Stop stalking your man, By Funke Egbemode

Nse has become a comic character in her husband’s office. Once she drives in through the gates, the staff, especially the girls, start making faces, calling one another’s attention to the arrival of ‘Madam Godzilla.’

‘Mama is in the building, make some noise…’

‘Who is the current champion?

‘Or current prime suspect.

‘Oga, needs protection.’

‘What Oga needs is sense. He needs to find his wife a serious job.

‘Or get her pregnant every year.’

Of course, the mocking is done in hushed tones but is it their fault? No. It is Nse whose insecurity has laid bare for office gossip, her husband’s office. She it was who decided her husband’s secretaries were threats to her marriage. So, she found faults with each secretary, cooked up wild allegations and read meanings into everything each of her husband’s secretart wore, said and how she swung her hips. She cursed them on the phone and caused embarrassing scenes in the office. Even when her husband bowed to her ‘craze’ and opted for a secretary in her 60s, Nse’s trust issues didn’t really abate. She simply shifted gears. Now, she has a spy somewhere in the system who I think she pays to inform her when any girl becomes  too frequent on the Directors’ floor or a new beautiful marketer or youth corp member starts rolling her backside into her husband’s office. Then she pretends to be dropping off lunch just to check the new ‘prime suspect’.

Today, everybody thinks Nse is a nuisance and insecure housewife. In her myopic mind, she somehow must have concluded that those demeaning pranks would stop Victor from having a girlfriend or even taking a second and third wife. How exactly do you stop a man from sowing his oats, wild or mild? How does a wife assume the role of a monitoring spirit to deliver her husband from the spirit of philandering?

The lengths women go to look for things that are not looking for them beats me. As they say on the street: who spying hep? Who monitoring spirit hep? If you suspect your partner is straying, there are a dozen and one things you can do to bring him back home, and trust me, raising your blood pressure and working towards a wheelchair aren’t on the list. Going to his office or shop to belittle yourself isn’t on the list either. As I have always insisted, there are a few husband snatchers on this planet. When your man is straying, watch his legs, he’s the one walking towards other women. He’s the one with roaming eyes and roving hands. He is the one who has left his naturally endowed wife at home to look for artificially installed boobs and buttocks. Check out the dictionary meaning of straying. Sure, there are women who set out to capture men but most of the time, these dudes are willing captives.

As a lawful owner and holder of the Certificate of Occupancy of your man’s assets and jewels, you reserve the right to keep your thing but do not, I repeat, do not lose your life or yourself while trying to fend off encroachers.

The other day a wife who had set ‘private investigators’ on her husband tracked him down to his side chick’s place on a Saturday morning. Apparently, ‘oga’ did not sleep in his matrimonial bed and Madam in a rage jumped on a bike to have a showdown with her philandering husband and his husband-snatching mistress. And what a showdown it was.  Sisi side chick felt affronted, after all, she was in her house, not on madam’s bed. Wifey felt the thief had to be executed publicly. Oga was embarrassed by the public display of shame. He took off so fast most of the spectators who trooped out for the early morning entertainment did not get to ‘meet’ the man of the moment. The two women dug it out, giving a good account of themselves in the hall of shame.  Blouses were torn. Bras were exposed. Hair and wigs were pulled and flung. Slippers flew in the air along with unprintable expletives. It was a sad day. Note again, the man at the center of it all fled the scene.

Fighting physically in public over a man is for me the height of shameless nonsense. No woman, wife or side chick should be caught dueling over one staff of office. There are other ways to fix that kind of territorial integrity tussles better and more effective than mud-fight. Madam, what if you get totally snookered by a side chick in public instead of you pummeling her to an inch of her life? What if you break a leg or arm or even your back? And you could die, you know. That other woman and probably three others you didn’t know existed would be at your funeral, wearing designer sunglasses, to pay their last respects. Imagine!

Pray, what do women who check their men’s phones think they will find, American visa waiting to be downloaded or newly minted naira notes waiting to be printed straight out of the phone? If your partner has password on his phone, he does not want his phone accessed without his permission. Why do you want to know which number called him or he called most frequently? How does discovering another woman calling him ‘babe’ improve your peace of mind? What if you discover he sent a million naira to his mother when he told you he couldn’t  afford to pay for the children’s new school uniform? What if he and his friends are planning a getaway weekend with their side chicks on a trip he told you is an intensive business conference?

Spying on your spouse in any form will eventually damage your relationship. Checking your partner’s phone for call and text history, logging onto his email account, stalking him on Facebook and reading meanings to every post and quote will only make you sad. Setting busybodies on his trail to find out who she’s been talking to and who he has been spending lunch breaks with is a kind of relationship ailment. Face it, you need to get help before you turn the bend and end up a psychological wreck

Spying can also become some sort of addiction and a fuel for jealousy. You cannot stop as easily as you started. Once you start, you begin to rely more and more intensely on the checking up you do. You feel unsure, suspicious and full of worries if you have not checked his phone or Facebook page. Your jealousy quotient rises and your fears rule your every waking moment, becoming a crutch that you are constantly leaning on.

Whatever you think he’s hiding on his phone is none of your business, work on your man, your relationship. Love him. Feed him. Spice up your sex life. Be more dependable. Delete nagging. Do everything to make his heart, spirit, body and soul return home. Stop treating your man like a suspect, unless your marriage is a crime scene. Stop stalking him or you just might find that thing that is not looking for you.