Wives with secrets

Recently an article titled the “SECRET LIVES OF WIVES” has garnered attention and support from those who might equate love and marriage to some kind of flexible and open, emotional and sexual arrangement; one that can be kept or broken, on the yearnings of the women who feel invalidated or taken for granted.

There are two sides to every story, and while I recognise that many women are not getting their needs meet, this doesn’t make adultery an alternative. Just because the women’s media hypes it, and in some cases condones it, it doesn’t make it right.

Photo: (Flickr user, 63619732)

If a woman’s marriage is not meeting her needs, then do something, concrete and hopefully self-constructive. If they’re not happy with their selection, that they are emotionally under-valued, they're physically un-serviced, then have the courage to move on: not take a husband hostage, constrained by marriage laws and unable to react either positively or negatively. No one wins in an adulterous scenario: not the man left behind, not the man of the moment, and certainly not the woman in the middle. For some reason shopping around, as if love and commitment is a commodity, is slowly gaining mainstream acceptance as answer to spousal neglect.

Women shouldn’t have licence to play both sides of the equation: keeping the security, home and investment, yet shirking the truth, honesty, and action to fix it. It's human nature to look for a way out of a bad situation, or infuse some instant gratification, but it shouldn’t be acceptable in matters of marriage.

Women today need to know they're valuable and attractive, even with age, children and token baggage. If it’s just not there anymore, find it somewhere else, but do it the ethical way and be prepared to sacrifice the materialism and security for what is probably more important anyway: love, friendship and intimacy.

Many of us middle-aged men see these despondent wives in the company of older, dis-interested, controlling men who should realise that their wife is not a trophy in their garage. If they don’t care anymore, they don’t drive it anymore, they don’t lovingly caress it anymore; then trade it in; to a man who will appreciate it again, adore it, touch it and give her new life and a sense of self-worth again. Nothing is more beautiful than a classic in great shape.

Just as women need to make sacrifice, men need to stop equating their wife as a possession, and if he can’t meet her needs, maybe it’s time to let her go. If she’s not the youthful dream girl he married, and he can’t grow up and act his age sexually, if he pines to propagate with a cheerleader wannabe, that’s his problem, that’s his immaturity and age issue, not yours.

Many, men today, are in backlash mode, rejecting the younger woman with a litany of identity issues and growing up to do. We want the collected, classy, refined, self-confident woman, who knows who she is, and what she wants. And sometimes that just happens to be a divorcee. 

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.