Marriage is meant to be a love story, played out by 2 main characters and some sub characters (family, children , friends etc) , but sometimes the main characters are more than 2 , sometimes they are 3. In this context we will use a marriage between a man , wife and his mistress or her mister.
Marriage is meant to be for better or worse in all aspects but as we all know it doesn’t always pan out like that, once the love story begins external factors creep in to dictate the way the story goes.
One of the scenes that crops up in the story is extra marital affairs. Now often times when you ask the partner why the they have stepped out on their partner it often relates around these most common excuses sex, money, loneliness, selfishness, lack of contentment , no or not enough children or extended family influence and newly obtained status. ( in the context of this conversation we will call the partner that step out PSO)
For the sake of this narrative we will take them one at a time and try to look at the issues from both sides
A while back we looked at the excuse -STATUS , today we look at EXTENDED FAMILY INFLUENCE
EXTENDED FAMILY INFLUENCE – extended family can be defined as parents, siblings , grand parents , cousins and other blood relations , close friends also fall into this category . The person who steps out (PSO ) sometimes feels that advice from theses group of people are more valuable than that of their partner .
One of those in favour says
“My mother comes first when it comes to what’s good for me. She brought me into this world, nurtured me and took care of me when my Dad died at a young age. She sold everything possible and worked liked a slave just to make sure i had a roof over my head and food on the table.
My wife , whom I love dearly , unfortunately doesn’t get along with my mother , her problem is am too close to my Mum, so she sees her as a rival. My wife doesn’t call, take care or even visit my mum with the grand children for months and months . When my mum comes over my wife’s actions towards her show that she wants her out as soon as possible . My mum has always been an independent women , but now she’s getting older, she needs someone to care for her, mind you my Mum doesn’t live with us, I bought her a bungalow and pay a maid to look after her , she had always prayed before I got married that my wife will be her daughter especially since I am an only child.
Due to all this my mother has advised me to please marry a ‘small girl’ that would love her and take care of her . I eventually met a girl whom I introduced to my mum once , she immediately fell in love with my mum, she’s training to be a nurse, visits my mum every weekend , goes to check up on her , buys her stuff and even spends the night with her sometimes. This has made my mum so happy and she’s looking better everyday.
I am seriously considering moving her up from mistress status to second wife status, the woman doesn’t mind. If only for my moms sake”
Another one in favour says –
“My husband and I got married when we were in our early 20’s , we started our lives together , had 2 children , we both had good jobs until all of a sudden, due to down sizing my husband was made redundant. I still had my job and on all levels it was a well paid one but We couldn’t afford to keep two cars .
I decided to allow my husband drive the one car we had , he would drop me off in the morning I would come home with the staff bus or get a taxi . One day I missed the staff bus and was waiting for a taxi, one of my very close childhood friends met me at the bus stop and was surprised to see me there since she knew I had a car, she gave me a ride home . On the way home I explained the situation to her , she didn’t say anything but asked if we could hang out that weekend .
She picked me up at the weekend and wasn’t very happy that I gave my car to my husband , she even kept asking if I also gave him money , to which I answered no, the truth is he had my ATM card and controlled my account . We hung out a few times , and then on one of our outings we ran into an old school mate of ours who had just relocated back to the country . He was looking good and looked like he had done extremely well for himself. Immediately he asked us to join him for lunch , I declined, my friend accepted , eventually we both took a rain check, did I mention my friend is also married but her hubby was on a one year sabbatical abroad .
Anyway she gave him her no and he kept calling asking for us to have lunch with him, my friend pressurised me for a long time but I still said no. Then one weekend she asked me to come over to her place , when I got there he was there , I acted matured and sat down, to cut the long story short he said he wants to start taking care of me, to proof his point he gave me a cheque of a large amount of money, I declined , he insisted , I accepted . From then on it became a regular occurrence.
I slowly began to fall in love with him, saw him as the one taking care of my needs, I could buy the things I wanted, at the same time take care of the house hold bills I even bought things for my husband , changed the house furniture , bought a new car, all this time my husband hadn’t found a job, he seemed satisfied with the money I was bringing in, when he asked I told him I got a pay rise at work and due to this I have to also work longer hours and some weekends which gave me time to meet with my affair.
The consequences , the closer I got to the guy , I started getting irritated with my husband, stayed out longer , did so many things I didn’t do before , even got my salary paid into a different account so my husband won’t have access. I doled out money to him every Monday like a child , I was in charge , I even expected him to do some chores around the house .
Eventually I succumbed to my friends advances and started a full fledge affair with the guy. My husband trusted me so he never suspected anything”
One of those against says-
“My wife and I got married as school sweet hearts , we had dated in Uni for 3 years , as soon as we were done we both went abroad for our masters , spent a couple of years working then came back to our country to get married.
We had been married for 5 years and we still didn’t have children. Most of the pressure came from my female siblings. My immediate younger sister kept bringing her friends to the house and asking me if I liked this one or that one, she would even ask me to drop her at a friend’s house and ask me to come in to meet them, I kept resisting .
One day I came home and found my wife and her suitcases outside the gate , my 3 sisters had packed her bags and accused her of being barren and trying to ruin their brother’s life , I was livid , I took her things inside and immediately banned them from coming to my house, my wife didn’t like that but I insisted , now I have peace , God soon blessed us with a beautiful baby girl in his own time and now my wife and my sisters are best fiends”
Another one of those against-
“I have four friends , we grew up together, went to the same schools even set up a company together we are doing really well and are all married . We got married within 3 years of each other, I was the second person to get married , we have all been married for less than 5 years .
My friends and I love the good life we work and play hard, we dress extremely well , designers top to toe, drive very luxuries cars and jeeps , travel around the world and have a lot of disposable cash, we could literally have any woman we wanted and we did. Well I did before I got married , my friends still do , even though they are married they feel money without lots of women hanging on your shoulder is not living the good life. That has been one of their major beefs with me, they don’t understand why I can’t eat my cake and have it but I don’t want too, am happy with my wife.
I take her out all the time, buy her gifts , travel with her even on business trips to avoid temptation. One ugly day, my wife was out-of-town visiting her parents, my friends tried to set me up, they organised a small get together in a luxury suite of a hotel, drinks were flowing and we each had rooms When it was time to go to bed , I was a bit tipsy, I got to my room the lights were off, I didn’t suspect anything, took off my clothes jumped in bed , the next thing I knew I felt a naked body cuddle up to me, the speed at which I jumped out of bed all the alcohol cleared from my eyes one time, I put on the light , she was stack naked, beautiful with amazing breast but I was able to put on my trousers run down to reception and ask for a new room.
In the morning my friends didn’t find it funny when the girl narrated what happened but there and then they agreed to stop trying to force women on me.. To be honest it took all my will power and I thank God I wasn’t too drunk to resist, since then I only drink a glass of wine when I go out with the guys, prevention is better than cure “