What do you do if your Wife Insults You: Walk.

Photo: Meru senator Hon Mithika Linturi (right) and his estranged wife Maryanne Kitany (left) had an acrimonious divorce that was conducted on live TV
By Silas Gisiora Nyanchwani

Memo 5 from the National Desk of The Welfare of Men

What do you do if your Wife Insults You: Walk.

In the course of your marriage, your wife will insult you.
You will do some dumb shit and deservedly you will get the treatment of her wicked tongue. You know, like if she finds nudes of another woman in your messages, or you have a habit of arriving home piss-drunk and like mistaking the sitting room corner for a urinal, or worse a toilet.
Here, if she calls you stupid, immature, and other names, you deserve it, and that calls for you to change your ways, to earn her respect back. She will not forget, as sure as tomorrow is Wednesday, she will remind you of any mischief you did, on August 25, 2029.

But I am not worried about insults that come as a result of our stupidity and failings as men. What I am worried about are unwarranted insults. Consciously or unconsciously, there will come a time your wife will question your manhood, your intelligence and will compare you to other men in her life. And they often do these in your moments of weakness, when you need moral support and encouragement from her. Sometimes, they will insult your kin, your mother or father, saying some really mean stuff that you will never recover from.

I once asked men here, what is the worst insult their wife or girlfriend had ever served them and the answers in my inbox ranged from hilarious to outrageous. Some made me teary, and I never cry easily, unless I am cutting onions.

Most men increasingly are helpless on how to handle insults from their wives. Because, women know how to cover their insults with gaslighting (clever manipulation that makes you doubt your sanity), even where she is plain wrong, you will be the guilty one, profusely apologizing for some dumb shit you didn’t do.
We now have women who have the reckless audacity to question us to be the men our fathers were when they can’t be even half the women our mothers were. And this is scary. Because we have women who want the best of everything in life with zero obligations and responsibilities. Yet life doesn’t work this way. Life is so messy, and the sooner some women figure out this, the better and calmer their lives would be.

Your card-carrying feminist still wants a rich, handsome husband, who will pay the bills, help with house chores, help the kids with assignments, and what have you. Granted most can pay for these things, most don’t mind if a man can pick the tab, so that she can use her salary to fly to Cape Town, for Instagram. On the other hand the man has to be understanding, tolerate her bad behaviour and any effort to call for a compromise and common sense necessary for a marriage to work will be met with childish defiance, insults, a lot of spiteful behaviour that ends in divorce courts, or separations.

And the women with feminist credentials are the best at gaslighting their men into thinking that they (the men) are backward chauvinists with the singular aim of holding women from achieving their potential. A whole different memo altogether.
Now, to insults.

Most men are insulted for two reasons: when their wives feel that they are inadequate, or their wives are plainly bad and evil-mannered. Like they were not raised properly.

If your wife insults because she thinks you are inadequate, it comes from a place of spite, that no matter what you will do to prove a point, will end up like trying to catch the horizon. You already know that women date men because of their potential and value she thinks she can extract from you. Whereas men too have extractive tendencies, for women, it purely transactional and since the beginning of time, no woman marries for love. There are biological and evolutionary reasons for this, pick a psychological book or google. So, when she can’t see the potential and the value, she wanted to extract from you is not available, you become a stumbling block from accessing other men she can extract the same value from. And because she can’t just walk away, she will drive you to the edge, hoping that you walk away.

Because often, you are being compared to her boss, to an ex she left in a rush, who is doing better than you, her office boyfriend, or some middle-aged bank manager with access to uncollected assets’ funds. The insults start, ever so subtly, before they become full-blown, you can actually anticipate them.
For those badly mannered, ill-raised girls with tongues dangerous than dynamite, their insults are no less stinky and can linger in your mind forever.
So, what do you do when you have been insulted.

Try and get to root of the reason. If it is your bad behaviour (cheating, drinking, smoking, irresponsible behavior), here you have to change, man. You are not a baby she came to pick after. She got stuff to do, bro.

But if you are being insulted for things that you can’t change, you have to walk. But first, try to find an amicable way of internally handling your problems. Kitambo, society had a way of dealing with errant men and women. For women, she would be sent for a white cock or sheep, and her people will meet your people and there will be a solution. Sadly, in modern times, we have no such mechanisms. Mkikosana, each person moves to their apartments and life starts again. You have to deal with her man-o-man.
One, I don’t advocate for violence against women, whatsoever. So, you must find nonviolent way of communicating your displeasure at her insults. It must be firm, decisive, and final. Women are good at taunting, at throwing snide remarks, knowing whatever little thing you do, you will be the guilty party.

Some men are known to take their rage on inanimate objects, like throwing a bottle at a TV to drive a point home. But I hate rage, as it connotes weakness.
I really have no solution. But a maximum of two warnings are enough. If the insults persist, you have to be bold and walk away. Especially if the tone of the insults takes a decidedly contemptuous turn, where your intelligence, your manhood, your abilities are questioned and weighed against other men.
Because by the time a woman is insulting you and comparing you with the other men, she is probably seeing or (read sleeping) with them.

Now. Since a man is always practical and can’t just walk away, there is a naïve belief in most men, that in the end the woman will see sense, and stop insulting him. She will not, take this to the bank. There is hope that things will be better and if your fortunes change, she will treat your better.
Two things: What if your fortunes don’t change, do you want to be treated like shit? Secondly, if insulted constantly, you become resentful and if your fortunes change, you may start to mistreat her and probably, marry another woman to feel good about yourself. Because, behind every second wife, or a well-kept mistress is a wife who mistreats the man.

Now, you don’t want to end up in a situation with multiple women. Fair enough if you have the money. But most of the men are broke.
I have consulted several men, and the only solution presently is to walk away. Every man who walked away, to safeguard his tattered dignity from a woman who treated him badly, ended up happier.

Because trust you me, there is always a woman out there who will love you and accord you the respect you deserve. Normalise telling yourself you are a king worth of love. Remember how your mother loved you when you were a kid? You deserve that such son.
Because, you deserve love and respect. And if the one you love and respect can’t reciprocate, you gotta bounce.
But what about the children? A lawyer friend once told me that your children you may end up having more quality time with your children while apart, than when together in an abusive marriage. Because with abusive marriages, children can grow with a lot of toxicity.

More to the point, by walking away, it doesn’t mean you are perfect. Behind every insult, lurks some grain of truth about your character. But the abusive wife is not the one who will watch you grow and change your ways. So, you have to go away, and make necessary adjustments, before you look for another woman.
Lastly, you may want to hang around and see how things go. But what I have learnt from a lot of painstaking research, a woman who starts to insults you, has one leg out of the door, and it is a matter of time, before she leaves you. She is only with you because either you are paying the bills, or the other man is finalizing a divorce. And as soon as the coast is clear, she will leave you, with no mercy. Not even an iota of mercy.

Because, once she thinks of you as an object of pity or contempt, you stand no chance, no matter how much you try. It is what it is. When a woman has to make a choice about what is good for her and what is good for her marriage, she will go for what is good for her, however short-lived it will be, damn the consequences.
So, this week, if you are being insulted, stand in front of the mirror. Evaluate the insults. If laced in contempt, snide remarks that can’t go away. If you are being compared to other men, draw the line and make her know that you don’t appreciate that at all. And if she insists and persists, walk away peacefully, regardless of how old you are.
You will thank me later.
Happy weeks folks, and let’s all keep ourselves safe, hii homa haikai mchezo.