The Seven Year Itch

I am acquainted to someone who has for 15 years, serve breakfast for her husband in bed. She would willingly wake up from slumber, just to attend to the man's demand for a foot massage, right after he came home from his late night outings. This is also the woman who has abruptly ended her confinement period, so that the kids would go to school and food would be served on the table, right on time when her man was home from work. In short, nothing is impossible for her to fulfill her man's need for perfection. Perhaps all these bona fide actions are fueled by her undying love and affection for her man.

Yesterday was their wedding anniversary. It also marked the first year of the husband's second marriage to a woman from our neighbouring state across the Straits. She was the last to know of this clandestine liaison, friends were aware of this, but none had the guts to spill the beans. "It is heart-wrenching", she told me one day during a phone conversation, "to be the fool who still hangs on to your man's words when the people around you, whom you trust and love, have been buzzing about the ugly truth".

Now name me a woman who is in her right faculty, who will not get hurt hearing such news. Perhaps, to have someone who you love to cheat on you could be equated to stabbing your heart with a dagger and smothering the gashes with the saltiest salt on Earth. It is that painful, you know.

I would like to attribute this to the infamous 'seven year itch ' period as termed by psychologists, to mark the declining interest in monogamous relationship after seven years of marriage. Now, I wonder if it would cloud over my marriage too. Touch wood.

I have to be honest, it has been very taxing to keep the flame burning. Very challenging, indeed. I have always been the lurvy durvy type, I will try my best to impress my man. Of course I do aim for something favourable in return. Perhaps a bit more TLC?

"What TLC?", he would say, "You can't survive just on that", I knew it was more of an irritated remark rather than a question. I wanted to explain, but words do not come easy nowadays. I tend to shed lonely tears in exchange.

I do not serve breakfast in bed, or sacrifice my slumber to serve a husband who has had a whale of a time with his buddies at places frequented by the vilest creatures on Earth, still I believe my simple gestures as an imperfect woman speak volume of how I want to keep this family together.

Indeed, it is true that words do not come easy nowadays, complete silence during rides is no alien to me anymore. I have tried to initiate conversations, though, but maintaining them is not an easy task, thus the effort is usually left in vain. Silence is golden, perhaps it is better than to risk exchanging hurtful words. So the mind is left to travel to places beyond the permissible space. Maybe. I do not know. I do not do mind reading. If I did, I would not have written this bit here.

I wonder if we are scratching the seven years itch now. If we are, how damaging would it be? Would it ever pass? What is the oilment to ease such itch? Funny how these psychologists coin the 'autumn' phase of a marriage.

Oh well, my man has been in slumber hours ago, thus to sleep I must go. Perhaps it is safe to doze off and dream away now, for he will be deep in slumber, maybe temporarily with hearing impairment, for I might talk in my sleep. *wink

So much for the seven year itch. Bah!