“Dear Amaka,
I brought my first car home. It was meant to be a surprise and my wife and children were over the roof in celebration. Our neighbours also joined us to celebrate the arrival of the car.
With my new car came some notable changes with my movements. I now keep late nights.
I also leave for work as early as 5:3am to return between 9 and 10pm.
I’m barely at home on weekends. When we return from Sunday service and I eat, I drive out almost immediately to return at night.
This new life style of mine is giving my wife reasons to worry. Before I bought the car, as a civil servant, I usually left for work between 7 and 7:30am and returned before 6pm. When she complained about how early I was leaving for work and returning home now, I explained that I was leaving early to beat the traffic, and that I also stayed back in town before returning home for traffic to ease off. That explanation wasn’t satisfactory. And the weekends? she asked. I told her I was hanging out with friends. That was what came to mind readily, though this particular explanation didn’t sit well with her.
When did you start hanging out on weekends? Who are these friends that I don’t know, she asked further.
Her suspicion and confrontations are beginning to tick me off. We are starting to fight, snap and yell at each other on top of our voices. This past Saturday, when I was ready to leave the house, I couldn’t find the car key. After about an hour of searching even the trash can, I decided to call my wife who left for the market earlier to find out if she saw the key and she told me she took it with her. For the first time in our over eight years of marriage, I almost hit my wife when she returned home.
Let me explain why I cannot tell her the truth. I didn’t buy my car myself. It was given to me on hire purchase, even though I have paid the owner more than half of the amount involved. I was able to pay more than half because I have been saving for years to buy a car and when this opportunity came, I grabbed it. This is me doing my best by avoiding any distractions so as to pay up my debt in a few months and take full ownership of the car.
I use the car for business. I use it for Uber. I leave home very early to lift clients. Before 9am when I arrive at my work place I have made a reasonable amount of money picking and dropping off passengers. I also make quick runs during lunch time. When I close from work at 4pm, I’m back on the streets picking and dropping off passengers. I do this till about 9 and 9:30pm when I close for the day and head home to my family.
I know and understand where my wife’s suspicion and frustration is coming from, but I cannot bring myself to tell her the truth about why I leave home early and stay out late even on weekends. I know the type of woman that I’m married to. So many times in the past that I shared some of my plans with her, all she did was discourage me from them. She is proud and loud, though very loving. She lives like she’s in competition with people, always looking to show people that she has arrived. She wouldn’t mind for us living above our means.
I save barely from my monthly salary as she just keeps making financial demands. I had to fight her and even refused to pay our children’s school fees for one term before she agreed that they remain in their present school. Left to her they would be in some of the most expensive schools that our one year salary combined cannot afford.
My fear is that if my wife finds out that I registered the car for Uber, she would talk down on me. I remember during a conversation when she said a taxi driver is a taxi driver, it does not matter if it’s Uber, Bolt or whatever. She does not see it as a noble job because taxi drivers are always rude and uncouth.
Secondly, If she finds out that I’m making more money now, her financial demands will triple. She would insist on having a lot of things. Changing the children’s school, moving to a better neighbourhood, wardrobe change etc. I know all these because she keeps whining about them whenever the opportunity presents itself. Keeping this a secret is for my own safety and peace of mind, but it is threatening the peace at home. How do I get my wife off my back and still keep the truth away from her?”
– Anonymous
My Response:
Men seem to have a bad reputation when it comes to lying to their partners and in their defence they would always claim that they are afraid of a woman’s reaction to the truth. Ultimately, men lie because they believe it is a way to protect women and themselves.
Unfortunately, It is not the lie that annoys or hurt women the most, it is how ridiculous and barefaced these lies come off. It’s okay that you have studied the workings of your wife’s brain when it comes to money and the good things of life, but you are yet to understand that you are the one setting your house on fire by keeping her in the dark.
If I were your wife and you are acting like this, I’ll conclude a lot of things and your explanations would not hold any waters. Your work schedule is predictable. Suddenly, your work schedule becomes unpredictable. There is nothing wrong with hanging out with friends, but you hang out with friends every Saturday and Sunday and stay out till late at night! Where is the place of family?
If you understand your wife like you claimed to, then tell her the truth and stand your grounds by refusing all her excesses. Tell her about the better future you want for them and how you cannot achieve that spending more than you are saving or investing. Carry her along and you will be amazed at how supportive she may be. It’s best she hears the truth from you than from an outsider. A time will come she will eventually find out from people and it will hurt most that she is the last to know what other business her husband does.
Stop keeping your wives in the dark. She deserves to know the truth even if it will hurt her.