Adaobi Okwy: Why you should never tell a woman her man is cheating (Y! Superblogger)

Adaobi Okwy Superbloggers

Even if a friend’s husband or boyfriend likes, he should get down and dirty everyday with all the prostitutes in the world in front of me before he comes home drunk to beat her up – She would not hear it from my mouth.

There is something fundamentally wrong in telling a woman that her man is cheating on her. It is as wrong as telling the woman that her man isn’t treating her right… chances are, she knows both but chooses to play dumb.

When I make ‘outrageous’ statements like these, people want to crucify me for being a ‘feminist’ only when it suits my purposes. I assure you though that, I will try to prove my words to you, as we go along.

A few years back, my mother, in possession of a mountain of evidence of infidelity against one of her friend’s husband, refused to say a word to the woman. Repeatedly, I told her to give the woman even a nudge in the direction to look and see for herself, but my mother vehemently opposed all my arguments with these words, “she would not hear it from my mouth.”

I was mad but since the woman was neither my age mate nor friend, I had no business getting involved. I did, however, vow solemnly that, I would never let my friend suffer such a fate if I knew something to help her.

Welcome to my undoing.

I was friendly with a lady who used to live beside me. Matter of fact, I was the new person in the environment as I was staying for a few months but, because we met frequently, we became friendly. She was about a year younger than I was, but she was a mother. She was unmarried but lived with her baby daddy, a guy I usually bumped into frequently.

Within a month, her baby daddy asked me out. I was disgusted because, when people act like dogs, I expect them to do it as far away as possible from me. A guy with a kid, living with his baby mama. Where in the world was I to be fitted into if I even gave a care, which I didn’t?

I firmly turned down the guy and thought little of the encounter except that it continued. My annoyance towards him grew almost as much as my pity towards his young baby mama.

It would have been something I could stomach after all, within a couple of months I would be gone but then, the guy resorted to beating up this lady- early in the morning, middle of the day, middle of the night. I remember the day I walked into the compound and there were many people gathered pleading with the guy to stop the beating. I remember looking at the bloodied girl holding her bloodied son. It was a pathetic sight.

The next day, I went nowhere until the guy left for work and then I called the girl to advise her on what to do. I told her she was been maltreated and should leave to wherever or stand up for herself and get the abuse to stop. She thanked me for my kind words and I felt happy that I had done a good deed until the guy returned from work. How my meeting with the girl was revealed remains a mystery, but what I remember through it all was the unity of the girl and her man as they stood in front of my place, hurling all manner of insults at me… the home-breaker.

That was just me but, over and again, I have come to prove this theory true — women do not like being told their man is cheating. She lives with him and most times, she knows. She knows when he begins to change for worse but, she hides it all as she is determined for the world to see her relationship/marriage as perfect. Why then should you… who lives with a man she is ‘sure is worse’ than your own man come to tell her ‘lies’. You are certainly a home-breaker who spreads lies.

It is equally possible that there’s a lot of ice in the marriage and desperate to break the ice and hear her man tell her a convincing truth (lie), she’d present your ‘gossip’ to him and after his truth (lie), the ice is broken and you’re the family’s enemy number one.

I have become like my mother. Even if a friend’s husband or boyfriend likes, he should get down and dirty everyday with all the prostitutes in the world in front of me before he comes home drunk to beat her up – She would not hear it from my mouth.

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Adaobi Okwy blogs at www.adaobiokwy.com and tweets from @adaobiokwy.

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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