If your partner cheats on you, it has nothing to do with your size!

Before the controversial article by Njoki Chege fizzles from our short memory, I opt to bring it up for discussion again. Am still bothered by her outlook on cheating. I think anybody who under estimates the power of internet in Kenya has another thing coming.  On the week she wrote that article, she was the 6^th most searched name/item on Google in Kenya. Kenyans curiosity led them to the internet to find out how she looks, what she does or where she lives. Interestingly the following week her real picture was pulled of the newspaper and was replaced by her caricature. I think it was necessary to make her anonymous the kind of uproar that came afterwards needed quelling.

I am not pro or anti Njoki. I have read both better and worse articles. What has been baffling my mind is what the Editor of the Satmag was thinking about when the paper went into print. The introduction of the article is clear that the writer is sassy and audacious. The answer to why it was printed nonetheless is simple-to sell the magazine. Controversy sells and this one did, by the time it was 10.00 O’clock that Saturday, Kenyans online were already shouting about it. A lady who is a member of the Kilimani mum (Maybe on behalf of the group) actually wrote a letter to the editor on the main newspaper complaining of the lady. Cabu Gah another blogger answered her back by assuming he was speaking as a woman and on behalf of women.

Incidentally she talked of women fighting for a space to be their better half's recreational partners. This to me was like a joke on a comedy show. Dear Njoki, a lot of men in our age consider catching a pint and eating nyama with their friends as a recreation activity. Now when you are a professional woman with children, the combination above becomes rather tiring and messy. Again we are careful of our weight so we don’t want to get caught up in eating too much meat and drinking barley laced drinks. Both contain calories in large amounts. When you look around notice the high percentage of men with abnormally wide girths. Please note that does not come from the gym, yoga or golf course. Women on their own still visit the gym, golf courses and other fun places. Those men you talk about don’t know what they are missing when they don’t become our recreation partners.

Of the things that I found annoying on that article is when you touched a live wire called weight. How could you considering you have never given birth? Anybody who has not gone through childbirth should not earn the right to talk about the weight that is gained around that time. But since you brought it up let me break it down. You are nine months pregnant; you are bloated most of the time. Some women are unlucky and experience the worst bouts of morning sickness or other types of sickness and sometimes a slapped with a bed rest for months on end. When you are carrying precious life in your stomach a number of things happen including change of your hormones and metabolism. It is a crazy period and after the baby comes, it becomes even crazier. When the first lady Margaret Kenyatta runs to ensure that we reduce maternal deaths to zero, my dear it should occur to you that weight in that moment is not high in the list of priorities.

Weight is also gained over periods of time. What was your man doing when you moved from 80 kgs to a whopping 135 kgs? Where was this good recreational partner? Year one went by, year two and maybe two more until your better half moved 3 sizes up and you didn’t see it coming? What was your contribution in the waist size change? If you were such a good man with strong leadership qualities why didn’t you steer us from our wretched path to your straight and narrow one if you know what I mean?

Finally, a man or woman cheating is a decision made without his partner in mind. Cheating I insist is a choice not a chance. You make a decision to cheat on your partner regardless of whether they are good, bad, fat, thin, submissive, hardheaded or subtle. Really when you cheat it’s not about the other person (and their size) it’s about you! It is about your greed, insecurities, inferiority or superiority complex, illusionist high expectations and whatever other excuse we want to give . But one thing for sure it has nothing to do with how your wife looks since you have contributed to it by omission or commission.

Njoki, have you seen the new Camay advertisement? The one that informs us that when you apply that brand of oil and products, your man will suddenly gain interest in you and the whole world will stop because of your skin! Your article took the same angle.

Sojourner