(Third of a four-part series)
Massage outlets are being blamed for broken marriages
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, which was exactly what Jane’s husband of 25 years found out.
Playing a long-suffering wife and being a good mother to her two sons, Jane said getting married young was a no-no and advised young girls to have lots of fun before being thrown into the messy world of marriage.
Coming from a middle class family, Jane was always the obedient one in her family. So when an arrangement was made for her to get married after her degree, she agreed as her husband came from a traditional well-to-do family.
The first three years of marriage was bliss. “There is no such thing as a seven-year itch. So that theory is all wrong. It starts right after you have a baby or two.
“I only found out that my husband was unfaithful after a few years of marriage. The tell-tale signs were all there and I was too blind to see them,” she said.
She stumbled upon his infidelity when she made a surprise visit to his company to invite him for lunch. As she opened the door, a strange sexy thing was sitting on his lap and she was so shocked that she let the woman scramble out before lunging at her husband scratching his face and pulling his hair.
That moment, she said, ‘war’ started in her house and it continued on for the next 25 years. Towards the end, she was just too tired to fight but did not want to give him the pleasure of having his affairs easily.
“Money is not a problem so I plotted on how to hit back at him real hard. I made noise when he stayed out unusually late, making life unpleasant for him. Looking back, I should just leave as I hurt myself mentally too,” she said.
While her husband fought back at times and said he got better treatment outside, she said that added to the scars in her heart.
When her youngest son was ready to go to college overseas, Jane got ready to leave the marriage.
“I was back to the woman he married before, nice, caring and attentive to him, just like the beginning of my marriage. He was so glad I was paying more attention to him and be at his beck and call. And that added to my pleasure that he was unaware of what I was plotting,” she said.
On the day, her youngest son left for the airport, Jane drove him there and told her son she was leaving his father, now that he was big enough to take care of himself. She wept all the way home when her son told her she should have done that long ago as he and his elder brother knew of her sufferings.
Returning home, she packed her clothes and stayed at a hotel before alerting her sister that she wanted time alone and not to worry.
“The biggest pleasure in my life was filing for divorce and that was a real slap in his face. As he comes from a traditional family, his parents were against any divorce in the family and I knew he was scared of his father as he (the father) holds the purse strings in the family. Besides, he thought that I will never ever get a divorce,” she said.
For the rest of the year, Jane said her husband would look for her in her family house, send her roses, pleaded with her not to file for divorce, promised her the moon and sun but she looked beyond all that.
She started a small business and with the help of her family, got her life back together.
Being happier than ever, Jane, surprisingly, did not blame the other women in her husband’s life. To her, they were unimportant. The most important thing, she said, was her husband’s attitude.
“I have friends who dotted on their wives, who are so considerate and appreciative of their wives, so it was my husband who had the ‘itch’ to stray…,” she said.
“If I managed to stop one woman from seeing him, there will always be another and another. Of course, having so many massage parlour outlets is not good as it poses an opportunity for men to stray. But men like my ex, they will stray even if there are no massage parlours. They will just go for anything in skirts,’ she said sarcastically.
