Dear Agatha,
My husband and I have been having problems in our marriage. He used to be such a loving and caring husband, always ready to help me with the housework, sometimes even offering to share the cooking of the meals with me.
However, last year after the birth of our daughter, he changed from the loving man I have always known him to be. Unlike my previous births, this time, I sensed reluctance in him each time I pleaded with him to help cook or wash the baby’s clothes.
I pretended not to notice to avoid problems at home, especially as my sister-in-law was around to help.
Even in the night when I woke him up to help with the baby, he would pretend not to hear me or simply walk away from the room. It got to a point I couldn’t tolerate his treatment of me any more so I blew my top.
It was during our exchange I discovered he had this built up anger against me. He said so many things which all came as a huge shock to me. He practically accused me of capitalising on his good nature to turn him into my houseboy. He said I had gotten so lazy I now expect him to do the dishes, cooking and washing of the clothes, which I order him to do even when there are guests in the house.
Shock gave way to anger and I also said some unprintable words to him, including calling him ‘callous’ and ‘a weakling’ because I sensed his sister and his friends who have never liked me put him up to it. I was hurt so I didn’t think twice about giving it back to him.
After that things were no longer the same at home. He refused to help me with the housework leaving me to do everything at home. This attitude of his got me so angry; I also refused to wash his clothes or go out to do any special work in the house beyond what I could handle.
This continued for a while until I found out recently through a friend of mine that he is having an affair. On my own, I have found this to be true and I am so pained I don’t know how to go about it.
My friends are all warming up for a fight with the lady who we discovered lives not very far from his office.
But I sense he is aware, I know because recently he warned me not to do anything stupid else I won’t like what I would get in return. He has also stopped eating my food on the grounds that I don’t wash his clothes or cook his meals.
My mother thinks I am wrong and that fighting him or the woman would not resolve this problem; that I should rather beg him to change his mind. But why should he treat me like this? First, as if I am his house help and now go with another woman?
I am determined to wrest my home back from this woman. What do you think I should do?
Lucia.
Dear Lucia,
Don’t make the fatal mistake of going to fight him as advised by your friends. To do that is to foreclose any chance both of you have of redeeming the marriage from the problems presently confronting both of you.
Irrespective of what you think, your friends don’t mean well for you. If they do, they won’t be urging you to fight a man that seems to have already made up his mind to quit the marriage.
You will only be giving him a reason to justify his actions. When issues like this come up, it is always best for the woman in the house to take things easy if she desires to continue in the marriage.
In this type of situation, plenty of wisdom is required to scale the hurdle, especially as there is another woman involved. Any wrong move could see you vacating your home for the other woman. Good wisdom requires you beg him to come home first to enable you both discuss where you have each gotten it all wrong.
Your mother is giving you the benefit of her own experience as a married woman. She knows that it takes a lot more than a physical fight to get a marriage going.
In the first place, what are your duties as a woman, wife and mother? When you went into marriage, what were you expecting? That the man would cook your meals, wash your clothes and clean after you in addition to playing his role as the breadwinner of the home? Even if you are the breadwinner, your duties as a wife are well defined. Your reason for getting married is to set up your home and you don’t do that by dragging your man through the mud. The moment a woman steps out of her family home into her matrimonial home, a lot of things must change about her. She has to subject her ways to that of her man, while nobody is saying you lack the right to express your opinion, demand for his help in executing your duties as a wife, but there are subtle ways of doing it without making it obvious that you expect him to.
Honestly, you didn’t handle things well in your home. He elected to help you with the housework because he loves and respects you. Whatever illusions you come with, the naked truth remains washing, cleaning and cooking of the meals are strictly under your department as the woman of the house. He only offered you his helping hands to make things easy for you, something a lot of men don’t have time for.
The way you carried on about his offer made it appear as if you wanted the housework done by both of you on equal basis. You have no right to order him but to plead with him with love and humility to help you. A woman can get a man to do almost anything for her if she knows how to massage his ego and plead her way into his heart. Demanding it of him in the presence of his friends and family, underscores disrespect for him as well as humiliation of his person and position as the head of the home.
It was very unwise to have stopped washing his clothes, tending to the house as you used to. Your attitude showed that you actually expected him to do all these things for you. A very wrong attitude from a woman desirous of building a viable home.
The best you could have done is to passionately plead with him to consider taking his clothes to the dry-cleaners to make the work load at home light for you and give you time to attend to him personally. It would still have amounted to you not washing his clothes but without the bitterness and problems you have created by your negligence.
An average man would automatically interpret your attitude as being tired of the marriage, hence the freedom to look for another woman who knows how to please her man.
Even if he was looking for an opportunity to play the field before, you unwittingly gave him reason to. Do as your mother has said, beg him to come to the house. Don’t end there, also beg forgiveness for taking him for granted because that is precisely what you did.
As for the other woman, she would fizzle out of the scene once you are able to get your man back home into your loving arms without you fighting and washing all your marital linen in the public. Everyone has an issue with his or her marriage but it is wise to keep it within the four walls of the home. I am sure those friends, who are urging you to go also have issues in their marriages, but are wise to keep it under the carpet.
You can only get him to apologise for betraying your marriage by first begging him to forgive you.
Marriage is about appreciating and respecting our different roles in the home. God didn’t make a mistake by putting the man above the woman.
Good luck.
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