Debate Tuesday - Women and their cheating men

The wives and steady girlfriends of men who cheat. Do they know?

It's been a while since the last Debate Tuesday but recent events have given rise to this post. In the past few days, a couple of high profile men have gotten into the news headlines for cheating. First, Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor and former governor of California separated from the wife, Maria Shriver, and then it came out that it was because he confessed to her about his love child. And with a woman who has lived and worked in their house for the past 20 years! Also more than 10 other women have come out since the break-up to say they've had affairs with the former governor over the years. So I ask, did she know all along? Was the love child sort of like the straw that broke the camel's back?

There's also the IMF Managing Director who was spectacularly arrested in New York after alleged imprisonment and attemped rape of a hotel maid. News reports claim that Dominique Strauss-Kahn had in the past admitted to womanizing, and so it seems that the wife did know in this case.

In October, 2008, Sinclair watched as her husband was forced to apologize and admit "a serious error of judgment" for an affair with an IMF employee in Washington, DC. The IMF board investigation concluded that Strauss-Kahn's behavior was "regrettable and reflected a serious error of judgment," but found that the fling was consensual and did not involve any type of sexual harassment, favoritism or abuse of authority.

I'll leave the debate of why women remain with cheating men for another day. Let's talk my people...

The Book of M - Samuel Kolawole (Guest Author)

I met Samuel Kolawole at the Garden City Literary Festival in Port Harcourt last year. He was very articulate as he told me his plans of editing and publishing his collection of short stories. I got the chance to read some of them before the book went to press and I think he is one to watch. He is our Guest Author for the day. Enjoy the interview -

Tell us about yourself, a brief autobiography.
I like to keep it simple. I was born and raised in Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria, where I live, write and hope to change the world someday.

When and why did you begin writing?
I wish I could tell you that I had developed the desire to write since I was little, and that I pored over Famous Five, and Nancy Drew but there was nothing in my childhood that suggested I would be a writer. I started writing some years ago after I was faced with a major life crisis. I became despondent and decided to turn away from the world, so I found refuge in books. I read like a man from another world. Sometimes I would bury my head for days without coming out, people became concerned for me. They thought I was losing my mind. Then one day I picked up my pen and began to write… and so my writing journey began. Now I can look back and say it was God’s providence. God used the mess of my life to create something of beauty.

What inspires you to write?
Everything. What people say, what they don’t say but mean, true stories, (some of the stories in my book were inspired by real accounts) something happening somewhere in a bus or on the streets, funny occurrences…the unusual. I find myself being drawn to things people would usually take for granted.