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JUST how far will people go? Imagine your spouse’s lover paying you cash damages of US$100 000 or US$200 000. What if the alleged lover pays you half a million United States dollars?
That is a lot of money. But is it money that one can enjoy spending?

The feeling of betrayal that comes with knowing or just imagining that the person you love; the one who supposedly loves you too is busy dishing that same love if not more, to someone else hurts.

Some have committed suicide after failing to handle such cases. Others have even gone on to commit murder. It is not easy to stomach the mere thought that someone else other than yourself; could enjoy the affection of your spouse or partner.

However, does the pain go away when you demand or get money?

Can money be a substitute for lost love and affection? Do relationships that go this route where one claims adultery damages last beyond these smear campaigns and lawsuits? There was a heated discussion on this matter on social networking platform, Facebook, earlier this week.

A female friend queried why so many men are demanding cash payouts from their wives’ lovers and alleged lovers?

She wondered if they were driven by genuine pain and love. She questioned whether the harsh economic environment is not pushing some people to rip off others. Imagine a situation where a male colleague sends a married female colleague a message whose contents are not very palatable.

The female colleague in this case gets offended and shares the message innocently with her husband. The husband throws a fit and demands an audience with this man who has the nerve to send sexually explicit messages to his wife. When he meets the man in question, he demands payment saying his wife has been violated.

According to the calculating and jealous husband in question, failure by the male colleague in question to pay will lead to his wife, the whole workplace and indeed the whole world (through the media) knowing that he is a philanderer. The male colleague pays up even though he would not have gone out with the man’s wife. The man goes to the pub and spends his ill-gotten money.

The situation portrayed above is a true one. It has actually happened to someone in my circles. The married woman in question and the male colleague who was obviously disrespectful by sending vulgar images to someone’s wife know that they never crossed the line in terms of having a relationship. They were just colleagues who happened to be close.

The husband, too, is well aware that his wife never cheated but he just decided to teach the male colleague a lesson. He actually enjoyed spending the money because he is not a very successful person and does not see anything wrong with what he did.

His assertion to this day is that; since he is the husband, he had every right to protect his territory. But he lost the wife psychologically that day.

Of course there are different situations. There are cases where someone knowingly cheats with a married person.

There have been a few cases where women have approached the courts to sue their husband’s lovers for adultery.

In most cases, the husbands end up paying these amounts on behalf of their lovers. The marriages in question rarely survive after that.

With the publicity that comes with court cases and hanging one’s linen out for everyone to see; women actually advise each other against taking this route. I think that is best.

Why are couples not addressing marital problems? Why are people trying to make money out of bad situations?

For one to cheat on their partner in the first place; there is a problem with the cheater and at times the relationship.

For one to perennially cheat on their partner as some do again shows a problem. But the problem can only be worked out by the two involved parties. Here we refer to the two parties who have a written or verbal contract to resolve their problems alone. Someone asked on FB why try and sue someone who is not the partner that has betrayed you in the first place.

For example why should a woman go after another woman who has been approached by her man and probably told the same lies that she herself is fed on daily? Why should a man want to punish another man when it is his wife or lover who would have broken her promise to him? Does this not show that one already knows that their relationship is over and thus in anger and desperation would rather hit out at the third party for taking what is theirs?

A critical question we need to ask at this point also is why we have so many cases of infidelity? In the past we had more of these cases involving men.

This is how the term “small house” was coined and it was becoming accepted though frowned upon that married men had long term girlfriends running parallel to their marriages. But today married women, if the headlines are anything to go by, are fast joining the race. The husbands have responded by claiming huge amounts of cash. Others demand livestock. While women were told to swallow it up and stay strong as the men would always find their way home in most cases; the men are not willing to do so. However the worrisome bit should be the state of our relationships.

It used to be taboo for a married woman to cheat. Yes, it happened here and there but today the stories are worrying. I do not subscribe to the notion that cheating by a man is better than cheating by a woman as some do. Cheating is cheating and it is wrong.

It hurts people. There is some cancer eating away at relationships and it will take strong men and women of virtue to address the problems in relationships.

It will also take strong men and women to acknowledge when something is not working and walk away rather than want to enjoy both the single and married life at the same time. This, as we can see from the huge cash claims, suicide, violence and divorce cases; is disastrous.

There is need for improved communication for relationships to work. Truth be told; it is not easy to be with the same person year in and out. They can get boring. But so can you. That is why it is important to work at it. If a relationship is finished and there is absolutely nothing left to it, men and women should have the guts to say so. Honestly everyone will be happier.

Deceit in relationships carries with it the threat of disease and heartbreak. Why not love your partner so much that they would never go looking? Just food for thought!

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