Dear Agatha,
I urgently need your help to resolve the crisis rocking my home. I’m a preacher who is married with seven children.
My wife has been a thorn in my flesh. Over the years has variously accused me of having several other women in my life as well as trying to kill her.
I have prayed and released several curses. My pain and confusion follow her confession of having had extra marital affairs with an old man of 60, whom she said she slept with once and a 30-year-old young man she slept with thrice between September last year and March this year.
I have repeatedly warned her against this man being a false prophet but she has refused to listen to me.
My children, who don’t have the details of the last development are against my intention to send their mother out of the house. According to them, people will mock me if I drive their mother away.
Agatha, I’m so confused. Please tell me how to handle this delicate problem.
Obi.
Dear Obi,
I admit this is a very tough case to handle given the gravity of the allegations against your wife.
But before I say anything I want to make it clear that the final result of a relay race cannot be based only on the efforts of the last sprinter. It takes a collective effort to determine the outcome of a relay race.
The same goes for marriage. The final outcome of a married is determined by the quality of effort both parties put into its survival. To put the entire credit or blame of a marriage on the doorsteps of one of the parties is saying the other party has no role whatsoever in the final outcome. It takes two to tango and no man or woman is an island.
Marriage works best when the two persons involved acknowledge their different roles as well as the extent of their responsibilities to each other.
Profound and complicating issues come when either party ignores the existence and rights of the other person within the bond. Before becoming a part of a marriage each individual has rights. These basic rights have to be respected at all times to give way to the collective right being married brings with in.
To resolve this issue, it would do both of you a world of good to remove focus from the casualty your vows have become to all the outstanding issues you both were unable to resolve that led to the issues, especially if you are both concerned about the interests of the other parties in the union. This issue has gone beyond what you two feel but to how best you can both accommodate the desires and interests of your children who are products of this marriage.
This issue has gone beyond the apocalypse of your present situation to what would work for all concerned. Being a preacher, you must understand that some victories come with very embarrassing, painful, seemingly stupid and difficult choices that must be made. Life is a good dose of the bitter and sweet. The real nectar in life is the peace we deploy in the midst of excruciating challenges.
To help you have a clearer focus, why was your wife constantly under the impression that there were other women in your life or that you wanted her dead?
These are really weighty allegations capable of putting any woman or man under severe emotional stress. There is no way she could have simply manufactured such stories without basis? Can you plead innocent in her allegations? Were your own hands clean especially the bit about having affairs outside your home?
For that matter what sort of husband have you been to her? Many a time, we mistake our religious callings for complete seclusions of our families from our own lives. As preacher, how did you balance your religious involvement with your responsibilities to your wife especially? Were you ever available when she needed you as a woman? Did you encourage her and those feelings or mocked her desire to have privacy with her husband? Can you be called a loving and caring husband? One who puts at all times the interest of his wife and children before others? Who are these other women around you causing the quake in your home? How far did you go at trying to integrate your wife into your religious activities, to make her understand that these other women are part of your flock in the vineyard of God?
Why does she think you want to murder her? Have you ever tried to find out if any of these women parading as one of your sheep could have ulterior motive, giving the impression to your wife that you and she are an item? This is what you should investigate because more often than not, there is no smoke without fire.
For her to place such a weighty accusation at your doorstep couldn’t have been out of nothing. And being the man of the house what efforts did you make to help avert the current moral impasse confronting your marriage, especially as a man of God?
When a woman craves for only the fulfilment her husband can give her but he isn’t available to perform his role in her life or unable to appease this deep thirst in her due to other peripheral assignments, which you have given yourself, this kind of thing comes up.
For a woman who isn’t strong enough, this can make her do the unpardonable. This is because when a woman needs her husband in that special way and he isn’t there and ignores her believing what she feels is nothing, it could force her to find fulfilment elsewhere against her will.
What roles did you play in pushing her into the waiting arms of these men? We can condemn her how we like but it would not change the facts of the matter especially if you plan on bringing another woman into your life. She would still do the same thing if you continue to treat issues concerning her and her feelings with disdain.
A woman is only a woman if she is sufficiently able to sustain the attention of a man in her. The frustration of unmet desires has pushed many women into breaking their marital vows; some going to the ridiculous extent of sleeping with their drivers simply to have the warmth of a man.
It is only when you objectively look at your own contributions to the problems at hand that she can be roundly condemned.
This is where your calling as a man of God comes in. Were a sheep of yours to bring to your notice this type of problem, how would you solve it? Insist the woman vacates the home before you even have the time to find out all the attached outstanding issues that led to the problem?
Doubtless, she stands guilty of the crime of adultery but the law of fairness demands you both sit down to discuss your collective mistakes. Your marriage may not be redeemable if you have both gotten to the point of no return, that place where you cannot forgive and forget this very low point of your marriage but sit you must to discuss the interests of your seven children; those special gifts God blessed your marriage with, the pride of your manhood as well as womanhood. You both owe these children so much consideration because if due to the quality of marriage and decisions you and their mother make now, something untoward happens to any of them, none of you would be able to forgive yourselves.
When issues like this come up, go into the future and see if this incident would matter so much as it matters now. This you can do by thinking about those important things you would find irreplaceable if she vacates your life. She couldn’t have been all bad news; she must have some outstanding qualities that made you stay with her to have seven children.
Without your collective mistakes, do you consider the adulterous type; one who sleeps around with anything in trousers? To have a better focus in life, we must look at the past for the present and the future to be happy.
If you were the one who openly confessed to adultery would you expect her to forgive you and forget the incident in the interest of the children and marriage? Sincerely, this is the point you need the wisdom and direction of God to go on because to depend on your own wisdom could have more bitter implications for you.
Good luck.
Posts
