Sex Talk: You are their employer, not their spouse

So, your boss is tough and no-nonsense, but try not to hang him/her over your spouse’s head.

If you are a man, it makes you look like a sissy in your wife’s eyes and takes you several notches down on the desirability scale when you lose control of your job.

“I have threatened to march to my husband’s boss’ office to remind the man that he hired a married man!” one wife told me recently.

“If we were in the middle of a Christmas lunch or an intimate getaway and Mr Boss called, I tell you, my husband would drop everything and run to him like a little girl. So disgusting to watch!”

She said what makes it worse is that his macho, take-charge, ‘all man’ persona has always been this husband’s major attraction. Watching another man strip that away must be hard to do.

“I lose count of the date nights cancelled because boss called him into the office after-hours, or intimate sessions interrupted because that number called at the wrong time. I’m so done!”

For context, this husband is not a journalist, in security or even a doctor. Just a regular job where an insensitive person is in supervisory role. Bosses, what is it? Don’t give someone a job then proceed to kill their marriage and all other relationships!

How much could you be paying them, to require them to be at your beck and call 24/7? And it is not just husbands; it actually happens more with wives. Bosses have become de facto husbands.

The other day I watched a Luganda news clip of a politician’s husband making a veiled dig at his unavailable wife, saying: “...even us who thought we had found good wives have to bear with the fact that their elevated job statuses have turned us into nobodies...”

You have not met kajanja, until you meet a married person who puts the boss – or even pastor/priest – above spouse! At some point, even decisions for the home and marriage are made at that level, and the spouse only sees implementation.

A wife will reserve the sweetest, most syrupy voice, and sexiest outfits for the boss, even as she barks and snarls at her husband back home – if he sees her at all, that is. She will kneel, pay attention to the boss’s every need – even outside her job description – but leave her husband and children neglected, or in the capable hands of a house maid.

You may call it ‘securing the bag’ as the talk is nowadays; I call it a lack of wisdom, when a spouse fails to balance the work-home dynamics. Long after that job is done, my friend, you will have the money alright, but also the ruins of your once enviable home, at your feet.

Don’t bend over backwards to breaking point, because of securing the bag. You can actually have the conversation with the boss about reasonable working hours, how to treat your days off/annual leave, or even including your spouse in some activities or trips where they will not be in work’s way.

Jobs are important. Very important, actually. But so are marriages, healthy sex lives and good parenting. These also contribute to your work force’s general productivity, dear Boss Ladies and Mr Bosses!

When you hire someone, you do not become their spouse, consuming all their hours and dreams, while you, on the other hand, enjoy sexy getaways with your spouse and regular family time with the children.

How selfish! How different is that from slavery?

carol@observer.ug