“I am a 23-year-old wife. I was married after a three-year love story. I have a child. My problems are jealousy and suspicion to the extent that I feel sick with something that threatens my family and me. My husband always complains to everybody about my jealousy. I become crazy; I keep my eyes always on him, watch his behavior, monitor his phone calls and his letters, ask about his phone numbers and his friends. I call them without my husband knowing just to make sure they are not women. I search his pockets for a small paper with a name or a strange number. I even search through all his clothes to find anything to confirm my suspicions.
“I have to be honest: From the day we got married up to now, I have not found one single thing to confirm my suspicions. Sometimes I say that he is very clever and is hiding something. I do not know what to do. My life is a living hell and our problems do not seem to end.
“My husband swears to me that he does not do anything. I do not believe him because he lied to me before about a relationship with another woman before we got married. He told me that he used to love her but they could not marry and so he married me. I tell myself that he knew her and me at the same time.
“How can he prove that he does not know anyone but me? How can he prove that he does not cheat on me? I am very tired. These suspicions are killing me and I need a solution. I want to know how to overcome these problems. I need to learn not to question him about where he was, who was with him and who he talked to. I need to stop demanding proof for everything he tells me. I cannot make myself stop questioning him. How can I make sure that he is telling the truth? I need someone who can hear me, understand me and give me advice.”
Young lady, I am afraid that you are destroying yourself. Your suspicions mean only one thing — that you have no confidence or trust in yourself. A woman with self-confidence trusts her husband. What you are doing now will lead only to one thing — divorce. The solution is easy: Develop self-confidence. Believe that you are the most beautiful woman in your husband’s eyes and that he cannot find anyone more beautiful than you. Stop before you destroy yourself. And remember: “Jealousy kills women. Sadness kills men.”
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AFTER decades of struggling for equality with men, the Arab woman has begun to think more because of psychological and social pressures. The pressure spurs her to achieve her ambitions at work in addition to fulfilling her responsibilities at home. After 10 years of competing with men for equality, she realizes that she is 30 years old without achieving what most people want — a warm, loving relationship that will end in marriage. She looks at the past, and wonders sadly, “How have these years passed so quickly without women getting what they want — a husband and a family?”
Many people believe that at 30, women are mature. What most people don’t know is the pressure felt by a single 30-year-old woman. She thinks that she is old and is past her prime. Especially when someone asks her why she is not married and what she has achieved in her life.
Psychologists believe that at 30, women has a good understanding of life but at the same time they feel worried about what will happen to them before they are 40. These doctors believe that if a woman feels that she is past her prime, then she will not have a happy life because she has not married and she has sacrificed family and children for work.
Arab News Features 17 January 2003
