By SONI KANAKE
Is it in a man’s genetic make-up to cheat or has society given men a green light to stray? Are our men wholly to blame or is it just an unending battle of the sexes? Woman’s Instinct sought to find out what reasons men have for philandering.
Kim, 36, did not hide the fact that his wife "pushed" him to cheat. He says that every time he is not home, his wife sends insulting text messages the entire evening.
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So what caused his relationship to degenerate to this level? "My wife is not the woman I met and fell in love with in college. I have a different woman in the house," Kim swears, saying that his wife underwent a personality transplant.
First, he says, she got into a comfort zone after marriage and slipped into complacency. Then she became a control freak. There are rules for everything and if something doesn’t go her way, I won’t hear the end of it.
Says he: "She now thinks she owns me and has assumed a mother’s role instead of a lover’s. She disapproves of my friends and accuses me of being up to mischief always."
Kim says his wife is just plain annoying, with questions like, "Who are you with?" or statements like, "I know what you are doing". He further says that while they were courting she never complained when he took her out but today any leisure activities are considered a waste of money and he has to endure incessant tongue-lashing.
Further, Kim feels taken for granted; his kind gestures go unappreciated and all she does is grumble. He wants to be her hero but she seems to have perfected the art of annoying him. She magnifies every wrong thing he does, especially the trivial.
As if that is not enough, she is no longer as spontaneous as she was before. Today, she demonises everything he wants to try out. Sex is strictly confined to the four walls of the bedroom unlike before when they had it anywhere.
He complains further: "Worst of all, she ensures that the kids still sleep in our bedroom. I feel like I’m in a children’s home!"
Kim says that he no longer wears his wedding band. "My wife says that wearing it sets me up for home wreckers. When I remove it, I am accused of hiding my status!" Caught in this catch 22 situation, Kim is forced to stay without his ring.
Ever in church
So why doesn’t he try and salvage what is left of his marriage? He says there is no point since his wife does not give him an ear but is always willing to give an earful.
Otieno, 35, has his own share of drama at home. After marriage his wife ‘arrived’. She is either engaged in church related activities or out with her chama friends.
Otieno feels she gets satisfaction from these places and has subsequently locked him out of her life. He feels substituted and longs for company, though not necessarily female company.
However, he says that hanging out more often in the bar with his friends will result into him meeting girls.
Otieno has the audacity to say that that dogging gives a ‘stabilising effect to the marriage as one gets what he is missing at home’. He also feels that after their two children were born, his wife no longer had time for him.
Circumcised
He advises: "Women should learn to balance between their husbands and children."
Otieno, whose wife is circumcised, also advises women to stop the culture of female genital mutilation as it kills women’s libido and a man is forced to go look for a more sexually receptive woman.
He says that today women out there are willing partners in crime, especially if they get financial favours in return. He recommends that wives pay more attention to their men’s needs, and that men keep the right company, because this and the places a man frequents can also influence him into cheating.
Mutiso, 34, is a staunch Christian and a counselor. He believes that the way a woman treats a man determines the kind of response she will get from him. Mutiso is however quick to note that men expect heaven from their wives when they only deliver hell.
"It is not realistic to expect that a woman will give you a warm reception when you get home in the wee hours of the night without as much as an explanation," he warns.
He has nothing but praise for his wife.
Says he: "When I get home, I always find Jane waiting for me. She hugs and kisses me and asks me how my day was. Of course there’s a ready meal and a warm shower, which we take together."
Mutiso bets that if she ignored or quarreled him when he came home late, he would feel ‘justified’ to seek solace elsewhere. He also cited denial of sex as another reason men stray.
He says: "Rejection kills a man’s ego. Besides, where does she expect him to go to when denied sex?" He encourages women to be ‘cheerful givers’, adding that maintaining a good attitude is very important.
When a man shouts at a woman and she remains calm, he ends up seeing reason. A bitchy attitude turns men off and leads them away. Mutiso feels that women hold the key to happy marriages and can either make or break it.
He sites nagging women as the number one cause of infidelity in men. "At the end of the day, all a man wants is to relax and reflect."
He wishes women would understand this instead of bombarding men with questions and problems when they least feel like talking.
"Unfortunately, when a man doesn’t respond, the woman takes offence and a fight ensues. Other women text endlessly and when one doesn’t respond, the texts get abusive and it becomes a blame game. with ‘you never answer my texts,’ he says.
For a relationship to be foolproof, a couple should be intellectually, spiritually and physically in sync.
It is not in every man’s nature to cheat, but a woman can pull the deadly triggers. Do not complain too much about trivial things. Just talk to him and not at him because he is not a little child.
Quarrelling him makes him defensive and he will defy you just to irritate you. Correcting him politely without pressurising him eventually causes him to change. Manipulative controlling women are another turn off for men.
