By Piason Maringwa
Many a man have spent the rest of their married lives enduring abuse from their wives. When a man decides to get married, he is looking for love and peace in his woman but this is not what he always gets. Let me hasten to say there are also some very abusive men out there but I think they are fewer as compared to women.
The main reason why men go out to look for sexual gratification outside of their marital bedrooms is the abuse they suffer from their wives. The other reason why most men would rather lie to their wives about their problems is because of how the wives react to the truth. A lot of men have lost their lives to HIV and AIDS prematurely due to negligence and lack of understanding from their spouses. Some wives just let their sick husbands suffer illness alone without offering any help because they are angry with them for bringing HIV/AIDs home. Wives should never allow their emotions and anger to override their kindness.
The worst thing any man would love to hate is a nagging wife who is always looking for faults in her man. A wife always patrolling her husband’s mobile phone and movements. No man wants to marry a ‘detective’ for a wife.
The Bible says, “A man who finds a good wife has found a good thing.” A Loving wife makes the marital bedroom a place to always to for sexual fulfillment throughout a couple’s marriage.
Disclosure on one’s HIV+ status has been made a very sensitive issue if we were to look at it very closely .Whoever made HIV/AIDs known to the world made sure that it would make every infected person feel embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated and pitied to the point of being stigmatized and discriminated against .This is the reason why HIV/AIDS has remained so lethal many decades later.
The above factors are the reason why it has been so difficult for many people especially men to disclose their HIV+ statuses. Disclosure needs one to have a loving and understanding wife.
I have always insisted that I am not an expert on HIV/AIDs issues and everything that I write on HIV is from personal experiences as a person who has lived knowingly with HIV for over three decades. My wife who is HIV+ having got it from me and our now 32 year old HIV+ daughter and mother of three HIV- boys who was born HIV+ are all testimonies of how love and understanding can work wonders on the HIV/AIDS landscape.
My wife Mai Simba is a very patient and tolerant woman who only wants to be told the truth no matter how painful. I also want to admit that I have been a very bad husband from the word go. I have sometimes told myself that bad as I have been I don’t think I deserve a wife so good and loving as Mai Simba. Mai Simba has stood with me during my tumultuous years as a drunkard and adulterer in the early 90s and when I was attacked by the dreaded TB disease in 1999 and had to stay in hospital at St Luke’s for nearly three months. She had to endure all the pain of the dreary day to day hospital life for the duration of our stay in hospital sleeping in the male TB ward full of coughing emaciated zombie like male patients spitting phlegm throughout the night.
When I look back at our life as a married couple for the past 35 years I always look at Mai Simba with wonder and awe, asking myself how this woman of God has managed to keep up with such a bad guy of a husband like me for so long. Honestly speaking I have been a very bad fellow who has done everything bad except murder .I think if I were to write a book on all my bad activities as an adulterer, that book would be a thriller I tell you.
God has given Mai Simba a big heart and she has contributed immensely to my wellbeing. Her undying love and care made me recover from a debilitating TB bout in 1999/2000 and her continued support and love has brought me this far. She has also helped make our daughter forgive me for bringing her into this world already HIV+ and our life as a family is so good.
While in admission at St Luke’s I learnt how the power of love and patience works wonders on the recovery rates of patients. TB makes one so emaciated to the point of being a skeleton with just a thin layer of skin pulled tightly over the bones .The face of a seriously ill TB patient is so gaunt with lips so tightly pulled back exposing teeth and the sight is just so ugly if I could be allowed to say that .I always blame myself for not having pictures taken while I was very ill so that I would be showing you guys how I looked then. A really hard-hit TB patient is not a good sight to be associated with and let alone be wife to and this is where love, understanding and tolerance comes in .
Promiscuity by married men and women is very bad in any marriage and should be avoided as much as possible. Promiscuity bad as it happens in our lives and when it happens there is need to face it squarely in the face workout a way forward so that couples mend their ways and move on with life. Bitterness, wild rantings and breaking up things, fighting or killing husbands or wives or breaking marriages is not the best option under the circumstances.
Most times if one looks carefully at it one may realise that one is to blame for whatever drove the other partner to look for sexual gratification outside of the marital bedroom .
When I married Mai Simba around 1990 she was a very young woman and very innocent too .I was older and battle hardened and during our early years she could not cope up with my demands and I had no patience with her because of her innocence and young age and had to go out to my old haunts to find the kind of sex that I thought was more satisfying and enjoyable .At times I would sleep out only to return the next day half drunk .There were times when I would be caught with a married woman and be made to pay a beast or so and all this making Mai Simba suffer the humiliation of seeing me exposed at the chief’s court and seeing our valuable property going away .I am saying all this as a way of showing others like me and those wives that act without thinking to correct themselves and learn a few life lessons from us.
Men would not tell their wives the truth about the kind of sex they want but they want a woman who knows how to play the sex game very well. A wife who is able to separate time for serious home talk and a time for sex. Most men want a naughty, confident wife one who can become bitchy at times and act like a prostitute not the innocent dull woman who is dragged to the bed every time the husband wants sex. Sex is such a very powerful force that needs to be taken seriously as it is the bond that makes every marriage tick. Sex is one of the most done thing and the least talked about and we are all products of sex.
You will notice that I have taken most of my time talking about women in the HIV/AIDs landscape this is not because I hate or blame women but I am just trying to air out how I found salvation from the care and understanding from my very patient wife Mai Simba and wish to tell other women who might be angry, bitter and even contemplating divorcing their husbands to instead love their husbands even if they are HIV+. The Bible says: “A live rabid dog is better than a dead big lion.” Similarly an HIV+ husband or wife is better than no husband or wife at all. When I am away from home which is the case most times Mai Simba always checks on me to find out if I have taken my medication. She loves me fully HIV+ as I am I also equally love her so much because she’s the best woman I know who has stood with me when I needed help so much and she’s continued to be my pillar of support.
A friend of mine once jokingly told me of a man who had died and when he got to heaven’s gates. The Angels at the gate asked God where to send this new arrival whether to heaven or hell. God told the angels to find out whether he had been married or not. When the angels returned to tell God that the man had been married God told the angels to take the man straight to heaven because he had already been burnt enough in the marriage hellfire.
Piason Maringwa is a teacher at Batanai High School near Manoti in Gokwe South District.
He has been living with HIV for more than 30 years and has been talking about his HIV+ status since 2004.
