By Silas Nyanchwani
Memo No. 81 From The National Welfare Desk of Men
10 IMPORTANT REMINDERS TO MEN MARRYING THIS DECEMBER
{This is an excerpt from my upcoming book Sunday Afternoon Drink With Uncle Silas, whose publication is stalled presently due to shortage of funds. I hope the book will be out in the first quarter of 2022.)
{Long Post-10 minutes}
To the young folks who are getting married this December, congratulations. You have made the most important decision in your life. And yet the most consequential, for better, and lately too frequently, for worse. We will keep it positive today.
It is important because it will have a huge impact on your mental health later in life. The greatest decision any man will make is picking the right mother for his child (ren). One wrong move and you are tied to an arrangement you will loathe for life. Just talk to any guy separated from his child and the caught up in the horrendous baby-mama-baby-daddy drama, to get a glimpse of how things can go wrong. So, if you don’t have a child, guard your seed son.
But I can see weddings are back in fashion. The Jubilee era killed the wedding economy, but I can see they are back in fashion meaning some men and women are taking risks and we must encourage them.
To the men, here are a few reminders.
1. Be a man in your marriage. Provide. Protect. And be the Priest. Lead your family. Lead with firm love. Be understanding and listening. Marriage requires a certain measure of democracy, but half the time, your authority must and should be felt. Don’t let your education and Netflix mislead you from this traditional role. Just make the right adjustment that are in line with your social and economy reality. But anything short of traditional role, and your marriage will be over before the ink on your marriage certificate will dry.
2. Have standards. Set them from the outset. If as a man, you have done your part insist on the rules of your house. From dieting, to responsibilities, and everything pertaining your marriage, have some threshold of standards. Many men by the third year of marriage of after the kid arrives are subjected to a very mediocre lifestyle, where the wife doesn’t put in any work whatsoever, but the man is expected to do his role 100 percent. Our fathers were lucky they didn’t stay with our mothers, but we stay with our wives, most of the time. You deserve good and humane treatment in your marriage. Don’t be the sorry dude drinking Balozi, scared in the bar, dreading going home because you hate everything about that household. Set the rules from the outset. Lead by example.
3. Tied to number 2, most of the time, your wife will be testing your patience. Sometimes she doesn’t even know it. Sometimes, some women just like drama. And if you are a calm, focused man, many will be the days you will be subjected to drama you have no idea what is going on. Some you have to respond. Some you have to ignore. The rule of the thumb, if things function 50-70% of the time, you are good. She will piss you off, you will piss her off, but as long the standards are intact, hang around.
4. Eat at home 99 percent of the time, wherever necessary. It is healthy, it is affordable. I recently saw a woman drive a petrol station in Lang’ata with her two kids. She bought so much junk. It was a Sunday Evening, traditionally, a day family dinner. There was a correlation between how she looked and her kids, and the junk she bought. As a country, the weight epidemic ahead of us has to be addressed at family level, not through social media with hashtags like #StopBodyShaming. Say no junk. Mean it. Go to the kitchen to cook, if you have to. And if you are dating and she doesn’t like cooking, and you want to take her in, just know junk is very expensive buying and the attendant lifestyle diseases will milk your insurance dry. Make the kids like their vegetables.
5. Distance yourself from your in-laws. Don’t go drinking with your brothers-in-laws. Even if her sister is so hot and your loins are on fire and she looks like she is game, don’t. Get some ice. Your father-in-law and mother-in-law are to be treated with maximum respect, if they deserve, and if they don’t keep your distance. We never discuss how in-laws ruin marriages. If you are not comfortable with her folk overstaying in your house and running the water bill high, raise your voice.
Raise your voice in pretty much that displeases you. Your voice is what will draw boundaries, because most African wives don’t understand the language of boundaries, when it comes to the husband and their needs. They only understand boundaries when it is your relatives.
6. Have alcoholic discipline. The era where women would pick or clean after piss-drunk husbands is so yesterday. Fall in love with your tipple and you will be given very limited chances. Whether you are a nerd earning a six-figure salary and you think your money will keep her, you will wake up one day when you are 36 and she will be gone. Know your limits, know when to hang out with the boys, when to hang out with the family. Have a sense of self-awareness son. Some men can drink the entire weekend and run their marriages. You will try and she will leave with your son, and you will cry in bars every day. Discipline your alcohol, keep off drugs, and you will save yourself a lot of embarrassing moment.
7. Five years after marriage, your wife will change to something you don’t know. Depending on where you picked her, the change can be positive or negative. From the age of 28-35, women undergo an existential, mind-altering, experience occasioned by motherhood, personal growth, and general life fears, where she questions her choices, especially her choice of man. Most women in their early 30s, struggle accepting that they made a choice, and some may still put themselves out there in the market. Some go back to the market but cling to the marriage. Some go back to the market with the hope of quitting the marriage for the better. It coincides with her having a very understanding boss called Martin, who promises her a promotion, or to set up a business for her. And here so, you may have no chance. Just watch out for the changes, adjust those you can. And those you can’t handle, don’t beat yourself too hard. Because the battle you will be fighting is not yours, but hers and her conscience (see point 10).
8. Cultivate your roots. From the outset, let her know that nothing messes with your family. Introduce her to your rural home and make it a tradition. And for men with no good roots, you have to invent what can pass for roots. Let your kids take your identity. Stick to your cultural naming patterns. Give your kids your identity, so permanent that in the event of a separation, kids will know their home. And the ninja who may take over, has to work to get his kid. Most divorced men who did this, often have a softer landing. Kids like their paternal identity, especially if you do a good job in the formative years.
9. Amerix caught some flak for advising men to have separate secret accounts, companies, and apartments that the wife is not aware of. Most argued, if a marriage gets to that point, there is no marriage there bwana. I have also discussed about at length in my current volume of memos. But my approach has been to have a back up plan. Since most men spend their productive years paying for recurrent expenditure, and in the event, things go South, they end up broke, dejected and with no family. I wouldn’t recommend such extreme measures, but as a man, live knowing that you are alone, in this world. If the family turns our right and supportive, knock on the wood, you are set. It is a safe bet. But down, the line, if kids had to pick who between the mother and the father is to go, it is you the man. With this knowledge, do your best for them, but secure something for yourself.
Early this week was given a story of a former senior civil servant who lost his job after a regime change and the wife subjected him to a certain level of cruelty that only women whose husbands have lost jobs are capable of, but the man, took it on the chin, studying her, unbelieving what he was seeing. When he had enough, he took his stuff, boarded his matatu, went back to the bundus. What the slay queen wife had never known was that the man is one of the greatest landowners in the Rift Valley and the man took to faming and he is one of the greatest horticulture farmers. What saved the man was that he was discreet. Had he disclosed everything to the slay queen, he would have lost more than the matrimonial property and some few pieces of land in Nairobi. Make of what on this story.
10. If one day, for inexplicable reason, your wife starts to show you madharau, and this persists, hand over the regime to your step-boyfriend. Or hang around for sordid details, for sure as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, you will learn the hard way. The day she starts to act funny, the day she tells you ain’t sh!t, the day your authority will be compromised to a point she is above the law, pack your stuff into a huge polythene bag, leave. If you wait for her to kick you out, you will hate yourself for the rest of your life.
Otherwise, all the best son. In the event things don’t work, don’t drive your car to hardy backside of a truck or jump off a bridge, or drink yourself to the grave. She won’t care. Just you had a life before marriage, there can be life after marriage.
For men marrying and have not read the memos, this holiday will be a good time. It will break my heart if you had to learn these things the hard way. Experience is very expensive.
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