Ms Cyprah

Q. My husband recently began to talk to a work colleague on his mobile phone where I saw three calls registered. I did ask him not to talk to her when I first met her. He has acknowledged talking to her, but should I ask questions to find out what they have been talking about? Or should I leave it be since I know that this will cause a huge argument?

A. The biggest killers of many relationships are a lack trust, jealousy and a lack of space. Many wives do not realise that the more they watch a spouse, question him and want to know about the routine things he does, is the more unattractive they appear, the more claustrophobic the relationship becomes and the quicker they send him into the arms of someone else.

Many partners do not also appreciate that they cannot be all things to their spouses who need stimulation, perhaps intellectual, leisure or otherwise, from others. If couples love one another and trust one another there is no need to spy on one another. Problems begin when there has not been much attention and appreciation between couples and suddenly one partner seems to be giving that attention somewhere else. It is easy to demand that a partner stop such connections but much harder to make it stick because something could be missing from the home and the action will merely be repeated quietly later on because the real cause is not being addressed.

Instead of asking any questions, let it be and begin to review your parts in the relationship. Could you do more things together? When did you last praise him? Or he praise you? When did you last send gifts to one another, play silly games, have a night of wild passionate love? What I am trying to say is that many relationships die of sheer boredom, of taking each other for granted and doing the same old things all the time. Along comes a person who seems exciting, who makes the partner feel relaxed and different and whammo! Problems afoot. But focusing on that person will not make the problems go away, if there are any. He will just switch to someone else down the line because you would be focusing on the symptoms, not the causes, whatever they are.

He has been open about talking to her. He hasn’t hidden it. Furthermore, she is a work colleague and they could be talking about anything on earth. Over to you now to have the courage to examine what could be missing between you by having some communication with him and start focusing on you both. It is easy to start blaming others for things going wrong, but the third party is never important. It really is about the two of you and what you wish for your relationship. You cannot afford for him to see you as unattractive (you mentioned him getting ‘an earful’). If that is all he has to look forward to, he will look elsewhere. Once attraction goes, it cannot be manufactured and often couples concentrate on the negatives instead of simply loving and valuing their partners.

Look at it realistically: So he answers all your questions and tells you what they have been talking about and you’re still not happy? What then? You cannot curtail his movements like a child and you will only make the situation worse with your negative stance. I would ask him just one question: “When can we go away for a wild weekend together? We need some time to ourselves, just do something different, don’t you think?” Then also have a long chat on that weekend to see how you both can get more from the relationship and build it from there. Otherwise any other negative action will merely leave you feeling stressed, anxious, vulnerable and very insecure as you cannot watch him 24/7 and he might simply retreat from you to avoid the confrontations.

Q. I’ve had reject letters many times over the years and often felt a bit annoyed that I wasn’t told why I wasn’t selected for interview or offered the job after having attended an interview. As a HR professional I always have the courtesy to give a reason when someone is not successful in their application, I feel it’s only common courtesy and it gives people a good impression of your company - that you actually bother to explain why they weren’t selected. But what do you think?

A. The trouble with getting ‘the truth’ is that such truth is very subjective. One company’s ‘truth’ might bear no relation to another company’s ‘truth’ about the same person! It all depends on what that organisation is looking for. You might be told that you were ‘not suitable’ for that post for a variety of reasons that could actually make you suitable for another post entirely. For example, if you are not the conforming type and do not like taking orders but interview for the military, you will be rejected because you might appear too rebellious or forthright. Yet those very qualities would be admirable for an entrepreneurial job where you have to exercise your own initiative and lead from the front.

Again, it could be a case of not being liked for your dress, appearance, personality, brashness, extroversion, introversion or anything to do with how you choose to behave. Trying to change that to suit specific employers is not really you. You will only end up feeling frustrated as time goes on when you cannot do the things you really like to do, the kind that makes you feel alive and energetic. The essence of job satisfaction is to be happy with who you are and match it to the right employer.

Unless the problem is to do with practical things like a badly written CV, personal appearance, or how I actually conducted the interview, I would not wish to hear someone else’s ‘truth’ about me. They would be judging me purely on the narrow suitability for that job, but not for anything else. I would rather take my chances elsewhere. Employers have all sorts of measurements they use to assess candidates. It is always best to shop around until you find an employer that makes you get all excited at the thought of working for them. That would be the best fit. Should you not make the grade there, then their ‘truth’ might be well worth hearing.

There is no such thing as one person being right in how they believe because belief is based on sheer perception, and perception is dictated by culture, gender, experience and personal aspirations. Thus the ‘truth’ will be many faceted. One person’s truth is likely to be someone else’s lie, depending on our alignments. No one person has a monopoly on the ‘truth’ because it really just boils down to our knowledge of the real facts, our desire to cooperate or to blame, and our own personal agenda to be significant, to be valued and to be included in what matters to us.

To cope with their routine lives, and the aspects which overwhelm them, people tend to develop belief systems which offer them security, comfort and a degree of control and power over others and their environment, of which, for example, the idea of a heaven that rewards them, and a hell, that punishes others, are core elements. It’s the most natural thing to do for inner contentment and sense of power. Such belief systems expand our knowledge of the world around us.

However, there is a difference between sharing that knowledge and imparting it with mutual respect than imposing that knowledge, whether that person wants to adhere to it or not. If we believe we are each responsible for our lives, then advising someone of the risks to themselves is permissible, and then leaving them to deal with those risks in their own way. However, coercing them into action, or damning them because they resist, is certainly not ’sharing’ in the true sense of the word. Every person has to be allowed to experience life in their own way, not in ours.

Thus anyone who prefers to start with assumptions about someone in their bid to prove anything merely appears self-righteous and all-knowing while losing credibility before they have even begun. For example, credit controllers etc., tend to make assumptions about people and money. But I do not believe there is any correlation between financial management and other life factors, except that people who manage their money well tend to be either financially savvy, adept at dealing with figures, more careful in that regard than others or are just good controllers. We can’t all be good at everything and so we individually have our strong points. Handling money has never been mine, no matter how good I have been with words, so I have quietly accepted it and done my best!

Does that make me less of a person than the next one? That would be up to you to decide, depending on your own beliefs and ready assumptions.

It is always easy to judge in stereotypes because it is quicker to assess someone negatively than to get to know them personally and acknowledge their individuality in a positive manner.

No one has that right. We are either ruled by the law, or we are not. Once anyone takes the law into their own hands and does what he/she likes, with the blessing of everyone else, we have sunken beyond animal levels. It becomes a free for all, the strong brutalising the weak.

Take the example of the man who buggered his stepson with a tool handle in revenge for him raping his half-sister. What makes this man any less of a
criminal than the stepson he was hurting? What makes him less brutal than the stepson? What makes him any different if he can quietly and calmly plan and execute that on someone? That young man clearly needed psychological help, not revenge. Changing his life so that he doesn’t repeat that awful act should be more important than damning him forever. Otherwise we will simply get more of the same. The answer is to try to change the law, or protest about it, not become judge and jury ourselves. The law cannot apply to some and not to others.

It is not an eye for an eye that let’s us retain our sight. It’s love, education and forgiveness. Given America’s history of hangings, lynchings and swift justice, and the consequences of those, one would have thought it would have learnt something from them by now. They weren’t the answer then, and they are not the answer now. Two wrongs NEVER make a right. It is easy to bay for someone’s blood when it has nothing to do with us, but it would be an entirely different thing if the teenager were related to us.

When we are angry and mad at someone, where do we stop short in that justice? That boy could have died later from the effects of what was done to him. It all depends on a person’s capacity to bear such actions. Everyone is different. And what would have happened then? Both the father and the brother would have been gone, devastating the whole family in the process. People also forget the psychological effect on that poor girl, not only of the rape, but she will mistakenly continue to believe, for a long time to come, that she was responsible for what happened to both her brother and her Dad. I think she could have done without that as well.

If we are going to start deciding what punishment everyone should have for any crime we don’t like, and also do it ourselves, given the chance, why do we need any kind of laws? We might as well go back to the caveman days of everyone for himself. Some of the chilling comments I heard around the case showed that we have hardly evolved through the centuries, despite our so-called education and innovations. We are still back there somewhere, living by a lawless code to suit ourselves when we feel like it, yet expecting some kind of law to work for us when we are in need of it.

We really cannot have it both ways. Using violence against another doesn’t make anyone into a man/woman. That’s the mark of a coward taking out their feelings of inadequacy on another equally helpless person simply to feel self righteous. It solves nothing at all in the end except the sad destruction of everyone involved.