adminus will be happy about our lives anyway?
After my piece last week where I was looking for people’s thoughts on why relationships between men and women are in so much trouble, something popped up that I have decided to zoom in on; which is the issue of keeping up appearances.
While the term popped up in relation to relationships, keeping up appearances definitely goes beyond relationships. How many people do you know that struggle to keep up appearances just so people can consider them to be well accomplished when in actual fact, they will be struggling?
Remember Hyacinth Bucket (who loved to pronounce it as Bouquet) of the hit comedy “Keeping Up Appearances”?
I am taken back to a sermon I once came across where a certain preacher said to the congregation it was very sad that “people today are busy spending money they do not have, trying to impress people that do not even like them.”
That struck me for a moment and when I looked around the church I realised I was not the only one who had been struck. Several people in church could be seen nodding their heads in agreement with the preacher-man. Whether that led to some of us stopping to live for everyone else rather than someone else, however, is something I am still to substantiate.
So here goes.
Of the people who wrote in after last week’s piece where we were talking about the challenges in relationships nowadays, quite a number said they were also staying in marriages and relationships to keep up appearances.
While I am from that school of thought that believes in fighting for marriage and not giving up, having received the same teaching from older sisters, aunts, mother, grandmother and the word as well; I must say there has to be a point where we draw the line surely.
How does it help matters to stay on so that the rest of the world can think things are well, when people are dying inside? If there is no more love and affection in a relationship, what is left?’If there is no conversation and no shared vision, what is left?
If there is no laughter and sexual intimacy, what is left? If two people cannot have a conversation or sit down to plan for the family together; what is left?
A male colleague of mine who is married said to me the other day, married women, including his wife, should actually thank “small-houses” (I do not like this term) including his, because they ensure that married men stay in their marriages. He told me that because through spending time with his “small-house”, he unwinds, laughs and has fun; by the time he gets home he can go through the motions.
Imagine my shock!
I asked him then whether he thinks he is doing his wife a favour by doing that and he said yes. For him as long as he goes home at the end of the night then his duty will be done and his family should be grateful. I asked him why he does not just leave if things are that bad, and he told me that he would never do that because the whole world would be watching.
He was more concerned about what his workmates, business colleagues, people at church and in the family would say than the feelings of his wife, children and even himself.
He is not the only one. Some women who wrote in also said they are staying in bad relationships, some of which are abusive, because they worry what the church would say, what their workmates would say and what their families would say. It began to make sense why some people stay until they are battered to death.
It also clicked why some people stay and cheat. As long as they are covered by the tag of being married, they will put up with anything.
While I am for marriages, believing that they are the cornerstone of our foundations and for future generations, surely by refusing to deal with the issues, real issues in them, we are not doing much good, are we?
Wouldn’t we rather face up to the fact that there are problems and face them head-on so that if there is still something left to build from, you re-build and if not, you agree to disagree rather than bury heads in the sand and then things explode at some point?
This culture of keeping up appearances without fixing them or dealing with reality goes beyond relationships. People will struggle to buy cars they cannot maintain, put children in schools they cannot afford, rent houses they cannot afford to keep, and buy expensive clothes on credit that literally chew up all their income.
Some compete with friends and workmates, when it comes to furnishing homes and even what to bring to work in a lunch tin. I heard a friend say to her husband the other time; “you have to pay for my gym fees without fail. I am the only one left in the office who is not going for some fitness class after work.
“Do you want everyone to think we are poor?”
We women are even worse at times when it comes to keeping up appearances. It is for this reason that some of us will buy flowers for ourselves and claim to be in relationships that we are not in.
Surely it is high time we learnt to love ourselves.
With a true and deep love for oneself, surely there is no need to validate oneself by things and status.
Surely, there is great freedom in being yourself in life and knowing those that are with you love you for who you are, whether you are short, tall, married, divorced, moneyed, not so moneyed, ghetto, or suburban.
Once we love ourselves, we will also become honest with ourselves and those around us.
Keeping up appearances is fine, because in our culture hatifukure hapwa pese pese but there is need to weigh it out. If something places you in danger or in a difficult position, surely at that point, one has to put themselves first. If we do that, we will cut down on suicides, hypertension, beating and battering as well as high blood pressure.
Food for thought!
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter