s with a best friend because a best friend is someone that you normally share all your woes worries and sad moments with because they are more than a relative to you.

The other reason why it’s difficult for a man to forgive a cheating wife lies on children. As a man being cheated makes you to start wondering whether it was her first time to cheat, this results in a man losing love in his children he will be wondering whether the children that he has with his wife are his .biological children.

This is because not catching her cheating all these years does not prove that it’s her first time to do that, maybe she has been cheating several years and has never been caught before.