Dear Agatha,
I have been married for three years and already my husband is insisting I share the cost of running the home with him down to the minutest cost. He would be responsible for the rents, electricity bills, school fees, provision as well as running cost of cooking the soup or stew while I take charge of buying foodstuff, paying my driver, the house help and maintaining my car.
His brother and sister live with us, which would make the cost of buying foodstuff and paying the salaries to two employees too prohibitive for me.
It is not as if he can’t afford to pay all my expenses but I don’t understand why he wants me to use my own money to maintain his home.
Agatha, if I have to buy my own food what makes me different from the single women around? Why did I marry? My father took care of my mother who was a full-time housewife without complaining so why am I being made to buy my own food? My father wasn’t even half as comfortable as my husband.
My husband has refused to listen to anything I say on the matter. He says his decision remains. My salary is meant to take care of my needs not feed my husband and his family members. All my friends do what they want with their salaries.
How do I make him understand my money should not be used to feed him?
Please help me because I don’t know how to get him to be reasonable?
Reny.
Dear Reny,
I hate to say this but you are simply being unreasonable, selfish and very unsupportive of the physical and eventually the spiritual growth of your home.
In the first instance, what do you understand by marriage? Is it for you a one-way traffic thing in which the man makes all the sacrifices, contribution and investment or a partnership between two matured people who love, support and respect each other?
If you weren’t married, would you not feed or accommodate yourself? Would you not feed your younger siblings or relations if they come to live with you? Is marriage for you a liability sort of thing where the man pays all the bills without you lifting a finger to help? To be honest, how would that make you feel if you have to depend exclusively on your man to provide everything for you?
What is so special about contributing to keeping your home? That your mother was contented playing the full-time housewife doesn’t make it an ideal situation for the development of the modern home. Besides, your husband and your father aren’t the same. They each have their different views on the way they want their homes to run. That your father could afford to fend for his family without the financial support of your mother, who at any rate was a full-time housewife, doesn’t mean your husband can afford to shoulder all the responsibilities of his home without your financial support. He may appear in your own reckoning to be far comfortable than your father but the truth is as his wife, he needs your support and understanding to excel.
The issue here may not be his inability to fully take charge of his home but your own understanding and support for the home. As his wife he needs you to understand that it takes two to build a home and create happiness. You are a major shareholder in that house; the more reason you must be interested in ensuring the home is well oiled at all time.
Your friends may tell you they are at liberty to do what they like with their money but the trend in most marriages of today is for both parties to share responsibilities. So, if your friends are saying they do what they like with their money, they aren’t telling you the whole truth. And even if they are, you are not in their marriages hence would be wrong for you to pattern your marriage along the same lines. Your challenge is obviously different from theirs because your husband isn’t their husband and how yours wants his home operated is very different from what their husbands want.
You are unique hence everything concerning you must be. You are not in your friends’ marriages so don’t understand how they are able to make theirs work. To therefore set your marriage along their standards, is to create a very fundamental problem in yours, one you may never be able to pull your marriage out of. If you have any issue, sort it out within the walls of your home, not discussing it with friends. To do so is an open invitation to trouble because you don’t know who among your friends really means well for you. There are only very few friends who would tell you the truth so don’t in your interest and that of your home listen to what any of your friends are saying against the decision of your man.
Like him the house belongs to you. Marriage is not just about sharing your bodies or names, it is also about sharing responsibilities. Granted, God instructed men to provide for their families but He also instructed the women to provide support. He has not committed any capital offence asking you to help him run the home. He knows you are capable hence his insistence.
I concur he was wrong not to have discussed the subject or decision with you but being recalcitrant about it isn’t a solution at all. If you are wise, don’t betray any hostility to his decision. Rather, keep quiet while you work at creating the right moment to bring up the subject. But before you do that, you must examine your options as well as the alternatives you would present to him. There is no way you can get him to listen to you if your intentions are to push the case of your mother and those of your friends as your yardstick. You must be ready to make some sacrifices in the interest of your home. It is also important you perish the unhealthy thoughts of seeing your in-laws as intruders in your home and the major reason for you not wanting to spend your money buying foodstuff.
Reject it only on the premise that you may not be able to cope financially not because your in-laws live with you. Not only is it a very wrong reason but also one capable of entrenching bad precedence in your marriage. When two people come together in marriage, the two families become one indivisible entity. You should regard your sister and brother-in-laws as your family members.
The most sensible thing is for you to do the costing of each component of the necessary bills you have to pay at the end of every month. Which do you feel most comfortable with? Having a driver and house-help are your decisions hence you can reduce your bills by doing away with their services. These fall under the luxury and not the necessity list.
With loving and gentle persuasions, you can get him to listen to you and even consider your request without having the feeling that you are trying to make him play the fool. You see this could all be a test for you; to gauge your dependability as a woman and partner.
Therefore, the danger of you refusing is that you would create a gulf between the two of you; one that would see him distancing himself from you, treating you as a selfish person and refusing to confide his fears and plans in you.
Yes, you may earn the money but when it comes to marriage, a share of your money must go into the running of the home to make it yours too. Your husband is more considerate than most men who insist on equal sharing formula. Even full-time housewives are all going into one form of trade or the other to help their husbands out financially. He needs you just as much as you need him. His presentation of the issue may not be right but don’t overlook the reason and values of the issue at stake if you value your marriage.
Good luck
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