Renad Ghanem Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – The old adage “Friends can make you or break you” still remains true. No matter in which phase of life one is, friends play a vital role in it. Talking and sharing problems with friends is a good way to relieve stress as it helps make one feel better. Often we listen more to the advice of our friends in times of trouble, but sometimes these advices can prove to be disastrous, especially if one acts on them without giving it a second thought. Some Saudi husbands, interviewed by Saudi Gazette, blindly followed their friends' advice of getting married to younger and healthier women. Instead of advising the distressed husbands to remain faithful to their wives, the so-called friends told them to abandon them at times when their wives needed them the most. A Saudi housewife, on condition of anonymity, said that her husband got a second wife on the advice of his close friend. The latter had persuaded her husband to get a younger and disease-free wife because his first wife suffered from diabetes and kidney problems. The housewife said that she had stood with her husband through thick and thin for 35 years. She had supported him and was always by his side when he was working hard to make a good living. And now, the housewife said, he has fallen for a younger woman because his first wife suffers from diseases. “When my husband got married I was shocked, but the greatest shock for me was when I learnt that his friend had gotten him married; the friend who knew of the struggles that I had endured with my husband,” she said. The housewife further revealed that her 64-year-old husband's second wife was only 25 years old. After one year of marriage, the sexagenarian husband started suffering from a heart ailment, after which his second wife immediately divorced him. The second wife, according to the housewife, said that she is still very young and there is no way she would take care of a white-bearded man. Saudi national Eman said that her husband remarried on the advice of his friends when she was staying in the United States with her university-going sons. “My husband asked me to travel with my sons because they were then young and needed someone to take care of them aboard,” 47-year-old Eman said, adding,”My husband's friends asked him to marry a woman who would take care of him until I returned from the US.” Sadly, when Eman's husband got a second bride he didn't even bother informing Eman about his decision. When Eman learnt of her husband's deed she threatened to never come back to the Kingdom if he didn't divorce his new bride. Eman also asked her husband to end his friendship with those people who with their pathetic advices were ruining her house. Kamal Abdul Rahman, 56, has helped many of his friends get second, third or fourth wife. “My friend's wife was very boring, old and ugly, and he had married her because she was his parents' choice. They are married for 25 years,” said Abdul Rahman, adding that he advised his friend to marry again because he deserved a better wife. “I recommended some of my relatives and he married one of them,” said Abdul Rahman who admitted that he never feels guilty when he advises his friends to marry again. “When my friends complain about their wives, my duty as a good friend is to advise them to marry another woman as they have the right to have four wives,” he said.
