Bad boy: When wives become themselves, it will come as a surprise

There comes a point in marriage when a wife’s true colours surface. Some say it is when she gives birth to the first child. Or the second child. Some say it is after the third year.

Whatever the time, just know that a few years after your wedding, your wife will grow horns, as the Swahili people say.

It happens either when she has affirmed her place in marriage, or when she has her own money to be independent. Either way, you will know when it happens.

The other day Carol told you there are things she used to do to please you. It came as a surprise. “You think I really love Jim Harrison books?” she asked you in a moment of rare candour.

“Or do you think Rumba is the best music and Oliver Mtukudzi is the best thing that happened to music?”

She went on to say that whatever she did back then was purely to entice you. She must have been a good actor to endure your book collection and your music of choice.

It means women can endure anything.

Women change. Often for worse.

First, when the time comes, you will never find a perfect meal at home, save for the occasional chapati days or when she has visitors.

You will find food cooked with so much contempt and “couldn’t-care-less” attitude. She will not listen to your dictates and she will become extremely impatient.

She will, often and against good judgement, do things the wrong way, just because she doesn’t care about your opinion.

What happens?

You recently asked a female pal and she said, it is the company they keep.

“We women like misleading each other. If your woman is like a flag, she will be blown everywhere,” she told you.

What happens is that tastes, standards and expectations change when women grow older. In their quest to be “full” and fulfilled they undergo certain changes. And such changes include, “can’t pick after a man” and “I will put myself above everybody else” including family.

Which is funny. In her hierarchy of things she cares about, husband ranks somewhere near the toilet brush. It is her career, girls, children, material stuff, everything in-between and husband so far.

Ask any man in his 30s and he will readily admit that the sex life is at best mediocre. The reason most opt for a mpango wa kando.

Wives become rude and ungovernable. True, the job pressures and material aspirations get the better of wives.

You recently asked Carol why she had microwaved your food when she knows you don’t eat microwaved food. The look was so sharp, you recoiled.

“If you want hot food, come home when it is readily made. We are all busy, you know.”

Funny, when you married her, she was busier than she is now, but she was so dutiful.

You need to talk to your elderly aunts and uncles to tell you how to handle the modern wife’s tantrums.

Uncle Jesse and Aunt Rosaria may help.