Later, he lay next to me and asked me if I liked it. I lied. I’ve always been good at lying. He asked me if I was a virgin. I lied again. He laughed and said, ‘You are a bad liar, on both counts.’ He turned my face to look at him. ‘Tell me about the other men.’

I was shocked, nervous; I told him. Then he stood up, made me sit and caught my chin roughly. ‘It’s better if we are frank about how we like it,’ he said and pushed his penis into my face. I opened my mouth and heard him say, ‘Good girl’.

Later, once we were done, he lit a cigarette and offered me one as well. I shook my head. ‘Ah, good girls don’t smoke, is it?’ he laughed. I told him I’d quit. He insisted he wanted me to. We both smoked.

‘Look,’ he said pulling at his cigarette, ‘I don’t like lies. I married you because my mother wanted me to. You’ve done the same. I wasn’t going to hurt you … I am not going to hurt you. But I don’t believe in love etc. I believe in honesty and sex. Don’t lie to me ever again. Don’t expect love. Don’t question what I do. But I can keep you happy, if you keep me happy. Understand that?’

I nodded.

The next day I threw my mother-in-law’s lists in the bin. It’s been ten years since that day. We still have regular sex. He has regular sex with other women as well. I don’t know them, but I know of them. He tells me, discusses them with me. I am a good listener. He assures me, though, he’ll never bring them home. ‘It’s your home,’ he says, ‘I’m your husband, you are my closest buddy, you are the Queen of my realm.’ He always laughs after he says that. We never fight, have similar tastes in most things and he takes me for expensive holidays.

My mother-in-law still hopes he’ll leave me and marry someone who’s not barren. Give her a grandchild to carry the family name forward. But I know he won’t. After all, we have a happy marriage. And that’s what I learnt.

A happy marriage does not depend on how good a cook you are, what job you have, how well you decorate your house or how many kids you pop out. You can get a maid for most and you will never be better than the mother-in-law anyway. A happy marriage is when your husband is happy with YOU. With the sex you give him.

Keep him happy in bed and the man is yours. He will listen, he will buy you things, he will never leave you and he will stop comparing you to his mother.

PS: Women with bitch ma-in-laws: Don’t nag, just shag.

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