Ever since getting engaged to be married – I’ve been getting a whole lot of (unwanted and sometimes useful) advice on how to be a good wife. Now, at no point have I asked for any insight on how to do this because my boyfriend and I decided to take our time regarding the marriage process as traditionally, it’s a lot to do and quite costly. We also decided no to rush things because of our careers (mostly because I started a new job in a new city a few months ago). It would be too much pressure to do everything all at once with the whole moving, establishing ourselves in a new home and finding my feet in my job.
Anyway, many people have been kind enough to give me words of wisdom concerning marriage and how to make a success of it. Don’t get me wrong – I’m happy to learn from others but we all know there isn’t one formula to make things work. Here are the three top things I “need” to do be a good wife:
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I need to cook, clean, wash and iron his clothes everyday. – I am not against this. I have come to like cooking. There was a time when I was freelancing so I had a lot of time on my hands and I did the domestic stuff without issues. Cook, clean, laundry. I kinda enjoyed it because I wasn’t at work all day, get home tired and have the schlep of household chores. Now my job right now – doesn’t allow to have the freedom to be the super domesicated wife anymore. Sometimes, we work 18-hour shifts. Sometimes we need to be at work at 6am and finish at 10pm. So, I don’t think my marriage will crumble if I hire a maid. Many say this isn’t the way to go because I’m neglecting my role as a wife. Sigh
- Kumele ubekezele emendweni – You be a tolerant wife. – I think I almost understand where this school of thought comes from but I certainly cannot agree with it. Back then, women were solely ‘dependent’ on men and therefore we told to just grin and bear his bullshit. Little did they know that open communication could have helped some of their unhappiness. I believe you don’t need to tolerate anything if you can talk to each and understand each other’s point of view and then reach a compromise. Sometimes, you will agree on disagreeing – that’s normal. But it’s important to understand where one partner is coming and respecting that place and their view. For example – if your man is the “I need chill with my boys” kind of man, while this irks you because you’re the “I need to be with my man all the time” kind of girl – then you might have problems if you don’t speak up and just bekezela. You’ll find that if you tell him that you’d like to spend more time with him because you enjoy his company – you’ll find that he’s more than willing to cut down his friend time to be with you more. He just grew up with a crew so it’s normal for him to be with his crew. I’m just saying. There’s no need for you to be unhappy and tolerating when you can just be opening
- And my favourite: You must have married friends. Single friends are not good. Hahahahahahaha! I can’t begin to understand who came up with this rule. They say single friends are bad because they’re a bad influence. I have no idea what that means but apparently we’ll longer have anything in common. Amazing what marriage can do. Wipes out friendships just like that. My question is how can I lose the many things in common I have with a friend just because I made a decision to spend the rest of my life with a man. How can watching the NBA with my girl and us discussing the game (and the players hot bodies) now disappear from my list of interests? Why would I all of a sudden no longer like that? What bad influence can my non-married friends have on me that they haven’t tried in all these years. It’s not like I have new friends which I picked up two weeks ago. All my friends go far back as university and high school. So why would I not want to be with them anymore? If they were a bad influence – they had their chance to do that over the years. Like I know many young married women find the Young and Married Clubs, Networks, Groups where they spark friendships on the primary common point that they’re married. I think it’s cute. But it’s not for me. I will wait for my friends to get married as well then maybe we can hook up a Married Ladies Collective. LOL! It in these groups – they share their experiences in marriage and what to expect and how to react. Now, I’m not a sharer nor am I one to know what’s going on in somebody else’s relationship. I’m just not wired that way. I like to keep what’s going on in our relationship between my partner and I. I’m not saying I don’t share things like we went on holiday, he took me to a fancy dinner. Those a generic things that can be shared. But I can’t detail our issues, our dreams and aspirations to others. It’s ours. And I like to keep it that way. Which is why I can’t see why I should hunt for a new crew of married women to be friends with just because my own friends haven’t gotten to the marriage point yet. And what if they don’t want to get married – then what? I cut them out my life.
I think it’s cute that there’s a sisterhood of young and married women. We are all different and to each it’s own. Some need support groups, others don’t. It’s interesting getting points of view from different people but it doesn’t mean I need to join a collective. There’s no rulebook for life including marriage so let’s just say, I’m going to be brave enough to try it my way, taking pointers from few people as I go along. I won’t be a perfect wife but I’ll do my best. I can’t promise to be superwoman domestically but I’ll try and with a little help, things should come right. I don’t know about tolerating – I want to be able to reach understandings and agreements nomuntu wami. I’ll make mistakes and I’ll learn from them. It’s all trial and error really.
missnoitall 