Jealousy: A silent killer of marriage

Fredrick Qaphelani Mabikwa Successful Solutions
What is jealousy? A simple dictionary definition of jealousy is just the fear of being replaced, that resentment or bitterness due to rivalry or envy. Other words to unpack this word include covertousness, protectiveness, suspicion and mistrust. In isiNdebele the word as it relates to marriage is ubukwele and in Shona kuchengera.

I will start to discuss jealousy as it is perpetrated by the man. In the recent past we were having a good time at a workplace Christmas party in the evening. During the course of the event, I noticed that one of our colleagues, a lady, kept going outside to answer her phone. When she came back, her face looked drained of joy.

I got curious because I thought maybe she had some emergency then she could be assisted. I approached her and asked if anything was the problem? She told me she had to go home and asked if I could take her home. I tried to talk her down to hang on a bit because the party was just warming up. She said “no”, saying she needed to go and would tell me what the matter was on the way. I obliged, excused myself from other colleagues and drove her home.

On the way she told me that her husband who is working in South Africa had called home on the landline and the children told him that she was going to be a bit late that day because of the workplace function. On hearing this, the man immediately called his wife on her mobile and told her to leave the party and go home immediately. He had said it was bad for a married woman to be at a party at night without her husband because she would end up doing “bad” things.

As we were chatting, the husband called again and I followed the heated conversation between them. Now, another problem had arisen as she had told him she was being driven home by a colleague. The problem was “why a man and who was he?”

Now I was regretting being a Good Samaritan because these guys based in South Africa tend to be a bit violent and can shoot you when they suspect you are having an affair with their women. The husband actually requested to speak to me but I refused because I was driving. After their conservation, the lady later told me she was seriously considering divorce because she had had enough of her husband.

She couldn’t stand being in a marriage where she was not respected and trusted anymore. She said it was worse, when the husband was around. At times she was embarrassed in public because of his jealousy. She said at some point, her husband had gone to her workplace where he accused her boss of having an affair with her. Such is jealousy.

Now, here is a man in South Africa tracking the movements of a wife in Zimbabwe. He is tracking the wife by phone. Honestly, this is the height of stupidity. To my fellow men, may I say a woman doesn’t need a work place Christmas party to cheat? Cheating can be done in as little as 15 minutes. If the truth be told if a woman wants to cheat, she will cheat whether you are jealous or not, and whether you are in Zimbabwe or not. If they have made up their mind to do it, they will always find a way.

Now what causes jealousy in a man? The reasons are many. I will discuss a few common ones. Jealousy in a man can be caused by low self esteem. There are men who suffer from an inferiority complex in the marriage. The wife is more educated and earns more money or she is just enterprising and makes her own money.

A man in such a marriage will always think that his wife is bossing over him, hence the feeling of “wanting to bring her to size”. There is the feeling of insecurity that a man who matches the wife will eventually take over the wife. There is always the feeling that they will eventually be replaced by more educated men, men who match her intellectually or in her line of business. So to avoid this happening, the woman must be kept under lock and key. Such men don’t like the wife’s male workmates. They think there is her boyfriend among them. Some of these stupid men are seen to always visit the wife at her workplace to check on what is happening.

In the process, they are disturbing the wife in a great way and also embarrassing her. You married the woman knowing very well that she is more educated than you and will hang around with the educated, now where is the problem? I had a distant relative who forced his wife to leave her job because of jealousy. This man followed his wife everywhere. I remember one day, I found him waiting for her at the salon so that when she finished, he would take her back home. This lady was in a maximum prison. Fortunately the man died. I am saying fortunately because even the wife said so after his death. Yes there are wives who “rest” when the husbands die, they pick weight and their skin texture improves.

You will find a man going through the wife’s handbag looking for evidence of cheating. They will go through her phone, reading her messages — this is repulsive. We have an idiom in isiNdebele that literary says if you look for a baboon in the mountain you will find it. Now going through the wife’s handbag and phone is surely looking for a baboon in the mountain. This is looking for diseases like BP in the handbag and phone.

I have always said to my fellow men, yes jealousy can be natural in men; it can strike you when you are not even aware, but I have always maintained that if the wife is cheating, you will eventually know, it’s just a matter of time. The only problem is that you are the last one to know.

You don’t have to investigate, you will see things that are not there and you will increase your BP.

There is an old adage “He who loves is jealousy” No, I want to say “he who loves trusts.” You have to trust someone if you truly love them.

Invading their privacy does not change their behaviour nor does it make them love you more.