Marriages lack togetherness and trust

I REFER to Rakhi Beekrum’s article, ‘It takes two to make a marriage work’ ( POST, July 12-16).

I am staggered after reading that during 2014/2015, about 50 000 South Africans filed for divorce. It would be interesting to know what the figures were for 2016.

She mentioned that most divorces were initiated by females. I am hardly surprised.

I say this without prejudice, that females are too quick to blame their spouses for their breakdown in their marriage.

Most males don’t even contest their divorce applications and simply submit under duress.

They will never admit when they are at fault and have not made their marriage work to make it better.

Couples sometimes court for many years before tying the knot, but I always maintain that you will only properly know the person when you live with them and begin to know and understand fully what they are all about.

I have been married for nearly 42 years, but continue to remain in a loveless marriage.

We have three grown-up children who are married and live on their own.

We live in a luxurious apartment in uMhlanga, all by ourselves. Therefore, we have all the space for each other together, but no, the wife does not have time to even have one meal with me.

Since she is a home executive and has a maid to clean the apartment, do the washing and ironing and other chores… She has a lot of time on her hands.

The moment I leave home, she is constantly on her mobile with her contacts on WhatsApp.

When I approached her about the prolonged use of the phone, she had a screen lock activated on her phone to avoid me finding out about the lengthy use of WhatsApp.

In the evenings, my meal is served like a boarder, my bed made, and she sits until the wee hours of the morning watching TV, while I am tired having worked shifts and need to rest.

She has no consideration at that late hour to shower and then tuck silently into the bed.

Everything is not about sexuality, but you could see that she is avoiding me completely and this, I may add, has been the story of our lives for the past 42 years of marriage.

You would ask, then, why did I allow it for such a long period of time. The answer is simple.

When you have spent almost half your life with one person, how do you drop off and start a life elsewhere at your age?

Marriages lack companionship and togetherness, and most importantly trust.

Also important is the fact that women are too secretive.

They prefer not to share anything with their spouses, but are prepared to share with other females. Why? LUCKLESS HUSBAND

uMhlanga