Dear Agatha,
I thank God almighty for bringing somebody like you to address crucial issues that bother on people’s relationships. God will continue to support and reward you for your selfless service to humanity.
I have a problem that is fast tearing my marriage apart. I was married some seven years ago, but I lost my wife after two years’ of marriage. There was no issue from the union. Three years later, I got married again, and we now have two issues, a boy and a girl.
My problem is each time there is a little misunderstanding between us, I look back at my late wife who was everything an ideal woman should have. She had premium manner, was respectful and conducted herself with dignity. The love between us was so deep that after her death, her parents officially approached me to marry one of her sisters. I, however, declined.
So I really find it difficult to take my new wife the way she is, for us to forge ahead, especially my habit of comparing her with my late wife. She doesn’t know about this habit of mine because I have never mentioned this fact to her.
Please what should I do, because the relationship is losing value by the day?
Desperate For Love.
Dear Desperate For Love,There is no way you can ever truly discover the hidden potentials of your present wife when you refuse to let go of the memories of your late wife.
Without you giving yourself and this woman a chance to be happy, nothing she does will ever be right in your sight. You have to give her the opportunity to become the wife you want her to be. As her husband, your duty is to gently guide her on the path you wish with love as well as support, not constantly tailoring your mind to continue to criticise her or compare her to a dead woman. The memory of your late wife is neither a fair competition nor is it one she can fight.
It would have been a different case if she were alive but how do you expect her to compete and win the battle against the memory of a woman you have by yourself elevated to the level of a saint in your mind. Frankly, it is an unfair equation. With your attitude there is nothing this woman will ever do that would be right where you are concerned because you consider her very inferior to even hold the candle against your late wife’s memories.
You are simply being unreasonable and selfish, putting your interest above every other thing. Since you weren’t over the death of your first wife, you shouldn’t have married this woman whose life you are now messing up. Doubtless she cannot replace her memory in your life but you have to wake up to the fact that she is an innocent party in all these who agreed to share your life because you asked her to. She wasn’t responsible for what happened to your first wife so why make her pay for your pains and anger against God for taking your first wife away?
In the first place, no even identical twins have the same attitude to life or the same character. Even one of us is a patent work from God hence you have to give this woman the chance to showcase her strength and weakness. If you keep exorcising the ghost of your late wife at every opportunity that presents itself, you risk losing everything at the end of the day.
Cold and bitter as this is, your late wife belongs to your past. Granted you shared something precious and unique, she is dead and has vacated the stage of your life for your present wife who now occupies your present and has through the children given you a future to hold.
Though the past never really goes away, however if you make the mistake of giving it too much power and authority, it can stifle the present and the future. You are lucky to have a woman again in your life and willing to live with your past that didn’t question whatever you may have told her about it.
I am sure pressures would have been mounted on her not to marry you on account of the death of your wife. That she married you shows she saw something special about you and has the vision that she would be able to wipe away the pains of your past. But if you are not giving her the chance to make you happy, how can she help you forget to enable you move on in your life?
To enjoy the dividends of marriage, give this woman the chance to make the difference in your life. Yes, there is no ruling out the memories of your first wife especially as she gave you so much happiness and joy. I appreciate it would take a while for her memories to fade but if you keep refusing to let go, they will never give you the chance to build a life with another woman.
Therefore do yourself a world of good before this woman begins to act out her frustration at your attitude and treatment of her. You may think she doesn’t suspect or notice your response to her, the truth is she is simply ignoring it so as not to rock her home or destabilise your life again.
She appreciates that you cannot endure bereavement for a second time but if you leave her with no choice, you leave her with little or no choice but to fight for her own happiness.
To help you focus properly, answer these important questions: how would you feel if she vacates your life? What would you do if you come home one day to find her and the children missing from your life?
Would the memory of your late wife be sufficient to fill the void their absence in your life would create? Would her memory erase the happiness these children have brought into your life?
Are you saying this woman hasn’t given you something to laugh and be happy about? Does it mean she hasn’t measured up at all to your expectations?
I am sure even in your first marriage there were points of disagreement, moments you wished your late wife were another woman, hoped you would wake up and find her gone. No matter how perfect a relationship is there are always moments of regrets and anxieties.
Even if there were no such moments in your time with her, the fact remains she would be happier wherever she is currently, knowing that another woman is by your side continuing from where she stopped. With the type of love you both shared, she would never wish you to be alone.
To help yourself put the past behind you, go back to the first day you met her. Despite everything happening around you, you must have a recollection of what made you decide on her, something special as well as appealing. It is more than enough to go by. Once you remember, it would enable you put things in their proper perspective.
Since it is a journey of self-discovery, crush the urge to compare her with your late wife by reminding yourself that, no matter how much you miss your first wife, she is dead and will never be able to give you the warmth your present wife gives.
Give her the chance to be herself, allow her to make her mistakes while you engrave her uniqueness into your heart. Let her loan you her strength to make this burden light for you else a point would come when you will break down with nobody to help you stand again on your feet. If this marriage collapses, there is the tendency for people to assume you have a major spiritual problem trailing you hence would make it difficult for you to get another woman to stay with you.
Nobody was created to be perfect. We all come with factory defects, flaws our friends, family and other loved ones have to learn to accommodate just as we tolerate theirs.
No marriage can survive when a third party is involved. Your late wife has become a stranger in your current marriage to this woman so leave her out of it if you want to be happy and find a harmony in your new choice.
Think of the children who need the love and attention of their father, think of that woman who has decided to ensure all your shortcomings for the sake of love. It takes time for couple to really understand the values of each other.
In all these you stand to lose more than this woman so it is in your interest to allow her access into your heart and life.
Woo her by buying her presents, complimenting her looks and praising her housework. It just takes a little effort to bring back the best in any woman once she is happy and secured in her husband’s love and warmth.
From all indications, she is not the one making you unhappy; rather you are the one doing that to yourself and marriage.
Once you make the decision to be happy, time will help you heal all old wounds and memories of the past.
Good luck.
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