A friend recently called me from a bar, faced with a terrible dilemma. He summoned the rare courage that comes after the seventh quick beer and told me he had tried to dump a woman in vain.
“Have you claimed that insanity runs in your family and you have a brother who has Down Syndrome?” I asked him, in no way being contemptuous towards the disabled or mentally challenged but desperate men can clutch at any straw. It happens.
“I have sweet-talked her, abused her, even told her to the face that I don’t like her, but she says she is OK with it. She claims she is pregnant and she is staying put. I want to beat her,” he said. You could feel the pain and sense the anger seething through his voice.
I know he is civilized he can’t beat a woman, but he is a cornered man. My friend is 29, has a good job and has just furnished his house tastefully. Given his eligibility, he is hot cake among women inclined to marriage. Many have tried to get his attention, but he dismisses them callously as soon as he gets his way.
Some women have tried the age-old trick of being wifely to a fault. You know cooking him his best meal even chapati, washing his jeans and scrubbing the floor. This scarcely gets his attention. Some have often left their belongings in his house in a bid to mark their territory but he throws them away as soon as they leave his house.
Most men are like politicians. When they see a woman they want, they lie and offer promises, even marriage if that is what will get the woman to bed. But along comes a clinger. A woman who will believe your every single word, naively or strategically. The type that gets pregnant by the second month. Don’t even dare suggest an abortion.
When you try to dump them, they can emotionally blackmail you or just stay put adamantly. As a man you are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Brutes amongst us almost always violently evict clingers without any remorse. But lately, this option can come at a high legal cost, especially if you are monied. The worst is if she is pregnant with your baby.
Often I prefer a softer approach. Real men tell these women the truth. In the event they decide to stick around, external pressure always come in handy.
How about claim you have three children with three different women and you want her to raise the two of them given their mothers are irresponsible. Women hate children their husbands have sired with other women. Insist that she has to treat them fine.
If she stays put, stage an auctioneering of your household stuff. It happens. Women like material stuff. Once it is confiscated, and she still stays put, move house. If she still sticks around, marry her by all means.
But it is better to avoid all this by being frank from the get-go. If men looked at women as human beings and discovered that days of playing with their emotions are gone, it would be fairly easy. So don’t share many secrets, avoid getting entangled financially and rubber it up. Many a man has married by accidentally impregnating a woman.