When I was newly married, a friendly widow in the neighborhood where I lived came to see me and said: “Remember this, no matter how saintly your husband seems to be, along the way he will get involved with naughty things, primarily with girls.” I nodded, and surprisingly I believed her. Before I even married my husband, I knew naughty things would happen and I steeled myself for such events.
I was relatively young then, so I allowed him to go to bars with friends. He would have a couple of drinks and the girls would order more because it was part of their livelihood, he said. They would also hold hands with these young girls, and I never got jealous. My husband’s secretary said she would get jealous when her husband went to bars. “You don’t ever get jealous, why?” she asked. “Well,” I said, “I would have the last laugh if he runs off with one of those girls.”
Life was good to us in spite of the bars. It was my daughter who got affected, but I explained to her that her father needed to unwind. And the young girls needed to earn money in a cleaner, friendlier way.
Everything between me and my husband has gone well for 40 years, and thank God it is still going good. He has provided well for us and loved us as well. But now that he is in his 60s, I have in a way become like my daughter. No ogling or fooling with young girls anymore. To appease me, he sent me a photo of a happy old woman on a rocking chair with this caption: “The older you get the more you realize you have no desire for drama, conflict, or stress. You just want a cozy home, food on the table, and to be surrounded by kind people who make you happy.”
I have asked other women if their simple and kind husbands had naughty episodes in their lives. And all of them said yes. My manicurist whose husband was a jeepney driver recalled how she once stopped her husband’s jeepney, only to find a woman seated in front who stayed very close to her husband and collected the fares of passengers. She asked the driver (her husband) to stop the jeepney immediately and proceeded to her sister’s house. When her husband, after looking for her everywhere, found her in her sister’s house, he got a big whack from her with a tennis racket.
This reminds us of a famous golf player who was whacked with a golf club after his wife learned that her husband had girls everywhere he went to play. This also reminds us of a president who was having an affair with a student assistant in his oval office, and got exposed globally for it. Poor family. Poor little rich girl.
A high public official here in the Philippines is even luckier than the above-mentioned president. He had an affair with a young lady in his office and it went around in whispers until it reached his wife. The wife marched to his office and demanded that all the secretaries line up in front of her to find out who her husband’s mistress was. The wife took care of everything. And everything was hushed up after that.
How many men have destroyed their careers because they were found to have female escorts during their trips? Remember a French politician who lost his chance of becoming president and lost his wife due to an indiscretion in a hotel?
Ah, men! A lot of them have ogled at young women and got into a lot of trouble. A former officemate not only ogled at young women, but got involved with his “inaanak” or godchild, and as a result lost his family. The young woman had four children by him, and then left him alone to take care of the kids.
A friend of my husband got hitched to a young woman while his wife lay dying. Since the young woman was from the province, he bought diapers for their new baby, but made the mistake of buying diapers in Manila to save on a measly sum. Unfortunately, the dying wife saw the diapers. What was her old husband doing with all those diapers? The answer was clear: He was hiding a baby somewhere.
A good friend has the best story of all. Her good-looking husband teaches in a private school, and one of his students was always trailing him. My friend took out her bridal gown and matching shoes and his wedding outfit. With all the aplomb she could muster, she showed her husband all their wedding outfits and said: “Do you see all these? Tell me who you are going to choose—me or her? If you choose her, please note that I will set all these on fire, including our house.”
Her shaking husband said: “No, no, please don’t do it, I am choosing you!”
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Sylvia Europa-Pinca was president of Europa Public Relations Inc. She is 69 and has been a writer all her life.