Does marriage change most men for the worst?

Despite the perception created by men that women change after marriage and no longer make an effort to look sexy, that they grow fat and dress sloppily for bed, men are not any better.

Reportedly, marriage changes most men for the worst; some, especially those who are physically fit grow potbellies (which impacts negatively on how they handle their bedroom activities), others lose their sense of fashion by resorting to shorts and promotional t-shirts as their weekend wear.

Others become so anti-social that they even shun their parents, relatives, and best friends.
It could be the effect of a wife or it could be that the man is just undergoing a phase of personal change. In fact, women are often the first ones to see the changes in a man after they get married.  For most women, the man they marry often transforms into an individual they hardly recognise.

“In 2004, I met my husband.  We met at a marketing and sales event.  We dated for a year and one month before getting married. He was like most decent men; not so much into alcohol, not so much into women and not so much into church,” says Regina Mwai, a single mother of one.

She says that before they got married, her boyfriend had been caring and loving.  That he was understanding and never did anything strange. But once they tied the knot, he became aggressive, almost harsh.  He would talk down to her and even shout at her once in a while.

 Turned violent
The Nairobi based nurse explains: “I thought he was just adjusting to being married or something. But things just got worse. He stopped consulting me on anything, and when I questioned what he did - something he didn’t have a problem before we got married - he would turn the heat on me and tell me it is none of my business.”

Then one day, slightly more than a year into marriage, he hit her.  A slap on the cheek. Because she asked where he had been for a good part of the night.  He didn’t apologise, or act remorseful.  He soon forgot it, but she didn’t.
“Hitting me was the reason I left him.  The good thing is that we had no children together. I could not stay with a man who hit me. You never can tell what he will do next,” she says.

Did she not see that during the one year of courtship?Shaking her head vigorously, she says, “No. He was the kind of man any woman would want to settle down with. Everything was in place and there was nothing, not even one thing that would have raised a red flag.”

The loving and caring man who disappears after marriage is one man that many women are familiar with. The one who turns violent is normally an extreme case. Most men just stop taking their wives out, or buying them gifts, or honoring anniversaries.  The women also say that some men stop making the effort to make sex fun. They just do it to get done with it.  Other avoid being seen with their women in public, something that before marriage, they didn’t mind.

 Failed bromance