Hi Brother Fuston,
I am at the moment faced with the armies of Pharaoh and the Red Sea and to take decision now is the toughest challenge facing me. My young family is in tatters, yet I can’t think straight. My siblings are poised for a show-down. They are demanding to know what my wife is still doing in my house. The pressure is coming more from my first sister and her husband who saw me through the university and also facilitated my employment in one of the leading banks in the country.
From my wife’s end, her people are insisting that my mother leaves my house because they think she is the cause of the trouble in my house presently.
My mother can’t leave the house unless my wife leaves. From the beginning my mother did not approve of my marriage to my wife. She recommended a girl from her church but I never liked her and had to insist on the girl I have known right from our school days and that’s my wife.
We have a lovely son and the marriage is only two years and I must confess that my mother’s constant quarrels and fights with my wife are like an albatross hanging on my neck. They are always at daggers-drawn even over some minor issues. Some errors my mother points out against my wife are correct, but she usually takes these little mistakes so far and makes it look like my wife is a devil.
I love my wife dearly and also love my mother who bore me for nine months, cared and gave me life. Any decision taken will go against one of these two women that are dear to me and may invariably affect adversely my relationship with the one. Please come to my rescue.
Chima
Dear Chima,
Though you did not tell me your age, I guess you should be either in your late twenties or early thirties. Whatever maybe your situation at the moment, no matter how delicate and the persons involved, you must be man enough to take decisions of your own and those decisions if right, you are expected to stand by them.
It is unfortunate that many parents do not want their newly-married children to make their mistakes and correct those mistakes themselves.
A man is supposed to leave his mother and father and cling to his wife. My thinking is that you are yet to leave your mother and hold on to your wife. Until you do this, peace will continue to elude you.
This is not to advise you to hate your mother, but from all indications she has done her bit in bringing you up and can only come into your family affairs on advisory capacity.
You as a mature and wise adult should take decisions on issues concerning your marriage.
You must know that your mum, your first sister and her husband and even your in-laws constitute third parties. They should not dictate what happens in your marriage probably because of one help or the other that any of them rendered to you.
Their interference in your marriage is making you appear like a child. You should not continue to shy away from taking a stand on an issue that is about making your marriage hit the rock.
Wisely approach you mother and make her understand that God has joined you and your wife to be one and that your primary responsibility is to your wife and son.
Chima, you are the head of your home and you must take a stand fast, before someone uses the pestle or frying pan to break another’s head.
