Dear Agatha,
I have read your words of encouragement to people on family, marriage, and relationship issues. I confess you are doing a very good job.
I am currently 28. I got married five years ago at the age of 23.
Between 2003 that I married this man and now, he has completely changed. He is very different from the man I got married to.
This change came after he went into politics. We are blessed with four children among them a pair of twins.
It has now become an annual ritual for me to go back to my mother’s place. Even as I write, we haven’t spoken a word to each other in the last one month even though we are resident in the same house.
I have done everything to make him have a rethink but all to no avail. He accuses me of having an affair, which is not true Although, I got to know through a close friend of his whom I begged to tell me what I had done to warrant his treatment of me. I discovered that his soothsayer told him I am being used to cause him pain and unhappiness in his life.
The tragedy of all this is that he believes anything they tell him even when such things are lies. His friend is apprehensive that if he asks more probing questions he might be killed.
My husband is now threatening to send me packing, the fourth time since we got married.
I am honestly tired of the false accusation. Unfortunately, I am still in school and don’t have any money of my own or I would have since left with my children for good.
Agatha, what do you think? I need your advice. I am just too young to go through emotional pain but I am helpless.
Helpless Wife.
Dear Helpless Wife,
The issue is; are you having an affair? If you are not; how did he come about the impression you are having an affair?
Sometimes we get accused falsely due to the type of attitude we put up or things we say. Being a student puts you in a very vulnerable position where your man is concerned. If he is the type of man that gets bothered about such things as his woman’s attitude, is in the habit of reading meaning into situations, your attitude or utterances may be the reason he is accusing your of extra-marital affair.
If he has changed dramatically from the man you married, what about you? How much have you changed from the respectful and humble woman he married? How much has your quest for better education affected your disposition towards him? Is the effect of the education you are getting for the better in your home or for the worse?
To help you solve the issue you are having with your man please begin from your own end. A lot of time people’s reactions to us are response to the signals they get from us. If you married him as a docile woman, one that was full of respect and awe of him, he is bound to suspect you of having an affair if you suddenly begin to maltreat him in terms of not showing him enough respect or beginning to stand up to him for your rights.
Infidelity is usually the first thought that comes to the man when his wife begins to manifest changes he isn’t comfortable with or has never displayed.
The essence of starting from your end is to help you have a balanced opinion and view about all the issues involved.
This calls for absolute honesty on your part. Leaving him isn’t a solution. You are not the only one involved in this marriage. Your children have a right to the love and comfort of their father too so their opinion and feelings too must be factored into whatever decisions you plan to execute.
In examining your own faults; score yourself on your tolerance level; your sensitivity to his interest as well as the issue of your temper and response to him. For instance, do you discuss issues with him as an adult or nag him into submission or disagreement?
Do you regret marrying him at the time you did? Do you have the feelings that marriage to him denied you of some of the excitements of your youth? The freedom to make wider choices? Be honest. Do you secretly resent him for trapping you into an early marriage?
Under what circumstances did you marry when you did? Were you forced to marry because you were pregnant and he had to do the honourable thing? For how long did you two court? What plans were in motion before you got married? What did you both agree to do together? What were your dreams individually and collectively? Were you both ready for this business of marriage beyond having children? How much training did you get in terms of being prepared for the challenges of the institution? What is your mother’s opinion on this matter?
I ask about your mother’s reaction because being your mother and one with years of experience managing men; she must have told you one or two things to help you manage this situation without your home collapsing in the process.
For instance she ought to have told you that the institution is one of the most unpredictable and challenging on earth. The disappointments most of the time out-weight the happiness but when these happy breaks come; they are potent enough to erase all the pains of those dark moments.
Disappointing as you think your man is; think of the special gifts in those children he has given you. Yes, you would have been able to have children from another man but would those children have been as unique as these wonderful four you have now?
Nothing in the world can give you so much fun and pleasure as these children if you know what and where to look at. Our pains become enormous because we are always in the habit of looking at the wrong side of things.
To help you rejuvenate your marriage it is important you look inwards for incentives. What better incentives can be better than your children? Parenting is about sacrifices, choices that put the interest of these young human beings before anything else. They are at the age they need their father’s love and presence.
For this reason, don’t listen to all the negative signs your marriage is presenting you. Rather, look at the positive ones, the angles you need patience, tolerance, wisdom, determination, prayers as well as faith in your vows and decision to marry to dig up from where you buried them. Gold in its raw form is ugly and appears valueless like any other stone. It takes a lot of work, diligence, patience, endurance, determination as well as perseverance of the anger, of the fire as well as the pride in the scars to make it the beauty women and men from all ages keep falling in love with.
The beauty of a marriage never comes to the fore unless a couple makes the effort to keep polishing it. If you keep looking at his faults and the various ways he has hurt you, you will never get your marriage off the kindergarten stage.
In what areas did he change after he entered into politics? He is bound to change because politics is one subject that has continued to defy comprehension particularly in this part of the world. Your role is to help him maintain a fair equilibrium between his new all consuming passion of politics and his responsibility to his home.
Sincerely, you cannot get him to do this by being difficult because of the difficult people he has to contend with outside the home.
As for his soothsayers; these are people you can effectively pray out of his life if only you know the powers you have as his wife and know how beneficial it is to have God on your side.
Finally, be rest assured you don’t have the monopoly of the problems confronting you in your marriage. Marital issues are as old as time and would keep occurring as long as it involves human beings.
All you have to do is to be prayerful and determined to make it work at all cost.
Good luck.
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