I’m Scared Of A Broken Home

Dear Agatha,

I have learnt so much from you. God has indeed blessed you with a rare kind of wisdom. My prayers are for you to immortalise your work by coming out with a book. I came for the programme organised by the Women Intercessors at Ogba and your talk brought tears to my eyes. You were, as usual, brutally frank, honest and brave sharing your own experiences with total strangers. 

Informed from your own story, I have decided to write to you to ask for help in managing my own home. I don’t want a broken home. I am actually scared of it. My mother is like most mothers. She is only concerned with my ability to cook and keep the house. I want to learn from you on how to be more than a wife to being a woman. I want you to help prepare me for the task ahead. My wedding comes up in the first week of August.

What are the things I should avoid in my marriage? On that day you underscored patience, friendship and tolerance. What are the places of these qualities in a marriage?

Please help me understand the task ahead of me and how to manage my home without problems. My fear is that my husband-to-be is a very stubborn person and I am short-fussed too. I don’t have a clue as to how to manage him or blend my personality with his. 

Listening to you on that day made me realise that I have a very long way to go. Please loan me the benefit of your experience to make my marriage work as well as how to re-educate myself on how to deal with his stubborn nature.

Susan.

Dear Susan, 

Marriage is a journey of tumbles, upsets, endurance, pains, disappointments, considerations, compromises, as well as victories. To survive, a couple must first and foremost be friends because it is the only way they can manage the challenges of two strangers coming together to make a home. 

As a woman, you have to be determined to ensure he is happy with the choice he has made. One thing you must never do is listen to what others think of your efforts to turn your home into a haven for your husband and children. Be rest assured that there is nothing feminism in marriage. To try to equate yourself with your husband, question his authority, dishonour his decision, and disrespect him is to court trouble in your home. 

Whether you like it or not, your role as the woman is to offer him protection through prayers. You were created to support him in life and once you are very clear about this, no matter how stubborn he gets, managing him won’t be a problem. Even though he is the head of the home, your role in his life is to show him the way by your own examples. Men generally are like babies who respond with care, friendship and trust to the one who cares for them the most. As his wife, you have to be the woman in his life, as well as his mother. As his wife, you have to attend to his home, his emotional needs while as the woman you have to learn to respect him. God, in making the woman, created her to support the man, stand by his side, use her seemingly fragility to get things done for him. Position yourself in his life as his strength, ego and pride, friend, support base and his think tank. Make sure he does nothing without discussing it with you by always being there for him. As a woman the secret of your strength is your fragility, as well as your emotions. When he becomes unbearably stubborn: use the fragile part of you to get him to listen to the voice of wisdom by going on your knees to beg him. No matter how educated you are or well paid, the fact remains he is your crown and only a stupid woman rubbishes the crown that makes her shine.

However, for this to work, you must have imbibed from the beginning how to respect him. You cannot rubbish him in front of people and expect him to honour whatever overtures you make at home. Respect begets respect. He must have evidence of your willingness to follow his leadership before he can listen to what you have to say. 

Granted, this adjustment doesn’t come easy but there is nothing in life that comes without plenty of sacrifices, especially the good ones. Something has to give for that thing you want the most to come to reality. This is your role as the woman in his life.

As his mother, you are to pamper him as you would your own child. This includes indulging his excesses and reprimanding him with love. Mothers don’t nag their children, so be careful you don’t nag him into running into the arms of another woman. No matter how imperfect a child is, the mother’s love is always there, unconditional for the child to come back to. A mother, even when everyone brands her child as bad, sees hope at the end of the tunnel. You must therefore be prepared, be patient enough to outshine his deficiencies as a human being, especially if you also keep it in the front burner that you are equally imperfect. 

No sacrifice is always too much for a mother to make for her child. Your marriage is your womb, your husband the child. Unlike the conventional way of conception, this one took place in your heart; the heart is the life wire of the body. While the womb holds the mystery of life, the heart holds its glow. There is no way you can divorce the existence of the womb from the heart whereas the heart can survive without the womb. Therefore if you keep your marriage in your heart as true mothers do, no matter the disappointment, aches and betrayals you suffer in your marriage, you will never be discouraged to fight on. 

As for his stubbornness, it can be managed with the right temperament. Once he gets obstinate, quietly withdraw and allow him have his way on anything he wants done his way. For the sake of peace, give in to him at the point he wants anything done his way. Naturally, this requires utmost patience, as well as tolerance but you have to grow a thick skin to deal with it. This is due to the fact that two captains cannot live in a boat. There are always other ways to get him to listen to you. When his mood is right, you can then go to him quietly to lay your complains and by then the cloud of trouble would have passed away. 

To achieve a happy home, you cannot afford to be stubborn physically. Rather, deploy the stubbornness to your spiritual life. You can always pray away from his life those aspects of him you don’t like without fighting him or nagging. 

Marital battles are best fought on the knees rather than with blows. Taking your marital problems to God everyday is the key to your happiness because God is fair and impartial. If you listen to Him, you will never go wrong and would help you achieve effortlessly His desires for you and your home. 

Complete trust in God, as well as a humble spirit are just the things you need to help grow your home into complete peace and happiness.

Good luck.