Mark Wignall | Relationships cut before another compromise

To the wider public, the male of the human species is usually the one who navigates the poorest in trying to keep the viability of an intimate relationship. The times are numerous when the female gets a free pass.

From my own experience, the focus ought not be on the gender and the unique role they each bring to the relationship. A bigger reality exists. Within a few weeks of the beginning of an intimate relationship, each person is trying to jockey for the role where a leadership stance is the main objective.

Sex brings weakness to a man’s negotiating position. For obvious reasons. Too many times he is near to fury in his need for sexual congress. The woman sees it as the key to opening another door leading to the top floor. By that reasoning, while we males waste our efforts in sexual fury, she is methodical carving out her own carnal desires.

If one is to believe most of the words uttered by a man when he is in a bar among friends and associates, he is the boss at home. Such a man ideally fits into the invisible leash around his neck. The wife or main woman enjoys this. Her role at the top constantly reminds her that in most instances, she wields the baton, she shares the food, she calls out, ‘Rover!’

Think of it. She comes upon him in an intimate moment with another woman. Or just the converse. He comes upon her with another man. Which of the two is most likely to explode and bring rapid change to an otherwise normal life? According to research, the male is more likely to bring forgiveness in what had to be a moment of mental madness.

But if one partner finds that the easiest way to weave through the traffic of the relationship is to compromise, forgive even when the other is obviously wrong and to do it again and again, one will easily lose oneself. The man will feel as if he has been made into a boy. The woman will feel as if she has been made out to be a rag doll.

At a certain stage in a relationship when one person has compromised himself or herself into a mere symbol of a need to the other, just before that person totally loses the self, the best move for that person is to cut and run.

I knew her in the late 1990s. She was always mentally strong although she had little schooling. She had Tom in, out, and through many hoops. Tom was a nice person. I saw something in the relationship, and we provided them with a love-nest for a weekend.

A week after that, she asked us if she could come over. And she did. With a different man, Jerry. I turned her back immediately. A few months later, I determined that Jerry, a village ram, had got her pregnant. Tom was her target for ownership of the child. Tom had spent most of his time with her compromising himself until he disappeared. One weekend, he cut his wrists. Luckily, he lived.

GIVE US STRAIGHT, PM

The Most Honourable Andrew Holness is the prime minister of Jamaica. His access to the best legal advice available in this country is limitless.

At the very least, he has access to competent legal counsel and financial advisers who could advise him on how to properly file his statutory declarations. He is the PM and leader of the JLP. He is supposed to lead and set a good example. Not filing his statutory declarations is a very poor example to set.

There are many people in this country who believe that the prime minister’s personal financial state is his business and his alone. We should keep our noses out of the man’s business. Many of those people remind me of me - the way I felt as Chupski and I voted for the JLP in 2016 and 2020. Holness could do no wrong in our eyes.

Chupski has never been too much into politics. But she tends to know the part of this country where the predators breed and that other part where those labelled prey reside. So while I twist myself into pretzels in thinking about the state of global affairs and local matters, she is more taken up with the increases in the cost of petrol, cooking gas, and real estate.

For my part, I want to be honest to myself. In the matter of the PM’s financial state as required by law (in document form), I am more comfortable constantly trying to add an electro-chemical mix to our brain instead of just wanting the truth to be bared. I want you to judge for yourself.

It could be that the JLP and its leader have made the judgment that the favourable fiscal and economic state of Jamaica in 2023 have made them immune to criticism. They may well have a point. Electoral judgment can be extracted from opinion polls, but raw political judgment is part science, part art, part emotion.

Recently, I heard US Senator Mitt Romney of Utah refer to House Member Jim Jordan, who was seeking the Speaker post in the Republican party, as “the tail wagging the dog”. I was disappointed in Romney. I expected a Churchillian finish. Something like, “... some politicians are dog material, others are tail material. Congressman Jordan has never indicated that he is more dog than tail.”

Our home-grown politicians may believe that they are smarter than the typical American politician. It is the global season for that. Our politicians may believe that they are unevenly yoked with the people they are forced to govern. I do not for longer than a minute believe that the prime minister and the PNP president are dissimilar in their socio- economic standings and objectives.

Which means that it is likely that they are in search of goals that are not necessarily those that we are seeking.

Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.