A voice note made the rounds on social media recently. It allegedly belonged to a married politician. The interesting thing about the voice note is the contents. It was a conversation that a man in love thought he was having with a beloved, unknown to him he was being recorded. When things went awry in the relationship, the lady released the voice note.
The contents of the voice note were complaints about his wife, especially how she fights any woman she sees around him, including how she is quick to dismiss female domestic helps. There’s something many men are not handling well with their woman but I will use a couple’s story to drive home my point. The man’s wife had just had their second baby when a live-in nanny joined the family.
She’s a well behaved girl but as her stay with the family lingered, madam became increasingly “not herself” around the young lady.
Apparently, the husband could read the writing on the wall because the next thing he did was suggest that they employ an older lady that would be coming from home. The young lady was relieved of the job and paid off.
The truth is that the average woman struggles with the feeling of “not being good enough” more often than you can imagine. There’s always someone that CAN make her feel her body isn’t what it should be.
There’s another woman who reminds her of the children she doesn’t have, yet or the gender missing in her mix. There’s often a reality that may make her feel she’s failing at “child training.” There’s a fellow woman who can make her struggle with the reality of her age.
Just as someone’s marriage is capable of making her feel like a failure.
I am not forgetting the barrage of media-standard beauty that is the threat to every woman’s self-esteem in this age.
Have you not observed the rise in cosmetic procedures, even amongst women that one can say “they don’t need it”?
These are some of the REGULAR mental struggles of the average woman. Men need to understand that what a woman “misbehaving” sometimes needs isn’t bashing (especially to outsiders). There’s a way you can help her. Give her reassurances. Learn to point out something good in her to her. Know when she needs to be sat down and talked sense into. Pray for and with her. Not every attitude of hers is borne out of “difficulty of women.’’
You don’t know what she has gone out there to see/hear and it’s making her question her own worth. She could be struggling with an emotion she doesn’t even know how to handle.
Let there be INTENTIONAL COMPASSION in our disposition towards a spouse’s unworthy moments. A woman’s sense of unworthiness is being validated when her spouse would rather call her names at moments she’s not at her best. Don’t make her internalise who she is not via your words and attitude. Uplift her when she is not at her best.
Her mental energy at this point is vulnerable and it is likely that whatever you do or say to her will sink in. Let what you wish to ‘put in her head’ be words that feed her emotions positively.
We struggle with our emotions only because we ALWAYS want to be perfect but life is constantly telling us “not that way.”
Hence, the struggle. When the mind is sorting through unwholesome moments, the attitude you will receive from the individual will not be wholesome.
Men, it’s an error to carry on like you have no obligations towards your woman’s emotional wellbeing. You do because she has struggles. And these struggles are NOT always because she is “being a woman.’’ Actually, she is being human. And she needs your understanding.
Credit: Chukwuneta Oby