Are you selling yourself short?

The other day I asked a married friend what resolution she had made at the beginning of the year regarding her relationship.

I thought she would be aiming for fewer fights or a stronger bond but she told me that it was to work hard to ensure that her man came home every night.

So far, so good. He’s come home every night for the past month. I think that was the wrong resolution.

This “but he always comes home to me” is one of the biggest lies Kenyan women tell themselves. Believing that what matters most in a relationship is that he comes home to you is selling yourself short.

Before you go bragging to your friends or to the woman you caught him cheating with about how he spends every night at home, have you even stopped to think about why he is coming home to you?

There are a myriad of reasons a man will come home to a woman every night that have nothing to do with love or his commitment to the relationship.

WHAT HE OWES YOU

A man could come home to you because it is convenient for him, because it is cheaper to put up with you than to build a fort by himself while he invests in the things that matter to him.

Your home could just be somewhere he comes to eat, change, shower and sleep.

He could be coming home to you because you have unwittingly agreed to be a place holder while he looks for the woman he wants to spend his life with.

Or because you allow him to cheat and still enjoy the perks of marriage, to have his cake and eat it.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter where a man lays his head at night. His coming home to you is just a small part of the things he owes you.

He owes you love, respect, affection and sexual exclusivity. He owes you his time and energy when it comes to parenting, and his coming home isn’t nearly enough of a substitute for any of these things.

FREE PASS?

Believing that it is enough that he sleeps in your bed is believing that having half a man is better than none.

It is giving your man a free pass to do just one thing on a list of tens of others he should.

Think. Would a man give you a free pass just because you did one thing right? Would he look the other way if you cheated just because you are a great mother or because you are home waiting for him every night when he gets home?

Highly unlikely. So why are you? If you chip in with finances, are an involved mother and a committed wife, there is no reason your man shouldn’t give you all these things.