Re: My Husband Is Callous, Inconsiderate

Dear Elizabeth,

I believe you do not need a soothsayer to tell you what to do in this situation. The writing is clear on the wall, the man you married does not love you anymore, everything you say or do, annoys and irritates him. This might be as a result of diminishing love for you. You might have to give him space and time, get you and your children out of that house. He needs time alone to take a good look at his marriage and the woman he once loved; he needs space to feel your impact on his life. If you’ve been the good wife that you claim to be, you can be sure he’ll come begging for forgiveness.

In as much as there might be questions as to how you got married, it is irrelevant to know since the marriage contract has been signed already. It seems one of you isn’t up to it and the other party is suffering for it. You need to give each other space and time, so that you can rekindle or reignite the feelings that made you pledge your love for each other. I believe it’s still there, a lot of it on your path. As for you husband, I believe something is covering/restricting it, the active presence of his mother in your marriage life is also not helping matters.

You could also try being more of the woman he dated: young, suave, stylish, dress good, look good and feel good with yourself, this will remind him of the days when things were going so well and give him a rethink. From a man’s point of view, we always fall for a woman who knows how to take care of herself, hold her own and hold her up high. He’s probably bored seeing you in that wrapper and looking un-kempt everyday. Get yourself a makeover, a nice hairdo, some new outfit etc.  At the same time, step up your efforts in taking care of the house as you claim to, all men will fall for a beautiful woman who takes good care of the house. Chances are that he might also be going through mid-life crisis. He will need your support to get through that.

Finally, I’d advise you to take your problems to God and pray fervently about it. There is nothing our God cannot do. I really hope that your marriage gets the desired peace and love that you crave. Nobody wants a broken home.

Mic.

Dear Agatha, 

I am writing in response to the advice you provided to the distressed lady. The case you addressed last week.

 I am not particularly happy with the advice given for the following reasons.

This lady is being verbally abused which in most cases is worse than physical abuse. It strips the lady of self-confidence FAST! As she stated in her story, he makes her feel worthless by denying any responsibility for the problems in her marriage.

He wishes her dead as he asked her why she survived her last pregnancy.

His mother treats her like dirt with the husband’s approval and in front of her children! How can you then advise someone in this condition to keep receiving this wickedness? Is it fair? Her children are watching and are learning that this is how marriages are meant to be and this is how the cycle of domestic violence continues even to the children.

This woman needs help! She needs to get away from the situation and the husbands need to get help and counselling. As she said, they knew she didn’t speak the local dialect when he married her. Why should that now be her fault? Please realise that the advice you give is read by a number of people who may be in the same circumstance. This trend of African women accepting domestic violence needs to end! Enough is Enough!

 Ibianbo Ogan.

My Man Enters Extra-marital Deal…

Dear Agatha,

I am in a terrible fix. I discovered my husband is having an affair. So many things have been going in my mind. A part of me wants me to end the marriage of six years with two children while another part of me says I should fight on. 

The thing is that I am demoralised by the knowledge that he is sleeping with another woman because I happen to love this man so much. 

If I had been told by anyone that he would ever have an affair, I would be the first to deny it but here I am with a copy of the text message he sent the lady as well as her response. 

I have tried to rationalise what could have led him to it, I have found none. I try to please him as best as I can and when I have to work late, I inform him and make arrangements for the house-help to get his meals ready. 

Because I am a product of a broken home, I try as best to avoid the mistakes my mother made in her home and handling of her husband. So, Agatha, I really don’t know where I went wrong and why he would choose to disgrace my love by going out with another woman. 

It is painful, humiliating and embarrassing. Honestly, if not for the text message, I wouldn’t have known anything because he is still his loving self, comes home at his usual time. 

I really don’t have a clue of why he is dating another woman. Agatha, why me? My best friend thinks it has to do with my passive and shy nature. He has always been the outgoing kind but I don’t, I prefer to stay at home all day. Please help me before I go insane.

Agonising Wife.

Dear Agonising Wife, 

I empathise with you. Discovering that the partner you trust with your whole heart and love so much is cheating on you can be very painful and humiliating no doubt. But to want to quit your home on account of this is foolishness. You would only be quitting for this woman to come in. It makes good sense for you to stay and fight for your man because men no matter the shape they are in, creed, colour and orientation are prone to having affairs outside their homes. Except for the grace of God, every man is susceptible to falling for the temptations most single women represent. 

What you need most at this point in time are prayers to defeat the challenges the other woman presents to the happiness of your home. To fight or nag your husband is to send him further into the arms of the other woman. Don’t give him or the other woman the satisfaction of achieving the aim both of them went into the relationship. That you are not fighting doesn’t mean you are not hurting or that you are weak, far from it, just a show of wisdom fuelled by determination to make your marriage work at all cost.

If you must know, only a very few women can honestly claim that they haven’t got their husbands at the wrong side of the bridge. You don’t have the patent for this kind of challenge. A lot of women have learnt to look the other way first for the sake of their children and for the preservations of their homes. The first lesson in all this is to accept the basic fact that from the ancient time, men have been polygamists. Like butterflies, many of them take delight in sampling all the beautiful flowers. It is a primeval thing one every woman going into marriage should prepare herself for psychologically. Preparing for it doesn’t make it right but it helps the woman to hurt less when it happens. 

Candidly, if you are serious about not having a broken home, stop justifying yourself and look critically at what possible reasons he may have for this relationship. Sometime, the little things we ignore are the real worms eating at our happiness in life. Granted that sometimes, men do not have any reason to go into these affairs but one or two things seemingly insignificant things may make them seek the warmth of another woman. Yes, it may be unfair since women too have one or two things to complain about in their marriages as well as in their men. However the reality on ground is that the society has an unwritten rule that has sympathy for men when these kinds of issues come up. 

To help win him back without fighting him, can you remember the particular thing he likes most about you? The one thing he has kept emphasising on about you, that extra special thing he finds irresistible in you? Can you remember? If you do, do you still have it, improved on it, and kept it valuable for him? Negligence too can cost a woman her husband’s love. When she persistently ignores that thing he holds in the highest esteem about her. 

Many a time, in the process of motherhood and keeping the home, many women forget that before they became mothers and housekeepers, they were first women, desired objects of their husbands. Every man wants a woman he can be proud of, put on his front shelve to his delight. Call it vanity but that is the reality of life. No matter how ugly a woman is, to the man who married her, she has something very special that no other woman has. 

To lose or neglect that thing is to akin to losing the man because men are natural wanderers. If you cannot recall what precisely it is, go down memory lane to that kind of hairstyle, dress, perfume, poise as well as attitude that got him in those early days to take a second look at you or put on all his plans for the day. 

You need to help him keep in mind all those good things he has forgotten about you. 

At home, if you can, take the children to spend the weekend with a close family friend or your siblings. This is to give you and your husband an exclusive time at home. Give him a surprise romantic dinner in your home complete with a mood setting music and in the meanest nightgown that leaves a little bit to the imagination. Saturate the entire room with his favourite perfume, the idea is to leave a memorial in both his brain and mind. So whenever he is with the other lady, memories of what you did to him would keep popping up in his mind’s eyes, making it difficult for him to concentrate on whatever the other lady is saying or doing. 

While you groom yourself back to action, invest on him by buying him gifts, perfumes as well as all the little exotic things he likes. Be careful not to mention anything about the other woman, this could be counterproductive. Improve on your human relationships with him by showing him more respect than you are currently doing. Get interested in his business, hobbies and interest. Take time out to invite him to his favourite sports zone. Plan a family picnic. Whether you like it or not, you have to get interested in his hobbies else you leave that flank opened in your marriage for any mischievous woman to take advantage of. 

Granted that marriage isn’t always about an individual but with the challenge you are facing as well as the threat of another woman taking over one’s home, a wise woman must master the act of putting the interest of her husband over her own. Should you fail to accompany him on his outings, take interest in his hobbies, another woman would and once they are able to form a team outside you, it would be very difficult for the woman inside to break into the formation unless she is wise, smart and prayerful. 

You just have to bury your sense of betrayal, embarrassment and humiliation to gain back your home. 

Again, you must look at the spiritual aspect. Trying to avoid what your mother did wrong in her marriage isn’t enough. You must be ready to rebuke any power that wants you to tow the path of your mother in marriage. You must pray relentlessly for God’s intervention in your marriage. In your opinion your husband has no reason to go into this affair. Then spiritually, something beyond him could be propelling him against his will just to ensure you don’t escape from the paths of the family foundations and controlling powers your families have chosen for you.  The ‘why me,’ attitude won’t help you at all. Taking charge spiritually and physically of your home and life is the only way out. 

Prayers will bring him back while your attitude and disposition would keep him permanently by your side. The fact that he still comes back home at his usual time is clue enough that he loves you and may be doing it without knowing what he is doing.

Good luck.