My hubby betrayed me by siding with his family

Marriage Clinic With Agatha Edo, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com, 08054500626

Dear Agatha,

I am newly married. I got married seven months ago and my husband brought me to live in his family house where his parents, sisters and brothers live. He is the first born so his father gave him one of the flats in their house.

I really didn’t like the idea but I had no choice. When he first mentioned it and I tried to discourage him, he told me it would save us a lot of money and the stress of looking for another accommodation.

Besides, he assured me that since we would be living in our own flat, we would have no problems with any member of his family.

I got pregnant almost immediately after marriage hence I was indoors most of the time. If the mother didn’t come to search my freezer for something to cook for her family, his sisters or brothers would come to watch one film or the other not minding if I was watching a programme or not.

My home became the venue for all kinds of meetings. They would come with friends to party and when I complained of too much noise, they would turn it down for a while before increasing it again.

I tried reporting them to my husband but he appears incapable of doing anything forcing me to report them to my mother-in-law who didn’t hesitate to let me know that the flat we are in is part of her husband’s house and her children’s inheritance.

This, she told me, gives them the right to do what they like because the place also happens to be where their elder brother stays. She warned me not to come between her children.

From then on, nothing I did made sense. If she is not complaining about my cooking, she goes to my pot without invitation, she is complaining about my housekeeping. It got so bad that I almost lost my pregnancy.

The latest embarrassment came when my mother came on a visit. But for the intervention of my father-in-law who happened to be around, she would have been thrown out for asking one of my sisters-in-law not to take out the soup she just prepared for me.

There was nothing my mother-in-law didn’t say to my mother. It was too much provocation for me. I had to confront my sisters-in-law and their mother. It earned me a slap on my face. My mother was beside herself and would have retaliated but for my father-in-law who walked in at that moment.

I have had it to my limits. I cannot cope anymore and my husband isn’t helping the situation. He says I am not patient enough and that my mother lacks the right to caution his sister from going to my pot or kitchen.

It is all so confusing. I don’t know what to do.

Rita


Dear Rita,

There is no marriage without its challenges especially if you begin your married life living with your in-laws. It can be very hectic for the woman who is at the center of it all.

Honestly, your husband is at fault. It was wrong for him to have insisted you live in his family house. Your marriage is still too tender to survive such interventions and assaults of the entire family clan. The odds are heavily against you because nothing you do would ever be right with them being a stranger among the lot.

It is too much of a risk for your young marriage. There is no price too much for him to pay for the success of this marriage and if that means leaving the family house to rent even a room, he should consider the option.

No matter how much his father tries to make peace, since the issue has extended to your mothers, it would only keep degenerating, choking any chance your marriage may have to recover from this injury.

Even if you are willing to let go of that incident, what about your mother or his? Frankly, the two didn’t act as matured women at all. Your mother shouldn’t have challenged your sister-in-law given the acrimony already existing between you and your in-laws. She should just have ignored her no matter how provoking the situation was to her. For your sake and health, she should have walked away from it all after all the house and pot of soup are yours. If you didn’t complain at the effrontery of your sister-in-law to go into your pot of soup, she should simply have ignored everything. Had she done that, even if it was a deliberate act on the side of your sister-in-law, the ugliness of that incident would have been averted. The issue now is that she went to her daughter’s house to fight her in-laws. Only very few would reason along the line of her protecting the health of her pregnant daughter. Besides, it would have given you more time to work on your husband to find alternative accommodation. Your mother has no right to come to your house to fight your in-laws just as your mother-in-law lacked the right to slap you.

Now she has made the situation more difficult for you to convince your husband on the need for both of you to find an alternative accommodation. He would think your mother is the one pulling the strings from behind. Even if your husband had the intention of doing that before, had sympathies for you, being a man he would really drag now because of the involvement of your mother.

Though she acted on instinct, but her timing was very wrong. Your husband wouldn’t want to act now to avoid being tagged as a hen- pecked husband.

Being the victim of all these family politics and pressures, you have to act fast. Play the kind of politics this situation requires for your own peace of mind.

Unless there is something you aren’t doing right, his whole family cannot be against you. There must be someone outside your husband among his siblings that can fight on your behalf, put a good word for you when the others are blowing hot against you.

If you are unable to get anyone to do this for you, please there is the need for you too to check your attitude. Sometimes the way people react to us come from our own attitudes. You have been married for seven months and before that time, you must have dated for sometime. It means you must have met some of his siblings while you were both dating in that house. He couldn’t have brought you to them on the day of introduction. A form of acquaintance must have been formed between you and his siblings before you officially became his wife.

What happened to that bridge relation? What efforts did you put into building it into full blown friendship? Did you, like most women, become too bitter about your husband’s decision to stay on with his people? Were you blind to the good side of these people who have become your family too? Would you have minded the excesses of his siblings if they were your own brothers and sisters?

Would you have minded his mother going into your pot if she was your mother? Didn’t your mother have access to the same pot of soup, she prevented your sister-in-law from going into?

When his mother was coming to get things from you, did you at anytime go to her to ask what was in her kitchen too? Did you try to make her care for you as one of her children?

If you intend to stay in this marriage for a long time and defeat every opposition, these are issues you must look at. First admit to your own faults. You refused to integrate because you saw them as strangers and a third force in your marriage. You saw them as nuisances hence became cold to the very people who would have neutralised whatever oppositions their mother had against you. If she couldn’t and didn’t stop her son from marrying you, then whatever she has against you isn’t so fundamental.

Go to her when she is alone to beg her. Don’t forget that your husband is her child, her first son for that matter. You represent a rival in the deepest part of her heart because you have the love of the son she had always had.

Deep down, she isn’t too happy and is determined to show you that her hold over her son is stronger than yours being his mother. Be wise and go to her, show her that you aren’t in her son’s life to displace her but to consolidate his love for her.

Asking her for help to make your husband a better man would give her the sense of belonging she wants. Befriend her. Learn to cook her favorite meals and make her your friend. It might not be easy but if you are patient and prayerful, she would eventually thaw and call her riotous children to order.

Concurrently, make the attempt to befriend his siblings, start from the younger ones whose positions aren’t rigid. These ones are easily appeased once you have extra cash and gifts to throw their way. By the time you play your cards well, your husband would be the one wanting to pack out of the house on account of your being too close to his family for comfort. He would feel threatened by it all because he would feel they have more of you than him. It is a simple case of tact, determination, wisdom and tolerance of each other’s strength and weakness.

In marriage, a wise wife learns to stoop to conquer.

Good luck.