Dear Agatha,
I have been married for a while. My first child is an undergraduate at the Lagos State University while my last child is in primary five at a private school.
Since marrying my husband, I have never received a kobo from him by way of allowance or feeding money like other married women get from their men.
Ours wasn’t a long courtship. As a matter of fact, we got married within five months of meeting. We had to rush through the process of marriage when I became pregnant with our first child in the first two months of knowing each other.
I come from very strict Christian background and my parents, especially my father, would have killed me had he any inkling into what I had been up to. He was then, and still, a respected member of the Deeper Life Church.
Besides my parents, our church’s doctrine on dating and relationship was very rigid. My husband and I weren’t expected to exchange visits without chaperons not to talk of being alone. Well, knowing how determined the heart of lovers can be, we circumvented them all and slept with each other before our wedding night. We had to lie about a foreign posting that would keep him in that country for three years to get a quick date to prevent everyone knowing about my state. Since the church policy include low profile wedding, we didn’t have much problems organising the wedding.
We had to tell this lie to protect our parents and prevent us from being expelled from the church. We also lied about the baby’s actual date when born. We claimed the baby was born premature.
A preview of what my wedding life would look like came the next day when I asked for money to fend for his family members and mine that stayed over after the wedding ceremony. He told me to use my money to fend for them. For the three days they stayed, I alone catered for them. Three members of his family stayed back and now live with us.
They were initially staying with his elder brother whose wife refused the responsibility of caring for them. To avoid being labelled a bad wife, I had to take up the challenge of housing and educating them. But the cost of things is getting more prohibitive everyday. They want to further their studies to the university. I can’t cope with the financial demands of training them through the university especially as my business isn’t as lucrative as before.
Besides, I am building a house because our landlord is becoming a problem. This is in addition to the fact that we have spent our entire married life in the same compound. Though it’s a three-bedroom affair, but the shame is becoming too much for me to tolerate. Imagine spending 20 years in the same place!
I have since resigned myself to fate but what I find most unfair is my husband’s attitude, he is insisting I train his siblings or leave his house. What he does with his money, I don’t know. He has a good job but you cannot fathom what he does with it, because even most his clothes are shabby. To cover my shame, I sometime go out of my way to buy him clothes.
Severally I have tried sitting him down to know what the problem is as I know he isn’t sending money to his parents since they still live in the same abject poverty I met them.
The strange thing is that his brother is exactly like him. His wife is suffering the same things I am going through. As a bank manager, his brother cannot boast of a plot of land.
My parents have since washed their hands off him because he is rude and very temperamental. He has also stopped attending church. He neither smokes nor drinks, but I know in my spirit that something is very wrong with their family. There is no member of his family that is progressing even though they all have very good job.
In addition to him insisting I train his siblings, how do I prevent my children from inheriting what seems like a family curse? Out of frustration, I left the Deeper Life Church for The Redeemed Christian Church of God.
Please advice me on how to go about the numerous problems I face in my marriage. Much as I want to pack up my marriage, I am afraid of what my family would say.
Jibike.
Dear Jibike,
First you have to go to God to ask for forgiveness for the lies you told the church at the beginning of your married life to get a quick date for the wedding and to cover the actual age of the baby at birth.
Yours is the typical example of why an intending couple should date for a considerate length of time before getting married. Had you taken the time to properly study your man instead of getting in between the sheets with him, you would have known what type of man you were marrying as well as the type of family you were marrying into.
It is too late in the day to pack it up. If it is any consolation, it is good thing the matter isn’t peculiar to your husband alone in the family. Since it runs through them all, you should find a way of getting the parents and everyone else in the family involved in finding the solution.
First you have to investigate the reason the family is into the problem. Your best starting point is your parents’ in-law. Being in the family for 20 years has given you the right to demand for forthright answers.
Ask them what they know about the conditions of their family, why all the children seem to be having similar problem and why they seem unperturbed about it. Demand to know what they are doing about the situation of their children.
The truth is problems like these don’t just happen without a reason. For it to be reoccurring is an indication that something is really wrong with the foundation of the family. If the children are ignorant, they can’t claim to too. So ask them what they know especially if their extended family members are making progress.
Knowing the source or the problems would enable you know the angle to direct your prayers to. But before you start asking questions you have to fortify yourself with prayers and fasting, because what you are about to face is a spiritual warfare. If you know you lack the spiritual power to confront the problem, ask your pastor and prayer warriors to back you up with support, because you will definitely come under spiritual attack. Depending on what the pastor thinks, the whole family may have to go for deliverance, backed up with fasting and prayers.
As for your husband’s siblings, you have done the major work of sending them to secondary school. If you can afford to finish what you have started by paying their university fees, do it. But if you can’t, help them get something to do. It is the least you can do for them to ensure they are useful to themselves and society. Don’t abandon them completely as a result of your husband’s attitude. Sincerely, you do have a reason to but ignore your husband and do the best you can for these children.
By now you should be used to your husband’s way, having lived with him for two decades.
Rather than waste energy worrying about mundane things, hand him over to God in prayers. Tell God to remould him into the type of husband you desire in him, because there is nothing beyond God. All you have to do is to trust him because even if you keep changing churches, without the essential trust in God, nothing major would happen in your marriage.
God that has stood by you all these years is not about to leave you now to suffer. He would always make ways where there seems to be none. I appreciate how frustrating and painful your experiences are, but be assured all these would one day become a thing of the past.
To help you go on, pause and take a stock of all that God has done for you. Look at your children and how priceless they are. Can money buy any of them? Definitely not! So stop worrying and give God the glory for His mercies. Always remember this; patience is the only thing that never fails.
Good luck.
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