Let’s Talk To Person
David Bondze-Mbir (DBM): Thank you for participating. What name would you want to go by? (It can be your real first name or any other name of your choosing)
Participant 43: My name is Person
DBM: Hello Person. Please tell me a little about yourself
Person: I see myself to be a complete woman; beautiful, intelligent, interesting; can handle my own business, a mother of two and a wife
DBM: What do you want to talk about?
Person: My husband has become so critical and hurtful towards me lately. Everything I do for myself, he has an opinion about it, and it’s usually negative.
DBM: What do you mean by ‘everything I do for myself?’
Person: Dave, I always want to make a good impression when I step out of my house. I put in a lot of effort into making myself presentable; and people notice me. My makeup is always on point; I dress to ‘kill’ and smell damn good; I take very good care of my skin too. My husband sees me in a cute outfit, and the first thing he tells me is, ‘Too much paint on your face.’ Paint = makeup in his vocabulary. He sees my flawless skin, and he’s like ‘Stop bleaching. You used to be dark and pretty’. He will never tell me I look good in a dress, rather ‘Who are you trying to please at the office?’. He makes sure to ruin my good vibes anytime he sees me feeling myself and body.
DBM: What is your motivation to want to look good?
Person: I love who I am, and I want to feel good all the time. I am motivated and productive whenever I dress to impress myself, but my husband can look me in the eye and tell me, I don’t look beautiful – all because I have makeup on my face. David, me being beautiful isn’t only about my looks; I come with the right attitude to match my appearance. Why should outsiders and strangers, men and women alike – tell me I look gorgeous every day, while the man whose compliment should matter to me the most, only finds faults about me to talk about?
DBM: He has never given you a compliment?
Person: He used to, years ago.
DBM: So, what changed?
Person: That’s what I am trying to find out. I asked him why he’s become so negative lately and he says he is not being negative; he’s just trying to tell me the truth others aren’t bold to say to my face.
DBM: Which people in your circle usually compliment your looks?
Person: Colleagues at work, church members, our neighbors; my best friends, my husband’s colleagues; his own mother and siblings, people I don’t know from anywhere. The list goes on.
DBM: And, you believe they tell you the truth and would not be just saying anything to make you feel fly?
Person: Our pastor’s wife asks me for fashion tips and how to apply makeup; my sister-in-law trusts my opinion to the extent that, she hired my expertise to handle her wardrobe and makeup throughout her wedding ceremony last year. And this same husband couldn’t believe his own sister could look that beautiful on her wedding day. His mother asked me to make her up on her daughter’s wedding. Everyone else wears makeup, and my husband will find them to be beautiful. Let me buy a new body lotion for myself; out of nowhere my husband’s spiritual gift to point out what is wrong with me will speak to break my heart.
DBM: What’s going through your mind right now?
Person: I just remembered he called off a night out with me last week, because I refused to change my clothes to wear something ‘simple’. What he calls ‘simple’ is not something I am comfortable wearing. I am who I am; what I choose to wear shouldn’t define me.
DBM: Indeed!
Person: He thinks my life is all about me, and I don’t do as much to meet his needs.
DBM: Do you meet your husband’s needs?
Person: I do. I cook for the house, I clean; I respect him as my man and father of our children. I don’t deny him sex, I support the home financially. We are doing alright so far as a team. The only issue we still argue about is my refusal to dress like a slut for him in our bedroom. He’s bought these slutty clothes he expects me to be wearing in the bedroom. I don’t like them, and so I don’t wear it. And he gets mad at me all the time.
DBM: Describe your husband to me
Person: Control freak, great father, arrogant, hardworking, educated and selfish
DBM: Do you think he loves you?
Person: I know he loves me, but I am not afraid to be single if that is what is going to take for me to take his pressure off me
DBM: You feel pressured?
Person: His kind of pressure wants to take me out of my own skin. He wants me to deny myself what makes me feel good and alive and beautiful. He thinks because I am his wife, I have to do things to only make him happy and pleased.
DBM: Was he like this when you first started dating?
Person: He wasn’t doing anything to make me feel this uncomfortable.
DBM: How long have you been married?
Person: 11 years
DBM: As a wife, it’s your duty to satisfy your husband’s visual nature, and this connects to his sex drive.
Person: I will not put on anything that will make me feel uncomfortable. I respect the choices my husband makes for himself; I demand respect in return. If he is not proud to have me as his wife, then I may also not know how to treat him as my man
DBM: You mentioned that he thinks you are bleaching. Are you?
Person: Dave, my style of looking beautiful is entirely my choice. I do not need my husband’s permission to live my life and frame it according to my wants and needs. It’s my body, and I have every right to shape it up to my self-satisfaction.
DBM: That makes sense
Person: Every woman is beautiful. It’s rather unfortunate not every man has the eye to discover this.
DBM: I concur
Person: In the early years of our relationship, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We had a healthy sex life, and it was frequent and marvelous, though it wasn’t the best of the best. I love sex, and Dave, I know the taste of good sex. I have been with men who go beyond 35 minutes for their erection to last once intercourse begins. So, imagine me settling for what my husband can offer in bed, which is less than a quarter of what I have been used to. I have never complained about it to him, though I know it’s not working for me. Instead of him criticizing my makeup, dressing and skin tone, why is he not finding out what he can rather do to make me feel as good as he feels when he cums?
Image Credit: Kampus Production
