Treat your partner well or someone else will do it for you

By Wambui Oyulu

HAVE you watched the movie, Unfaithful, by Richard Gere and Diane Lane? Gere was a successful lawyer who was too busy to have time for his wife, so someone else did. Maybe you should watch it first if you have not, before you read this story.

They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I say, the way to a woman’s heart is through the heart itself.
Phoebe was married to Peter for 17 years; Peter was a successful employee at a prestigious bank and was rising up the ranks very fast.

They had four children and took them to high class private schools. The family lived in a furnished four-bedroom house in a posh area and the parents drove sleek cars.

Phoebe had it all, or so we thought. But she got involved with someone else and even got pregnant with his child. The two had been seeing each other for almost 10 years. Interestingly he, too, was married and had children. They both had the same excuse: “They were not getting enough” from their marriages.

In the African setting, no one understood Phoebe; not even her closest family. She had a promising career, lovely home and a husband who would be home by 6:00pm everyday; what else would a woman ask for?

However, she opened up to one of her closest nieces. “Your uncle is a nice man, but things were not going on well in the bedroom. I needed attention in that area, but your uncle felt that material things would make me happier.

I tried it all, lingerie, books, initiating sex and getting adult movies that we watched in the bedroom, but it all did not work. He could not perform. For him, sex was for procreation, but I felt unwanted and used.”

Phoebe says Peter used to make all the decisions, even critical ones like buying property, and she always got to know when the deal was sealed.

On the other side, Vincent (her lover) had a nagging wife who did not want to participate in the family business he had worked so hard for. “After all, he is the man of the house,” she argued.

Vincent felt used. He also thought his wife had become lazy and never wanted to go out with him to have fun. So when he met Phoebe, who had a void that needed to be filled, they got things rolling.

Phoebe was a business adviser at the bank where Vincent banked and he always liked the advice she gave him. So one day, they went on a coffee date and one thing led to the other.

They both abandoned their spouses and started living together. They even divorced their partners. “People may never understand me; you would have to be in my shoes to understand the situation,” Phoebe said. “I was being socially right for a long time, but I couldn’t carry on like this.”

Dr. Otanga Rusoke, a sociologist and lecturer at Kampala International University, says: “By the time a woman decides to cheat on the husband, she has thought about it for long and maybe even thought of the repercussions, should things blow in her face.”

Rusoke says, scientifically, both men and women are naturally polygamous and marriage tends to restrain one from experimenting with various partners, but sometimes the urge becomes too much to bear, especially when sex becomes boring in marriage.

According to Rev. Arthur Magezi, a sex counsellor: “Sex in marriage is special and unfaithfulness from either party belongs to Satan’s kingdom.” However, he blames men for not satisfying their women and using them as instruments.

“The African culture is very unfair to women. For example, sengas (paternal aunts) teach a woman how to satisfy a man men in bed and she can pretend to be aroused, yet African men are not taught how to satisfy their women.”

Magezi calls upon pastors who counsel couples to talk about sex in depth, since women are entitled to satisfaction. If you do not satisfy your wife, she could fall for a man who will.

“With women, sex begins in the mind, so it takes time for a woman to get aroused; whereas a man can get aroused in seconds. Women also need to feel loved and secure,” he adds.

Magezi urges men to learn to draw the line when it comes to home and work. “Most men go home too fatigued to perform, after having taken one for the road. Alcohol and unfitness can cause a man not to perform, yet this really kills a woman’s morale,” Magezi says.

Annette Kirabira, a counselling psychologist, says there should be no excuse for cheating. “Women love to talk, so when there is no one to talk to in their homes, and someone to give them attention, they are likely to cheat,” he explains.

Kirabira says women like to feel loved all the time, so giving a woman quality time is essential. “Sometimes a woman may cheat for financial reasons; if the man is not supportive enough or has stopped being supportive.

But the main reasons are usually due to lack of emotional intimacy and poor communication.”
So when the passion in the bedroom, the flowers, the chocolates and the outings stop (simply because you feel that you have now “put her in place”), think again!

Other men will see her beauty and make passes at her, and believe me, all women love attention — married or not. Women may not entertain it to the full haul, but they enjoy attention, especially when they are not getting it from the right person.

Women are likely to cheat with their ex-lovers and workmates, though there are cases of fresh flings. “It is hard to detect a woman who is cheating because women have proved to be better when it comes to covering their tracks; for example, deleting ‘dangerous’ text messages as soon as they read them, unlike men who keep the messages.

A woman who is cheating is most likely to keep it to herself, thus keeping the secret affair going on for long,” Rusoke concludes.