You think you've done enough?

I chance upon an intriguing article by knizam in facebook with regards to a wife's duties to her husband. Its a long article, using in-your-face language, that received flak from his female friends who accuse him of being an MCP. What drawn me to the article is that in between his  bewilderment  towards a wife who did not respect and "want" her man is the simplicity of the point he is making - but whether his equation is true or not is debatable.

He started by putting across a scenario of a tired but faithful wife, who may herself have a career, doing household chores and care for the children, then hubby coming home expecting to be served and attended to including in bed which the wife dutifully did. But lo and behold hubby is still wayward and infidel - WHY?? His theory is that doing all those things, are not enough - those are basic. (you know that Maslow theory of needs). The key element is "the wife wanting the husband" not the other way round (or in his words "seorang isteri itu patut memberi khidmat dengan sangkaan bahawa dia yang berhajat pada suaminya, bukan suami berhajat padanya!"). This makes the difference on a wife's attitude - doing out of duty or doing out of want. The former plants the seeds of betrayal but the latter keeps her man.

The question, as one of his female friends asked is, how do you make your body "want" when the heart bleeds? The "bleed" maybe due to things that hubby did or did not do - it could be some hurtful behavior or just little things which over the years accumulated and became like a cancerous tumor that grew.

A good friend of mine said that a man who took a second wife is not because he wants to or because he is not happy with his wife - but because he just can't say "NO". A man can flirt around, be extremely friendly with young women, have numerous girlfriends, even sow his wild seeds but when it come to the crutch/ when the besotted sweet young thing asked to be married - the man must have the courage to say No.

My mum advised me on my wedding day that you can never know a man who is quiet and internalised. That's the kind of husband who has a virtual diary in his mind. Any disobediance or stubborness from the wife will be tolerated. He would not make a scene, nor repeat himself, but these dislikes goes in that virtual diary and when the diary is virtually full he would close the book and walk away. And at that moment when the wife asked why, he can't explain himself but the feeling towards her is just gone. So armed with that advice, every Hari Raya, not only did I ask for hubby's forgiveness as any wife would, but I asked him to erase or undo all his virtual jottings!!