Sarah, who turned 43 a week ago, has been married for 11 years. For the past 4 years she felt something was different about her marriage but could not pin point what it was. She had been noticing a change in her husband but chocked it up to him being tired from his job. But then COVID-19 hit and things began to unravel.
“My husband works six days per week. Well, that’s what he told me,” she explained. “He works as an engineer with a popular company in Calgary Alberta. Because of COVID he was laid off. That’s when his mood changed completely, he was short tempered and angry all the time. Neither myself nor our 3 kids could do anything right for him. After the first week of him being home the house was tense and miserable. I tried talking to him about it but he was mad and kept snapping at me so I gave up.”
Sarah said she has not been intimate with her husband for going on 3 months — even before the lockdown started.
“When he came home from work he was always tired. He would come home late, shower, sometimes he would eat something that I prepared, other times it would be left on the table for me to remove the next day.”
Sarah, who was employed as a store manager in the city was temporarily laid off the 3rd week in March, a week before her husband. She was quite happy being home knowing that she would be able to spend time with her children and receiving supplementary income. When her husband got temporarily laid off she felt it would be good for them to finally spend time together as a family — something they haven’t done in years.
Instead, Sarah started noticing her husband wanting less and less to do with her and started spending time in the basement by himself. He only seemed happy when he was on his cell phone in whispering tones. At these times he seemed always to be looking over his shoulder and the calls would end abruptly before she could get close enough to him. When his phone rings he would leave the room to answer, and instead of being in bed at nights he would be on the phone in whispering tones. She said when she inquired why he had to be on his phone so much, he would get upset and tell her it was work. And so the endless heated agreements started and the more they argued the more her suspicions grew. One day, while he was in the shower, Sarah said she decided to check his phone. She explained that while he kept a lock on it, she had long discovered his password. She said she downloaded an app on her computer that would retrieve deleted messages and proceeded to do that. Usually he would take some time in the bathroom and she used this to her advantage.
The messages she found, the numerous pictures with him and a Caucasian woman, along with his call list of hours spent in conversation to the same number was proof that she was not the only one sharing her husbands bed. Sarah recalled being gripped with fear. She even discovered that contrary to what he had told her for the past four years, he did not go to work on Saturdays – he had a Monday to Friday job but Saturdays were dedicated to the side chick.
“Even though I suspected he was cheating, when the reality hit I had a minor panic attack,” she recalled. “I couldn’t breath and I felt like I was being choked. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just leave the house because of the quarantine and I couldn’t call anyone to come over. I was panicking. I literally thought I was going to die — but then I thought of my children and another woman raising them and that calmed me down.”
Today the arguments continue and Sarah, who was still laid off at the time of this story, said she is looking at options on where to go from there as she knows she cannot continue her life as is. She noted that her two teens are aware of the situation based on the heated arguments they overheard so many time, while her 7 year old was too young to understand.
The expert says:
One Canada based Pentecostal pastor, who wanted to remain anonymous, said he has been receiving a much higher than normal call volume from couples seeking counselling as a result of emotional and physical abuse during the COVID lock down.
“Couples are now forced to spend more time together and so they are finding out things that they never knew before, or discovering that one partner is not being as faithful as they thought. That is causing a number of problems in some homes,” he said. “In fact, I have a colleague in the States who is thinking of going into counselling full time as a result of what has been happening over the past few months based on the COVID isolation,” he said.
One psychologist, based in Jamaica, Dr Leachim Semaj said it is a common situation in some cultures for men to have outside women that their wives know nothing about, some having even two or three families that sometimes only literally meet over his dead body at his funeral.
“Some men’s wives find out about it and kind of grudgingly go along with it. Others find out and throw out his things. Those are the realities. It’s a common component in the male/female landscape,” Dr Semaj said.
“Most men will end up not admitting to this and will take this to their graves. There are a lot of people who are in this situation and it can result in some serious emotional trauma.”
He said what tends to happen most times is that by default some wives accept it while others will quickly tell their spouse to ‘hit the road Jack, and don’t you come back no more!’
Researchers say there are a number of reasons cheating may occur COVID -19 or not:
- Situational conditions. A man might not have a personality prone to cheating, and might be in a perfectly happy relationship, but something about his environment puts him at risk for infidelity. Eg. Alcohol can lower one’s inhibitions, so a few drinks coupled with being alone in an intimate setting can lead to cheating. This one time can lead to a full blown affair. Another example is a man being constantly pursued by a woman, especially one he finds attractive. Even though he may try for a while to resist, he may find himself in a position where he gives in to her pursuit out of curiosity. From there they develop a sort of bond.
- Gender. It is believed that men are more likely to cheat than women because they have more testosterone which is said to be one of the fuels for sex drive.
- Not satisfied with his relationship at home. His sexual desires at home are not being met. Sometimes this is done innocently on the side of his spouse who may be unavailable due to work, school or family commitments or even after the birth of a new born.
- Socialization. There are some cultures and even religions, especially in 3rd wold countries that drives it into a man’s head that the more women they have the more of a man they are and even more prosperous their lives. This is so entranced in their belief that even after marriage they still have that yearning desire to have more than one woman.
- The 80/20 rule. Researchers believe that a man will only get about 80 per cent of his needs satisfied by any one woman. Some men will accept this as the way it is and stick with one partner. On the others hand, there are those who will decide to fill the missing 20 per cent with someone else — thus the 80/20 rule. As a result a man in a committed relationship/marriage will have his classy, educated, loyal wife but will still turn to someone else. He may believe that his wife does not know how to fulfill his wildest sexual fantasies or feel it would be out of order to request that his classy wife perform such acts. So he goes to the girl who is less inhibited and who will bend over backwards (literally) and do whatever else he requests. Thus completing the 100% satisfaction scale.
- Workplace temptation. Work environments have been known to spark many a romance even among those who are married.
- Stroke their ego. Some men simply cheat to build their egos and the other woman is willing to stroke that ego.