By Sunmola Olowookere
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What is the value of a jobless husband to an uncaring wife? He cannot provide for his dependants. There are no two ways about it, the husband value to an understanding woman would have diminished.
However, to an impatient wife, he had no value at all, I can tell you. The family of the wife would hold the husband in contempt and they are quick to throw any regard they had for him when he had money to the wind.
Today’s edition of the “diary of a nosy neighbour” is a moving story of a man’s dilemma. It is a man who has lost his cloak of respectability when he lost his job.
A breadwinner who had been so much respected by his wife when all was going well for him has become a doormat to his family because he lost his job and cannot meet his family’s need.
Who is to be blamed? The man who lost his job and left his responsibilities for his spoilt wife to carry or the wife who has been spoilt by her husband and now baulks at being the temporary breadwinner of the family.
His pride has taken a serious tumble and has been rubbed in the dust. When a man has no money, his wife does not regard him.
He listened in stony silence as his wife complained bitterly. He felt useless and inadequate. Short of slapping her, he knew that nothing will stop her tirade. Once started, she is like a train that only an accident can halt.
He would have dealt a stinging slap on her chubby cheeks. But her two younger sisters were in the car.
He refused to bring himself lower still in their esteem. If he were to slap her, he knew they would gang up against him as they were mannerless just like their sister.
He had brought his wife’s wrath on his head because he had not fetched water. When he could not stomach her railing any longer, he asked her “Do you realize that you are demeaning me before your family? Do you think you should be speaking to me in such a fashion if truly you are an honourable woman?”
Instead of being chastised, she was more incensed “what do you mean? So now, I am not honourable! What about you? You are never appreciative. I allowed you to use my car, I bought clothes for you and the children, I feed and give you pocket money, yet when I ask you to do little things for me, you would refuse. “Instead of helping with the house chores, you will loaf around the house doing nothing. Do you want to kill me? The God that I serve will not allow you to succeed!”
His eyes were glazed. He was clearly weeping inside. “Where is my manly pride? It has been trampled upon in the dust”. He looked at his fat wife with new eyes.
He could no longer see the gentle lady that he wooed and married in the whining bitch beside him. “What have I done wrong?” He could not help lamenting audibly. His wife looked at him in distaste and hissed.
Being poor is a disease, he now realized. When he was rich and could buy his wife gifts and clothes, she was very loving and affectionate. But now that the tables had turned, she has changed and metamorphosed into a fish wife.
