Dear Agatha,
I have been married since 2006 but my wife and I do not stay together because I work in Lagos and she stays with my mother in the village.
But the problem now is that my in-laws and my mother are insisting I bring my wife to live with me in Lagos. According to them, she has overstayed with them.
This has brought the suspicion of infidelity on her part but my salary isn’t much to write home about. Please advise me on how to go about this problem.
Ebuka.
Dear Ebuka,
What is precisely your problem? It can’t be the issue of your salary alone. There is more to why you seem hesitant about your wife coming over to stay with you in Lagos. In clear terms what are you afraid of? Why are you unwilling to bring your wife to stay with you? Is it that you don’t feel her absence, don’t have a need of her emotionally, physically as well as spiritually? Don’t you crave for her company at all? How have you coped without her by your side?
In the first instance, why did you marry her; to have her stay with your parents in the village? Did you marry her for your parents or because you realised the need for a companion, a friend, helper, confidant, supporter and mother of your children?
In addition what is your concept of marriage? As a matter of fact, what do you understand by being married?
For three years, you and the woman you claim to be your wife have lived apart not because either of you is outside the country but because you claim your salary isn’t sufficient to cater for a wife? Who then is supposed to care for her if you cannot take care of the woman you claim to be your wife; your parents who also have their challenges or her people who relinquished their responsibility over her to you the day you married her?
Sincerely, I don’t think you are being fair to this woman, your mother and her people. It is either you are in a marriage or out of it.
When you went to pay her bride price, didn’t you know that your salary couldn’t care for an extra mouth? Even if you were pressurised into it, couldn’t you have explained to those insisting you marry that you lacked the financial base and wherewithal to fend adequately for yourself let alone a wife and possibly children?
Did you at any time tell them that you would abdicate your responsibilities for your wife to them if they insist you marry against your will?
If for three years, they have endured the burden of taking care of her, it is only fair you take over from where they have stopped. There is also the issue of the embarrassment they are bound to face from inquisitive neighbours over the continued stay in the village of a woman who is supposed to be married. It can’t have been a tea party for your wife, mother or in-laws to constantly explain her presence in the village. A married woman stays in her husband’s house and not with her mother-in-law.
Sincerely, if she is having an affair, you gave room for the situation to happen because you have failed to live up to your side of the bargain. Leaving her at the mercy of village gossips is insensitive as well as selfish.
Your attitude could frustrate any woman into misbehaving because more than your words or any assurances, it tells of a man who is uncaring, callous, down right selfish, irresponsible and who doesn’t know what his responsibilities to his young wife are.
She is a young vibrant woman whose need of her husband’s presence and touch is at its peak. Like every young married woman, she expects the initial months of be exciting, to have complete control of her husband’s affection, to be at the centre of his thoughts, to enjoy the bliss of all her fantasies with her dream man; instead what does she get; a cold bed at night and the company of her mother-in-law who cannot meet her emotional needs?
What you have done to her is known as matrimonial cruelty and provocation.
Can you honestly say you haven’t been up to other relationships in Lagos? For you, is it the case of what is sauce for the gander being poison for the goose? How on earth can you justify your seeming reluctance to live with your wife of three years under the same roof?
If for three years you don’t have any inclination to bring her to live with you, what signals do you think you are transmitting to this woman?
If you must know, this may not be a case of infidelity on her part but a desperate attempt by your mother and in-laws to make you responsible and alive to your duties to your wife. She has tried to understand, she deserves the job of being married. Not many young women would tolerate what she has endured. It can’t have been easy for her at all.
If money is the real reason, keeping her away isn’t going to improve the situation. On the contrary she could be of tremendous use to you if she is around. For instance, she could help improve your financial base by going into a small-scale business. There are so many businesses or jobs which you may find demeaning as a man but which she can do.
Besides, you should have thought and discussed your situation with her before now. That you didn’t isn’t her fault so subjecting her to this emotional turmoil is uncalled for. Instead of debating the fairness of your family’s summons, what you should do urgently is to go to the village to apologise to her family as well as yours and to take your wife home with you.
Being your wife, she won’t mind the conditions you live in provided she has the opportunity of expressing herself as your wife before the world.
It takes two to build a home. Your wisdom alone as the man cannot carry you through this difficulties, you need her input, which is why God made you a pair.
Marriage doesn’t work on individual efforts alone; it works perfectly when the couple involved pull their wisdoms and ideas together. Don’t lock her out of your life, she has a role to play in helping you stand firmly on your feet. If God thought you could do it alone, He wouldn’t have given you a wife. He would have allowed you to carry the burden alone so don’t carry a burden meant to be shared by you and your partner.
Not only would you collapse but risk dismal failure as well as needless pains on those you love.
Already, your parents and in-laws are disappointed with your conduct, don’t give them a reason to continue to doubt your credibility as a man. It would be most disastrous if your family loses confidence in you. Should this happen, it would be almost impossible for them to continue to convince your wife to stay on in this marriage.
This is why they want you to come and take her to give you the opportunity to mend the cracks you have unwittingly created by your selfishness.
There are men in worst conditions than yours but who are living happily with their wives. That you are able to pay for an accommodation puts you far and above a lot of people.
God created her to be your helpmate. There is no way you can determine how well she would play this role if you continue to avoid her. A woman has the ability and capability to endure any situation once her mind is made up about it. If she fails to support you, it is because your actions have created suspicion within your frame. You need to work on earning her trust all over again because whatever trust she had for you may have been compromised by the events of these three years.
Go before it is too late for this woman. You need her just as she needs you to be happy.
Good luck.
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