Etcetera Writes--Dear Nigerian Women..Why Men Cheat

When you heard the news that Toke Makinwa’s husband impregnated his girlfriend, you all took to social media to rain insults on Nigerian men. Why men cheat on women they love became a topic for all female radio presenters in the country. Aren’t you all tired of asking the same question over and over as if it is some perplexing unfathomable mystery? 

Your question is rhetorical, but since it keeps coming up again and again, let me provide some explanations to help you understand the reasons. I will simply tell it like it is, with no bull, tact, or political correctness. It’s just that oftentimes; women do not accept the explanations. But in fact, one can understand it through common sense. Sometimes a man would cheat on his wife or girlfriend because he doesn’t love her anymore; he is bored with her, or even possibly unhappy with their relationship.

In such scenarios, even women can become unfaithful as well. Women must understand that men are fundamentally different from them and wired differently too. We all know this but feminists try to suppress or deny this universal fact. A man craves variety and seeks novelty, while women prefer familiarity. Men will naturally desire variety when it comes to romantic/sexual partners more than women will. Men easily get bored by the same thing every day or a routine and we are sometimes afraid to voice this. Think about this. You ate your favourite eba and egusi soup, and on the second day that you ate it, the pleasure would be noticeably less than the first day. And after a week of eating it, you’d get tired of it and start to strongly desire to eat something else. Your desire for that eba will have diminished at that point.

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I know what you are thinking now, “You can’t compare food with people” right? That’s the typical female reaction to this analogy. However, I’m sorry to say that this analogy does apply because it’s one of the best and simplest ways that it can be explained. I am not trying to objectify people. But by accepting such an analogy, it will start making sense to you that men are more visually stimulated than women are. And when a man relies on visual stimulation for arousal, the stimulation wears off at some point, which then requires new stimulation from new women. Got the drift? In other words, visual stimulation is a sensual thing that is fleeting in nature and requires constant variety in order to maintain the stimulation. 

Thus, men who seek visual stimulation will require variety from more than one partner or lover. Women often argue that “true love” never gets old. But the notion of “true love” is indefinable, very personable, and highly subjective. And even for the sake of this argument, if we agree that “true love” never gets old and never wears out, that still doesn’t change what we’re talking about here. You see, even if a man has true everlasting unending love for his woman, he can STILL desire another woman he fancies. That’s what our women have to understand, rather than cling to naïve clichés of society.

 A woman’s heart tends to be able to love only one man at a time, a man’s heart is different and can truly love MORE THAN ONE woman at a time. This might be hard for you to accept, and unfathomable to your values and beliefs about “love.” But it is the truth. A man’s heart is molded differently with multiple chambers that enable him to love and desire multiple women. It’s like a tree with different branches, rather than just one. Men usually won’t admit it, because our society doesn’t accept this, but condemns it.

Ladies, to understand this, think about all the different colours you love. You love pink and sky blue, or red, blue, black and purple. Now, can you like more than one colour at a time? Of course you can! You like the different colours in different ways, on different things, and for the different ambiance and mood that each colour accentuates, right? Likewise, you can like more than one type of cuisine right? Can you like Chinese and Italian foods at the same time? 

Of course you can. Even if society said you could only like one type of cuisine, it wouldn’t make a difference, would it? After all, society may attempt to create mutually exclusivities, but reality doesn’t. These are painfully obvious examples, and I am not arguing that people are like colours or food, but such simple analogies do describe what’s going on inside those who love more than one person or like having many lovers. Just because a man tells more than one woman that he “loves her,” desires her, or has feelings for her, does NOT make him a “playboy” or “liar.” He is not necessarily “playing” in terms of acting, nor does it mean he is using people in some sort of pretend “game” where he doesn’t care about their feelings. These are just false judgements by the society especially a feminist or female dominated society like Nigeria is fast becoming.

To some women, it doesn’t make sense and doesn’t fit their definition of love and loyalty. But it’s the truth. That’s reality and you’ve got to accept it if you want to try to understand it. Not all men unequivocally attach loyalty to true love. Society might do so, but not all human beings do. What women have to understand is that being in a loving relationship does NOT automatically erase one’s desire for other people. Of course, men who have multiple partners often do have to lie to the women they romance, by telling them that they are the only one when confronted with the issue. So that is one area in which men commonly lie. However, it doesn’t make them dishonest people in general. It’s just that since most women cannot accept that their partner can pursue someone else beside them, demanding total monogamy in love; men with multiple desires for multiple women are FORCED to lie in order to prevent chaos and failure in courtship. There is no easy way around it. And that is the case even if they are generally honest men. (After all, who hasn’t lied? Everyone has at one time or another, so stop pretending to be an angel!)

Loving or desiring multiple women has nothing to do with right or wrong, or being good or bad. It is simply a lifestyle and often these men are simply expressing who they are. Thus, infidelity does not make a man “bad” in a moral sense. Often, these men who romance multiple women are tender, caring, good-hearted, loving, nurturing people. Some are even deeply spiritual or religious. He doesn’t love you? My dear, the line between love and lust is blurry and subject to personal opinion. There is no universal objective measuring stick for differentiating between “love” (which has so many different meanings anyway) and “lust.”

 In reality, a man can find the perfect woman, who outshines the rest in his life, and can even have a perfect relationship with her, but still look at another woman he finds attractive and desires to court her, romance her, and experience the wonders and pleasures of her femininity as well. Some men get a “high” or adrenaline rush from courting, romancing, or seducing new women, in a way that nothing else can, and thus are addicted to it.

My ladies, there are no perfect solutions or answers to everything. Just accept that some things in life are just meant to be endured, not fixed or solved like an equation.

To be continued next week.