SO it’s a new year and many persons are making or have made their new year’s resolutions. While I am not into making new year’s resolutions because I think they only last a couple weeks for most persons, including myself, I think I want to encourage the sisters who may be guilty of what I am about to write, to make themselves a new year’s resolution to better treat their husbands. 

Sometime ago my colleague Jacqueline Champier wrote an article about women who ‘lock shop’, a practice which continues. Now I want to write about naïve wives.

Ladies, is it that you are just overconfident about your husband’s patience, or are you just straight out naïve?

Why do I ask the question? Many women take their men for granted, not only do they lock shop or unlock occasionally and make the men feel they are doing them a favour, but they do not romance their men in any way, form or shape. The men have to do their own laundry, prepare their own meals, and conversation is just mere formality. The most these men hear from their wives is ‘no.’

And what I’ve found is that these ladies feel very secure in their relationships. They are of the notion that their men can’t do without them and the men will never look ‘out there.’ So because their men don’t cuss them out, they don’t physically abuse them and they go home at nights and do their part in covering the expenses, these ladies think they can treat the men any old way because they got it locked, no pun intended.

Ladies, can I tell you, if you are in this category, you are naïve. A man is a man, whether he be Christian or ‘worlian'. How long do you think he is going to put up with your attitude? Do you think it’s only women who have a boiling point? Men have their boiling point too. They are going to either step, or as Shebada said, “mek you celebrate Easter every day.” For those who many not be so street smart, it means he is going to give you bun, bun, bun.

What I find interesting is that when the man decides to take romance where it’s freely offered, or packs up and leave, the woman now becomes the victim. When she tells her story, it’s only the man who was plain ‘wicked’; she totally leaves out the part where for years she had been ignoring the needs of her man and taking him for granted.

What am I saying, ladies, is that if you have been treating your man like a second class citizen for years, make 2013 the year you treat him like a king, as otherwise one day you will wake and think it’s all a dream, because, either the man will be gone or you inherited his baby mama.

So for all you women who have become ice queens with your men, please get a warm bath and do some melting for 2013.

Venese Madden, MSc, is an instructor in the Behavioural Sciences Department at the Northern Caribbean University in Manchester.