WIFESPEAK: Marriage is the fastest way to lose a man’s affection

Wouldn’t it be such a disappointment to learn that our charming Prince Harry would not stare at Meghan like he did, once she becomes his wife of fifteen years? PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • As I drove through the night’s stillness, I thought about a similar conversation we had earlier on with a female colleague, after watching the Royal Wedding.
  • She had voiced her concern about Kenyan men and their lack of affection.
  • Do you have feedback on this article? Email: [email protected]

Time flies whenever I have a coffee date with my three closest girlfriends.

We have been friends for decades and one of us just came back to the country after several years away. So the coffee date, embellished with the current updates of each other’s lives and the recounting of memories from our girlhood hood years, turned into a dinner date.

Dinner came, then more tea, more water and wine, depending on respective preferences and more stories and before we knew it, it was 10pm. We all turned to our phones. To our surprise, and shock and disappointment, none of us had any message or missed calls from our spouses.

“What happened to the love?” I exclaimed as I tapped my phone, just confirming that it was still working. “In this rainy weather, you would think he would at least call to check that I was okay,” Norah said, sighing, as she rummaged in her handbag for her parking ticket.

She sounded the most disillusioned amongst us. Her youngest child was just two years old and she had not been out of the hours for more than two hours, in the last three years, at least, not at night.

She therefore had expected her husband to check on her after 9pm.

“Maybe we should stay on until they miss us, or until any of them calls,” Betty said, slumping back on her chair.

“Girlfriends, my husband will not call me anytime soon as I know right now he is in slumber land snoring to his heart’s content,” I said, checking my phone once again for that non-existent text.

As I drove through the night’s stillness, I thought about a similar conversation we had earlier on with a female colleague, after watching the Royal Wedding. She had voiced her concern about Kenyan men and their lack of affection.

BEFORE MARRIAGE

“When he is pursuing you for marriage, he is a most loving, affectionate and romantic being," she said, rubbing her marriage band that also hosted her engagement ring.

“But once you are married, he drops all pretence at love and becomes this cold, insensitive, self -absorbed person.” She went on to tell me about the subtle and not so subtle changes that have happened, since the first date, to the current seven years of marriage. It seemed that we were married to the same person, because she was describing the exact metamorphosis I have experienced from hubby. Being “tuned” to being married were completely two different matters.

Being “tuned” left one euphoric. He would remember mundane things I had mentioned two weeks before.

“Did you get your toe nail checked for that discolouration you mentioned?”

Being married is a state of well, survival. You can wake up with a twisted neck, hoarse voice, fever from here to Timbuktu and all he will say is;

“Remember to be on time for Kim’s school play today. Last time you missed his act.”

You might even send him a text during the day.

“Hi. I’m at the hospital. Doctor says I need two hours here for observation.”

He is likely to reply after three hours with;

“Did you make a copy of the post office key? I can’t trace mine.”

According to my colleague, being married was the quickest way to lose a Kenyan man’s affection, but the opposite is the case with a man from say Europe.

“Once a man from the West weds you, you get an upgrade to wife. He can now hold your hand in public, kiss you in public and tell you how much he loves you, without fear of misinterpreting his intentions.”

Wouldn’t it be such a disappointment to learn that our charming Prince Harry would not stare at Meghan like he did, once she becomes his wife of fifteen years?

What happened to those romantic affectionate gestures? What happened to time investment, even in intimacy?  In the early years, it was like a three course meal, deliberately savoured. After the sixth year of marriage, it becomes a fast food matter.

Is this only a Kenyan phenomenon? That once a girlfriend becomes a wife, she loses value, gets downgraded on the scale, to a drab wife?

Maybe this would explain why the bible commands the husband to love the wife as he loves his own body. Like, it has to take God’s command to the husband otherwise this would not naturally happen!

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