Protect your romantic relationship, don’t brag about your good man

A fortnight ago, the world woke up to the news that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would be divorcing his wife. If the divorce goes through, it will end up being the most costly divorce since Jeff is one of the richest men in the world. The reasons for the divorce is a lady by the name of Laura Sanchez, who also happens to be a TV anchor, married, and Jeff’s neighbour, making the whole story even more scandalous.

The huge divorce settlement aside, there is really nothing new about this turn of events - men have been leaving their wives for newer models who come in the form of nannies, secretaries, bestmaids etc. The interesting bit of news for media are reports giving details of some rather racy text message exchanges between Jeff and Ms Laura.

I always considered Jeff to be a stiff and boring geek, but after reading some of the messages, I have developed a new found respect for him - the man’s got game. One of the texts reads: “I am so full of love for you. My heart is growing just so it can have room for you. It is bigger than it has ever been and still swelling. … Your energy and ideas and competence and spirit turn me on. You make me better. You’re meant for me. I know it more clearly than I have ever known anything.”

His texts were a fusion between Shakespeare and Songs of Solomon and no one woman can resist a man who waxes such poetry. However, it turns out that these messages that were meant to be private conversations found their way to the media through Laura’s friend. It would appear that Laura had been sharing intimate details about her affair with her friend. This friend spotted a chance to make cash and leaked the texts to the media.  Rumour has it that Jeff has been very embarrassed by this leakage and I suspect that his ardour might wane in the coming days. If it does, then Laura becomes the ultimate loser, losing the man and the perks that come with dating or being married to one of the world’s richest men.

These developments had me thinking about how women often sabotage potentially good or beneficial relationshipsthrough their need to tattle. I do not know what genetic wiring creates in us a hard to ignore compulsion to share and spill juicy details most of which end up coming back to bite us in the behind.

For women, bragging about being in a relationship (especially with a man of power and/or means) confers status and gives one bragging rights. Just to be clear, there is nothing to bragabout being in relationship with an average, dull or broke man. There is an unspoken understanding that dating a ‘serious’ man means that the said women has a serious value proposition to offer.

However, this bragging also stokes out the jealousy, judgemental side of other women. Once a woman brags to other women, it becomes just a matter of time before the women spill the beans to other women. The intention is usually very clear: to paint the woman in bad light, to sabotage the relationship and in some cases to even grab the man.

So women, if you want to protect your high-value relationship, here are a few rules to live by:

If he is married then do not talk about the relationship: Yes he might be good in bed, you might feel that you are better than his wife but at the end of the day you are a ‘thief’, you are the ‘other woman’ and so will not be receiving any awards for service to humanity. Stay mute especially if the relationshiphas some good material benefits.

Do not share tangible evidence: There is often a need to provide credible evidence to support one’s claims about a relationship. That could be the reason women share photographs, text and WhatsApp messages. Later, friends-turned-foes use this evidence to cause damage by sharing with the wrong parties. The case of Linda Tripp, Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton and the semen-stained blue dress should always serve as a stark reminder of how ugly tattling can get.

Avoid sharing specific benefits and positives: Women get giddy with joy when they talk about how good their man is – especially if he is generous with cash and good in bed. Discussions about positives must be kept on the scanty level and must never include finer details. In a world where positive relationships are rare, sharing such details could lead to hostile takeovers. Keep the goodies to yourself and keep yourmouth shut.

Never trust anyone: For reasons I will never understand, women choose to confide intimate details with interesting characters. Women will decide to share blow by blow accounts of their scandalous love lives with their househelps, hairdressers and even the tea girls in the office. The fact that a person has become so familiar with the contours and curves of your cuticles or has an accurate tally of your hair follicles should not mean that you tell them everything about your lust and love life.

Salon staff often have the demeanour of shrinks but truth of the matter is that they are spies who aid and abet information “leaks”- so the less said about private matters the better. In today’s world where fake news moves at the speed of light, and where people like to get overly critical, it pays to stay mute. Keep your relationships to yourself or else you will lose the relationship.

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