Financial terrorist husbands, By Funke Egbemode

Are you one of these husbands who punish their wives by depriving them of money? Yes, you are mean but most importantly you are a short-sighted fool. I’m too harsh and hard? Well, this message is not going to be a soft one and I won’t deliver it gently. I want it to sink hard, fast and furious. That’s why I’m not going to pull my punches.

When your wife offends you and because you are the breadwinner, you decide to turn off the plugs on all financial support in the home, you are going to teach her how to look beyond you., or in your mean mind, you think she’s just going to fold and cry until she develops hypertension? Don’t be naive, she’s going to do something about her situation. I admit, she will cry. It is what we do. She will be disappointed. She will be shocked. She will cry, yes, but when she dries her eyes, and begins to see clearly, my brother, you do not want to see what she will do. Why should you turn the money tap off because you are angry? There are marital conflict resolution options all over your house that you ought to know how to use. Not forgiving your wife and then taking away the purse is one definite combination to rock the boat of your marriage

“I need to let her know who wears the pants in this house”.

 Really? Have you considered her going to buy her own pair of pants instead of waiting for peanuts from your pants’ pockets?

“I provide everything for her, she can’t talk to me like that!”

Yeah, she has no right to disrespect you but if you stay in that malice point for too long, she just might start thinking of providing for herself.

I bet the first thought on your mind here is a wife deprived of her house keeping allowances will go get herself a sugar daddy or do runs? That is an option, true. Easy way out but it is one full of many risks with a direct link to perdition. A woman married to a man who consistently closes the purse once she does something wrong is likely to want to find a permanent solution to the financial terrorism in her marriage

Hikmot and husband were like that. He had the money, still does. Hikmot had a ‘little job’ that pays just enough to take her back and forth and a little savings, but her husband will deny her house keeping allowance, refuse to buy diesel for the generator or pay the monthly subscription for DSTV. He knew she didn’t earn enough to pick those bills but he did it angrily. They had two children too. Can you imagine? If not a fool, what kind of a man thinks punishing his wife should include starving his own children? Hikmot soon started seeing clearly through her tears.

“At first, I used to cry a lot but when I saw that my tears neither moved him nor changed my situation, I decided to find a solution. I joined an ‘esusu’ group and started taking professional courses to help my career. Not long after,  he seized the house-keeping allowance again. I  refused to cry. I bought groceries and food items from a nearby shop on credit and paid with my ‘esusu’ payout. I refused to take his car to the office because couldn’t fuel it. I went out in public transport. I put a smile on my face. I didn’t beg him to restore our allowance. I have since bought and subscribed to a  less expensive pay TV option and I refused to watch his ‘designer pay tv’ with him when he eventually came down from his high horses.

‘What his meanness has done for me is to make me look inward and become independent. I’m giving my career a lot more attention. I won’t divorce my husband because he’s a mean sadist. I just won’t let him continue to win and carry shoulder because I’m crying. ‘

Not all women in Hikmot’s shoes wear it with finesse and godliness. A few will opt for the extreme measures

Lami started travelling more for her business, staying longer in the shop. Once her husband was angry about anything, he withdrew everything: money, sex and companionship. He will not allow any meaningful conversation, just the usual good morning, welcome back and how was your day routine thing which he responded to with his nose in the air and inaudible monosyllables.

“I bore it stoically for as long as I could, especially for the sake of the children. As soon as the children left for boarding house, I took charge of my happiness. I challenged myself and rented a second shop. I started travelling more to buy my goods. First, I started going to Lagos and Kano for my fabrics. Soon, my fellow traders introduced me to their joint ventures with China and Switzerland. These days, I’m too busy to cry about my-husband-has-not-spoken-to-me-in-one-week. I greet him, cook for him and even ask him for sex. But I no longer ask for sex more than once a week. I stopped worrying him for money. I started cooking his favourites meals whether he funded the house keeping allowance account or not. I can feel that he is worried or ashamed or both but I’m sure he’s definitely loosening up.   When something pisses him off now he’s no longer as mean as he used to be. Indeed, the last quarrel did not lead to many days of malice (which is a record in our 16years of marriage) and when I asked for sex that day, he actually gave a good account of himself.”

Well, what if Lami’s husband had continued in his reprobate ways of withholding his money and starving his wife of sex because of a domestic quarrel, probably for something as small as the choice of the children’s school or relocation to a new side of town. Why do some men not know that the bad habits that worked for them as single men will not work in marriage? Why do husbands not know that there’s a difference between correcting their wives and punishing them? If you want your woman to lean on you, be there for her. If you want her to continue to look up to you, then stay up in her estimation. Do not descend to little-boy-malice. You are an adult, act like one. Do not teach your woman what you don’t want her to know or learn. Women, as I’ve written several times, are wired to receive. The same way we welcome sperm is the same way we welcome teachings from our husbands. The way we incubate sperm until it becomes a cute little man is the same way we absolve punishment, torture, malice and incubate them until they become new ways of life. Do not therefore dish out what you do not want to eventually see on and in your wife.

Growing up, it is women that were known for keeping malice and men who did so were regarded as less-than-men. So if you are reading this, and you as father and husband see nothing wrong in keeping malice, not talking to your wife for days, you are a little man and I don’t care how big your third leg is.

Talking about big third legs, if you starve your wife of sex because you are angry with her, remember that your third leg is not the biggest or the best. There are even smaller and more effective legs out there. You don’t know who has been toasting her for 10months and there you are not talking to her or eating her food or lifting her wrapper for one month, in the same house, same bedroom? Bro, you are working at leasing out your oil rig. And you know  women, when we chop, we don’t just clean our mouth, we clean the kitchen so nicely, it looks like it’s not been used for a year.

Chairman, grow up and stop being a little man.