Caution- readers should take note that Punchaat (talking ill of someone else) is detested in all religions. The only reason the Laudium Sun publishes the Punchaat column is to reflect one of the realities of our society, which is Punchaat, Punchaat and more Punchaat. People need to respect each other’s privacy, be it that of family members or friends. Let us as a society stop the Punchaat so that we the Laudium Sun, need no longer reflect this scourge.
This column is for readers who have issues that are of concern to them. If you have problems with your neighbour, your mother-in-law, your boss or even with the shopkeeper down the road, write to us. This column is for you. If you so desire, you need not give your name or any other personal details. Publication and editing is at the discretion of the editor.
In order to avoid innocent parties being mistakenly identified, the Laudium Sun has, where necessary and appropriate, replaced names or other identifiers in this column with symbols like Mr? or Mrs X or XXX.
I have always been an avid follower of the LS Punchaat column, not because I enjoy reading about other peoples ‘Punchaat’ but because I find this column very informative and insightful. I am drawn to the manner in which so many people have courageously poured their hearts out and revealed their innermost thoughts and troubles on this platform. Our community tends to admire the lifestyles of the wealthy and famous, not realising that everybody’s life is not perfect and that we all have some kinds of problems in our homes, which the many heartbreaking stories coming from affluent homes in this column have attested to. Many people read these stories in the hope of trying to figure out who the stories are relating to, but I am merely interested in learning from other’s problems and hoping to understand the mind set of the aggrieved parties in dealing with their issues. I have noticed a trend in recent times that many females have taken to this column to complain about cheating husbands and husbands who are taking on second wives. Being a male I, in no way, condone any husband’s infidelity but I feel that we are only hearing one side of the story from these wives and I would like to provide a male perspective on this issue from both my own personal experience and the experiences of some of my close male friends.
I am a 49 year old male living in EEE estate with my wife FFF and three kids. FFF and I have been married for 24 years and ours had been a love marriage. Both our families are well known in the LLL community and FFF and I are one of those couples who on the surface seem to ‘have it all’. I care for my wife and I have the utmost respect for her as the mother of my children, but during our 24 year marriage there are certain aspects of her behaviour which have made me resent her and at times made me even question whether I would have been happier had I not married her. When FFF and I married we lived with my parents and two younger sisters in LLL in our large family home. My parents were ecstatic to welcome their new daughter-in-law into their home and they spared no expense in redesigning their house so that my wife and I would have our own private section complete with our own bedroom and bathroom, little kitchenette and TV room. FFF at the time of our engagement was fully aware of our future living arrangements and she seemed very happy and had no objections whatsoever. In fact FFF was a year older than my sister and they were good friends on campus. However, after we were married, I noticed that FFF behaved very differently towards my family in a sort of aloof and distant way. She seemed to dislike the idea of us all having supper together and she would always eat hurriedly and leave the table first. If I spent extra time with my parents as I would normally discuss business with my dad after supper, FFF acted all pulled up with me afterwards as if I had been neglecting her. She never openly complained about me spending time with my family, but it was clear that she did not like the idea. As for my two sisters she barely spoke to them and when they tried to be friendly with her she subtly snubbed them. Nobody in our home complained about FFF as everybody thought she was a new bride having a bit of difficulty adjusting to married life and a new home, coupled with her being in her final year of studies. I, however realised that when we visited my in-laws FFF was her normal bubbly, talkative self. She made every excuse she could for us to spend almost every weekend going out with her parents for suppers on Saturday nights and it was a given that every Sunday we had lunch at my in-laws home. I was more than happy to oblige her since I regarded my in-laws as my own parents and I got along very well with both FFF’s elder brother and younger sister. My in-laws were very outgoing and we would often go together to Sun City for the weekend. Every December we went away overseas with FFF’s family on holiday as per her insistence. As for my own family we could never travel together since my Dad and I had to alternate holidays as one of us would always need to be around to take care of the family business if the other was away. I had absolutely no problem with all the time we spent with my in laws because I knew that it made FFF very happy as she was very close to her sister. Despite me being so in with FFF’s family she made no effort to get along with my folks. Whenever there was a function in my external family she would purposely make us late in attending and she always made excuses for us to leave early. Whenever I looked for FFF among the ladies at any of my family events she would be busily chatting on the phone to either her mother or sister while ignoring everybody else around her. I sometimes caught my parents silently sighing to each other when FFF behaved so rudely, but they never reprimanded her neither did they ever complain to me about her.
In our third year of marriage our household once again had cause to celebrate on the occasion of my sister’s wedding. However, it was during this period that FFF and my mum exchanged words for the first time. During the wedding week our home was filled with visitors and extended family who were coming over for meals and to assist with wedding preparations. FFF was not asked by my mother to come into the kitchen and cook during this time as all the meals were catered for, but the least my mum expected from my wife was to at least give our visitors some ‘face’ instead of her sitting locked up in her room all day. With tensions being high among the womenfolk in the house as is normal during pre wedding functions, my mother ended up reprimanding FFF privately – not harshly but in a no nonsense straightforward manner my mum admonished her for not coming to help see to the guests which FFF took great offence to. My wife complained to me that my mother was unnecessarily picking on her and she further accused my parents of always favouring their daughters over her. I begged her to calm down but she refused to partake in any of the pre wedding activities thereafter and she made an excuse that she was unwell. My parents knew full well what her problem was, but they did not want to create a scene in front of the guests so they just went along with FFF’s feigned illness. A month after my sister’s wedding my Dad sat me down alone and informed me that he had bought FFF and myself a new home close by as he thought it would be better if we lived on our own. I was extremely disheartened since I felt that my parents were throwing me out of the house, but my father explained that to keep the peace among the womenfolk it would be best for my wife to be the queen of her own home. Although he reassured me that these type of petty arguments were a common problem among daughter in-laws and mother-in-laws, I knew that it was FFF’s fault as she was the one who was being unreasonable and difficult even after I had beseeched her to stop being so petty. As per my father’s insistence, I informed FFF that it was my decision that we move out and live on our own. However, this was my biggest mistake by not letting my wife know that it was my parent’s decision to get us our own place so as to keep FFF happy. FFF was over the moon and thanked me profusely for getting her a new house. It was only two years later when we were in our own home that unknown to FFF, I overheard her triumphantly gloating to her sister on the phone that we had moved out from my parents home, because I had taken her side over my own family, since according to my wife, I too could see that my folks were the problem.
The years seemed to fly by as my family grew as we were blessed with our beautiful daughter and two sons. FFF never slacked in taking care of the household, preparing all our meals everyday and being an excellent mother. She also took great care of herself and prided herself on dressing up for me and keeping herself in great shape. FFF was not a spend-thrifty woman who wasted money and neither did she try competing with others in showing off our wealth. Despite these good qualities, my wife constantly held a grudge against my parents and sisters although she pretended to me that she had absolutely no issues with them. FFF brought our kids up to have minimal interaction with my family. I noticed the way my children behaved when anybody from my side of the family asked them a question or tried to talk to them and how they would first look towards FFF before talking to anybody, almost as if they were afraid that their mother would be angry if they communicated with their paternal relatives. It was clear that she was instigating our kids, but she always acted so sweet to my face and insisted that the kids were just being shy when I tried discussing the matter with her. This sneakiness and conniving habits of FFF really upset me. It was of no use that she respected me to my face, but behind my back she harboured ill feelings towards my flesh and blood. Coincidentally a few months back I happened to return home early from work and as I walked into our home, I could hear my mother-in-law and FFF talking in person in the kitchen. They did not hear me coming in and I overheard them gossiping about how my younger sister and her daughter were so ‘unpolished’ whatever that is supposed to mean. I then heard my mother-in-law tell my wife that she was glad that FFF took her advice over the years and kept our kids away from both my sisters which confirmed my suspicions about her distancing our children from my family. I was utterly disgusted that a mother could encourage her daughter to break family ties. I decided it was not even worth it to approach either of them as they would probably just lie and make excuses trying to cover up what I had heard, so instead I have kept this information bottled up since then. It really eats me up because now when I look at FFF, I no longer see a devoted wife but a selfish woman who can not even sacrifice a little bit of her pride to make me happy. Whenever I used to meet my widowed maternal aunt at my parent’s home she would always praise her daughter-in-law who looked after her so well after my uncle’s passing and it made me really envy her son AAA for having such a kind wife. When my cousin AAA who was a very handsome and educated male had married this homely, plain looking girl some 20 years back, many members of our extended family had commented that AAA could have done much better in his choice of a wife. However, today when I see how happy both AAA and his mum are with this girl I realise that it is a wife with a good clean heart and not a woman with just a pretty face who is the most valuable asset to a husband. I have no inclination to cheat on my wife or to admire other women, but I am simply relaying how a man’s heart could be turned away from a wife whom he perceives to not truly respect him. Although FFF may portray herself as a loyal spouse who does so much for me, I can easily argue that if she truly loved me why should it be necessary for me to explain to her how important my parents and siblings are to me and furthermore does she not realise that by ill treating them it feels as if she is stabbing me in the back.
After these incidents with FFF, perchance, the subject of second wives came up among my friends a few weeks back after we had gotten together to watch a soccer match. A close companion RRR whom we presumed to be happily married had recently taken a second wife with the result of his first wife divorcing him. Up until this moment, RRR had never discussed the topic with any of us but on this particular evening, he suddenly informed us as to why he had done so. He explained that everything in his life with his first wife SSS had been one big drama. SSS was beautiful, wealthy and adored by her husband RRR and family but this was never enough for her. She constantly competed with other females, within both her own and his family in terms of her dressing and her wealth. If she attended a wedding and perceived that another woman looked better than her she would fly into a rage. She thrived on compliments from others, but seemed to care nothing about her husband’s opinion. Everything from what she wore to what she ate and where they went to on holiday had to be broadcast by SSS on social media. The only thing that she cared about was the likes she received on these social media platforms. RRR told us that he tried explaining to SSS time and again that he did not like publicising their lives in this manner, but she simply ignored him.
Whatever she did was always to impress her friends and to show off to others. Whenever he returned home from work all SSS could ever speak to him about was herself, her problems and her complaints about other people, never once bothering to ask him about his day. RRR said that eventually he became so tired of her self centred attitude that he ended up being attracted to his second wife whom he had met through a business dealing and he had ended up admiring for her confident personality as she was a woman who did not dictate her life according to other people’s validations. Although his first wife ended up asking for a divorce and their two kids took their mother’s side, RRR claimed to not have any regrets, because he now finally lived a peaceful life with a woman who showed a genuine interest in him and who respected his feelings and their privacy. A few of the friends commented thereafter that they could relate to this problem of competitiveness among females, since their own wives’ demands to show off an extravagant lifestyle to family and friends placed these husbands under undue financial pressure. When it came to the subject of privacy one guy complained that everything that happened in his home was discussed by his wife with her family. Whether it was a small argument between them or a financial issue in their home or even something personal which he confided in her, she always had to run and tell her sisters and mum all about it. When he rebuked her she simply carried on doing it on the sly which made him lose all trust in her. Most of these guys admitted that when they tried reprimanding their spouses it always led to bigger arguments with still no change in their behaviour, so eventually these men just ended up ignoring their wives and distancing themselves from them. Listening to these complaints for the first time and hearing the displeasure in some of their voices, made me realise that most males unlike many females, prefer not to discuss their personal marital issues with anybody which eventually builds into a deep resentment towards their spouses.
Unfortunately, this resentment is what causes cracks in the foundation of the marriage. I am not writing any of this to try and justify why men stray from their spouses or to try and blame these wives in any way. I know that there are many males who cheat to feed their own selfish egos while their unsuspecting partners play no part in the reason for their philandering habits. However, at the same time there are also some men who end up being turned off from their life partners because of these women’s stubbornness and refusal to take their husband’s admonishments seriously. When a man gets tired of constantly rebuking his wife for the same thing, after some time he remains silent but this does not mean that he has accepted or condones his wife’s behaviour, as so many of the ladies mistakenly believe. In fact his silence more than likely signifies a fed up feeling towards a wife who in the husband’s opinion shows him no respect. Perhaps if both partners in a marriage communicated with each other more clearly then many of these problems could be avoided. Sadly since this is not the case, I hope my words would be heeded to.
Remember marriage is a two way relationship, to give and receive. If you keep on showing contempt towards your husband’s wishes, it will end up like water in a kettle that finally boils over, with negative repercussions.
Disappointed husband.
This column is sponsored by: STR Roadworthy
