As bad as the economy is, there are tons of people who regard broken down gadgets with distaste and either give them away or toss them into the dustbin instead of bothering to repair them.  But what happens if your relationship doesn’t live up to your expectation?  Do you try to fix it or do you simply cast it aside and maybe look for a better alternative?

marriage

After six years of marriage, Angela, 32, a legal practitioner, discovered that most evenings she was alone in the house with a toddler for company. Her husband, Tom, also a lawyer is self-employed.

“Waiting for him to come home from yet another meeting with prospective clients became the norm”, said Angela.  “As a third partner in a firm of legal practitioners, he had to put in as much efforts as the others. Tom and I had got together at the university and back then, we’d been in the same wild gang; always partying, laughing – and slipping off to make love whenever we could.

“Now, even when he was home, he barely noticed me. Was he bored? Or has he found someone else?

“Some months back, we attended a club warming party. One of the boys in the group in our university days, Abu, had just taken over ownership of a night club and most of our friends would be there. As soon as Abu spotted us, he welcomed us with a big smile.  `The golden couple is here’, he announced.  `Makes it feel as if we’ve been married for 50 years’, Tom groaned. I didn’t find that funny but I forced a laugh. Was that how he felt?

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“It was fantastic seeing everyone after such a long time, but Tom promptly left to mingle with his friends. I sat with a few of my old friends, knocking back glass after glass of wine. I was sitting alone at one stage wondering where my marriage was headed when Abu sat next to me.  `Cheer up, woman, it could be worse!’, he teased. Then he glanced at Tom, how he was having a laugh with his friends and he looked at me with pity. “Tom’s very distant with you, is everything alright?”  He frowned. I glared at him. He quickly started telling his silly jokes, and in no time at all, we were laughing together.

As we left the club, he whispered that Fridays were ladies’ night. If I could get a baby sitter, I was most welcome to attend. He even hinted some of our female friends came from time to time. So, come a few Fridays later and I found myself watching a boring programme on telly, I told the maid I was off to my mum’s and took my son with me. I called Tom to tell him where I was going to and he was okay with it.

“I’m very close to my mum and told her what I was up to. If Tom called, I was with my brothers.

“It was a bit early for action at the club, so Abu and I had a snack and some wine in his plush office. I’d never thought of him as sexy before. But now the air was charged with expectation as his jokes became more daring. To this day, I can’t remember how we both became clinched in a hot romp.  All I remember thinking was that I’d mixed feelings this sensual and wild. The lovemaking that followed was slow and intense until we were both exhausted. Afterwards, he cuddled up to me for post-sex drinks and nibbles.

“I was very touched, he’d given me back my sex appeal. `Thanks, I said softly as I got dressed to go back to mums. `It was my pleasure’, he said, kissing me.

“Thank goodness Tom hadn’t even call to find out about us, so I raced home.  He was having his late dinner when I got home and was glad I was having fun. He told me the firm had taken on a few more hands and that there would now be time for us. He was grateful for my being so understanding, but I was resentful. Why couldn’t he make as much effort with our marriage as he was making with his job?  We were virtually newly-weds and he’d taken too much for granted I was tempted to make Abu’s club an escape route. But I couldn’t do that. I love my husband and I intend to work harder to make the marriage worthwhile …”

“Once upon a time, marriage made women an offer they couldn’t refuse”, says a marriage counsellor.

“It provided an acceptable way to have and rear children. But that is no longer the case. Women can support themselves. And there is no stigma in being a single mother. Now women expect a husband to be more than a provider. They have a romantic notion of find a friend, an equal, a soul mate and a lover all rolled into me. And if one man doesn’t match up to requirements then maybe the next one will.

“Most people still enter marriage with the best intentions. But when that marriage hits the first patch of bumpy ground they see only two options open to them They tend to think it’s a case of stay and be miserable or get out. Society tells us we shouldn’t put up with it. But what couples often don’t realise is that there is a third way, which is trying to understand what’s happening and finding ways to resolve their conflict”.

VANGUARD