My Brother Must Divorce Wife To Be Happy

Dear Agatha,

I don’t know what to make of my brother’s wife. She is always bossing everybody in the family around. She talks rudely to people because she is doing better than my brother. It is so bad; especially that she does it even in the public. She decides where they stay, the type of food he eats, often ignoring what he likes. Sometimes she doesn’t bother to come home, pleading tight official schedule.

Whenever her husband complains about how her work is affecting the family’s welfare, she tells him to choose between her being a full housewife or allowing her to continue to play her role as the major breadwinner in the family.

I have severally caught my brother lamenting his status and once actually crying. The children are also complaining but she bribes them with gifts and all that.

I have tried to caution her as well as point her at the emotional danger she is exposing her family to, but she won’t listen. She likes exhibition so much.

The issue now is that my brother has decided to seek a woman who would make him feel like a man. I mean a woman, who would respect his authority and appreciate him. As a matter of fact he has found the girl, and for the first time he is happy. He wants to marry her. What do you think? I am of the opinion he should divorce the other woman, not because I support divorce but essentially to preserve my brother’s life, whom I feel has a right to be happy despite being poor as his wife has branded him. What do you think?

Tolu.

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Dear Tolu,

Sincerely, don’t interfere. Your brother is man enough to take his decisions without your help. Nobody married his wife for him. He found her worthy of his love and attention hence decided to have her for keeps.

Whatever is happening in that home isn’t any business of yours. And you should by all means avoid being fingered as the reason the marriage failed. Your brother may have decided to look outside his home to protect his pride before you and other members of your family.

For now, it might be best if you allow both of them to sort their problems out. If he had tolerated her all these while despite her rudeness and other vices you illustrated, he should still continue to. With loving persuasions she would one day come to be the type of woman he desired.

To bring another woman into his life is to complicate the whole issue. He would never get the peace he desires in her or in the relationship and his life. The health problem you desire to protect him from would come in full force. What guarantees do you have that she would not be like his wife or even worse? What happens if she turns out to be another brash woman? Encourage him into another relationship?

If you love this brother of yours as you claim, tell him to discontinue that relationship and mend fences with his wife and family. Disagreements and disappointments are all part of the process of bonding a marriage.

You are still single and don’t know the type of marriage you would one day have. How would you feel if your sister-in-law turns around to be giving support to your husband to marry another wife on account of problem in your own marriage? Every marriage comes with its own peculiar cross. The cross of this marriage is for your brother to learn to manage the brashness of his wife.

The best you can do to for both of them is to commit their marriage to the care of God. Intercede for them through prayers and fasting. That, to me, is the best demonstration of love instead of aiding your brother to his early grave.

Continue to plead with your sister-in-law to change her ways. Overtime, she would come to appreciate your role and words of wisdom.

Having made up your mind to help build the marriage, ignore her rudeness and continue in your selfless task to help make this couple grow together.

Good luck.