40 is a critical peak, either you take off or it is a free fall

The forties are a very interesting phase in life.

Well, let’s start by saying that women largely marry for companionship and security while men primarily marry for sex and the physical allure of the woman they wish to make exclusively theirs. This explains why many men can stay in a childless marriage until they get to 40 and really panic. In the beginning they are very reassuring and unfaltering in their promise to be patient and stand by their spouses.

For them, children are a byproduct of having a live-in sex partner in the form of a wife but the bundles of joy are not what really inspires them in the beginning. On the other hand, we have a constant alarm bell going off in our system repeatedly from the time we are 20. We two sexes therefore somehow operate in a conflicting trend from the very onset. When such men cross the fortieth mark, a divorce is likely to happen because they will suddenly want children from whichever woman – the nanny, a shemeji, the neighbour’s wife, an ex-girlfriend or even the mad woman in the local market.

In early life, for most women, family offers financial security under the wings of a man who is tried, tested and more established than her. You see, women are very careful in mate selection, while the males are controlled by the physical appeal of a woman. If you look at it critically, we are the more intelligent ones that approach pair bonding from appoint of reason and practical evaluation.

A young woman would rather marry an older man who is less physically appealing to the eye but provides stability in terms of finances and genes than a hot broke bloke. Now you understand the dynamics of how the ugliest man can afford to take home the prettiest lass to mother his unsightly children, leaving observers in shock. In short, a man is as good as his money. Scholars call it the burden of performance. They have a duty to provide and protect the woman and her generations. This is a calculation that women rarely failed in before this obsessive emotion called love became viral.

In the past, teachers married their former students, doctors established in their practice married younger nurses who interned under their supervision, some school head masters married teachers who served under their tutelage and rule, etcetera. In following this trend, two parameters stood constant; one is the fact that the man was a lot older than the woman and as such commanded some form of feathery respect from his younger mate, making arguments and disrespect a lesser occurrence in marriages back then.

Two, the men were more secure financially having worked longer and more experienced in life. In most cases, in fact, women never went to school and as such were stay-at-home wives whose only source of livelihood and direction was the husband. Marriages stayed grounded on those two premises.

Our generation sits at cross roads, especially premised on education and equal opportunity for all. The other factor that has largely affected the dynamics of marriage is the establishment of monogamy. No woman wants to share a man with another woman because it is the key measure of a woman’s liberal standards. In the quest for monogamy, we have today broken away from the old foundations that provenly worked for our mothers and their mothers.

Now we risk the marriage establishment by marrying men our age or younger than us with nothing but potential and no proven record of wealth or ability to secure a woman and her progeny. It is the biggest gamble of our generation that Betika should consider investing in. More often than not the arrangements flop after some period of endurance.

Being a fair play ground, with some advantage leaning to the women woo unto the marriage where the women stabilises faster in terms of job security, growth and finances, the descendant of Adam will be sent packing on whatever ground. Because women largely marry for security, it naturally negates the logic to keep a man who doesn’t not provide that element. Such a man becomes less attractive and flat out less stimulating as a sexual partner because our juices have brains that only respond to the best males.

Understandably, 40 is a critical peak, where one is fully equipped to take off to greater heights or primed for a free fall if not equipped with the necessary skill to compete at the highest level in the area of choice. When agemates marry, the men tend to regress while focusing more on the emotional satisfaction of being a great husband and great dad, forfeiting their ambitions. Women, being mothers and considered great wives naturally tend to focus more on their growth, taking minimal but calculated risks compared to the men eager to please.

As the men risk early in life by stealing or resigning from work to try out stuff that would make them more available for the family, they should be warned that forties can be very unforgiving if it finds them unprepared.

At this point, we will have finished mothering and are rediscovered the lost sexual groove and appeal. We will be keener to make up for the lost years and certainly unexcited about staying tied down to a man fumbling with his main art of provision.