This post was originally published at Uptown Magazine.
A few days ago, The Married Man at Hello Beautiful wrote a charming little piece entitled "5 Ways to Keep Your Man From Cheating." As soon as I read the title, I rolled my eyes. Like, literally. I plucked my eyes out of my head, cupped them in my hand, and shook them up like they were sunflower seeds because the standard eye roll just wasn't dramatic enough. I don't know about you all, but I'm tired of men lecturing women on how to behave in relationships and teaching them how to not screw it up (as if every failed relationship is a woman's fault). So, I have a few ideas, too, and I'd like to take you all through them in a little piece I'd like to call "5 Reasons That This Advice Doesn't Make Any Sense."
1. "Give him some good love." Come on, now. A jerk is a jerk is a jerk. You can get up before the sun, make sure your hair and makeup are perfect, butcher your own hogs and bake your own bread for breakfast, feed it to your man, go to work, get a promotion, come home, clean the house, pluck a chicken for dinner, feed it to him again, birth three babies, get them ready for bed, blow his mind in the bedroom, write him a love poem, and read it to him while rubbing his feet every night while wearing stilettos, and guess what. If he wants to cheat, he'll cheat anyway. He'd probably say your shoes were the wrong color. How insensitive of you.
2. "Know his friends." This tip starts off, "No man in a relationship really has any business out on his own." What? Really? Is he going to quit his job? Never go to the gym? Stay home, sit on his butt, and stay in my face all the time? No thank you. If you can't trust your man out on his own, or trust him to not bang his friends, that's a whole other problem all together. If he needs that kind of supervision, send him back to his mama, 'cause that's a mama's job. He's not some puppy that you have to watch because he doesn't know better than to pee on your new couch. Take that plastic off the sofa, girl.
3. "Let him know the consequences." Now, this I actually do agree with. It is important to set boundaries in any relationship. But what I don't agree with is the writer's beseeching to not threaten to slash his tires and so forth. DO THAT. DO EXACTLY THAT. Let him know you ain't no punk. Sit down and watch Waiting to Exhale with him and pause it right when Angela lights her cigarette after setting her man's car on fire. Then look at him and simply say, "You see that? Remember that."
4. "Let him know he's special." Kindly refer to tip #1.
5. "Take interest." Sure, ladies. Talk to him. But, don't talk too much, otherwise you'll be labeled a nag, which will give him yet another reason to go cheat. We just can't win for losing, can we??!
Know the best way to keep a man from cheating? Find a man who isn't a jerk and can take responsibility for his own actions. That should pretty much take care of it.