When your wife sleeps with the boss

 The woman was not only cheating on him, but using unprintable words to describe him to her lover

In hindsight, my friend should have seen the signs. The wife became super rude, disrespectful, always travelling and had lots of money whose source could not be accounted for. And then, like all cheating partners are wont to do, she became careless.

She had become so secretive with her phone, guarding it more than superpowers hide their nuclear codes. My friend did what any insecure man would do, used a software to intercept messages and calls on his wife's phone.

When you go looking for trouble, trouble is what you'll get. The woman was not only cheating on him, but using unprintable words to describe him to her lover.

After a little digging, it turned out that the lover was her boss. A boss who heads a department that decides who travels where, when and what amount of per diem you receive. His positive appraisal is all you need for a promotion; a salary raise and everything in between that corporate gods can decide.

My friend has since separated with the wife and but has taken it in his stride. I felt his pain as he narrated the story to us.

We have lost women to other men before. But losing a woman to a man who is more monied, more powerful and who scores better than you in every aspect, can make a man suicidal. It is one of the most unfair things in the world. It makes you feel as useless as a fart in a space suit!

Women, like fish, like shiny things, so the proverb goes. And randy bosses have all the carrots and sticks in the world to dangle to their juniors. A randy boss is a destructive force at the workplace. If he's short, it can be even worse, because they tend to sleep around to boost their ego.

The nature of the workplace predisposes our spouses to continued exposure to men of all walks of life. There are fisis everywhere. I have met a certain class of men who derive pleasure in bedding married women. Some of them happen to wield power they always lord over their juniors.

Some women, when approached by their bosses have the discipline to ward off the unwarranted attention or advances.

For some, more so the more ambitious and materialistic ones, when hit on by the boss, they see a promotion, a salary raise and other perks that male bosses dispense with when they have an erection. Women can be wily. For some women, it is the sheer thrill of power.

One of the most intelligent women I have ever come across, a journalist with global repute, once told me she can cheat on her man with a powerful man like Obama. She confessed that most women like powerful men.

That was pretty obvious. But what caught me off guard was that this very woman at times has claimed to be a feminist who does not hold brief for men. I was disgusted, but that is the nature of women.

I study them anytime I'm in the environment that has richer and powerful men, and I'm always appalled. Cabbages like me, as well as short, poor men are rarely given audience.

That is why most men should be wary of the kind of bosses their wives have. While at it, they should study their wives and see how they change in the course of their working lives. Most wives do well, or used to do well, but increasingly, many are tripping, lured by cheap thrills.

The problem with women is that they can be painfully myopic in their choices. Whereas I know many men who have forgiven their cheating wives, things never revert to normal once a woman has been caught cheating. It soils their reputation forever. They can only be remembered as the women who cheated on their husbands. But do millennial wives even care about getting caught anymore?

I urge men of my generation to be open-minded to the fact that their wives may cheat on them at some point. Plan on how to deal with such an eventuality. It is a reality.

@nyanchwani

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