‘Single women chase married men for stability’

Anyone who has spent even a few passing moments perusing through Pakistani women-only groups on social media will be aware that one of the most pressing issues plaguing women today is cheating husbands.

“A lot of women whine about it,” observed actor Fatima Effendi on the FHM Pakistan podcast as she admitted that she, too, is a member of such women-only groups online. “Their husbands are having affairs. It’s the truth.”

The Munafiq actor has a theory for why cheating is so prevalent now, and in her view, a lot of it is down to the current economic climate. “Things are changing,” she pointed out. “Single women are going for married men because they’re more established. We are a materialistic society, and with the way inflation is going, survival is going to get very difficult.”

Effendi also pointed out that in addition to troubling economic times, social media, too, has played a very big hand in wrecking lives. “People are looking at others’ lives, but they don’t know what is on the inside of their lives,” she remarked. “They don’t see that no one is perfect. Everyone has imperfections. Some have beauty, others have wealth, others have health — but no one looks at what they have.”

Whether or not economics or social media have sped up the rate of infidelity may be up for debate, but what can be empirically measured is that when a woman posts online about her cheating husband, someone — be it the OP or a faceless commenter — will point a finger at ‘the other woman’ and label her a homewrecker. In Effendi’s eyes, they are missing the point.

“If two people are married and a third person enters the equation — that woman is not responsible for that,” she stated clearly. “Your partner is a grown man. Your man is not an innocent baby. Yes, he may have chased after someone prettier — but if that is the case, why didn’t he wait to marry someone prettier? Yes, the other woman is not completely innocent either, but in this case, the person who is at fault is the husband.”

Lamenting what she sees as nothing but a downward trend, Effendi added, “Where are we even headed as a society? People used to be hard-working and focused on their career. But now they are on TikTok and least bothered about their future. We just want a shortcut.”