I want a divorce

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha I wish to commend you on the great job you are doing, I am 30 years of age and in relationship with a lady who is a year older than I am. I met her during my job interview. I got attracted to her when her boss asked her to interview me for the job. I finally got the job and in my second month on the job. She resigned to go for her youth service. On her first visit to my place she told me about her past. From her story she has suffered several disappointments from her previous relationships and desired to settle down as time wasn’t on her side. At first, I was afraid to commit myself into the relationship because I am in my final year in higher institution and not ready financially, but she promised to support me and even told me we don’t need an elaborate wedding. She later went for her service that year and a month to the completion of her service she got pregnant for me. We did our introduction but my mother did not attend because she was not happy with me. After the event and the birth of my child, I apologised to her, she recieved the new baby and the mother. She took care of them in my sister’s house who lost her husband few months before the baby was born. I provided financial support from my meagre salary until my wife and child finally moved to my place three months later. Our baby recently clocked eight months. I still find it difficult to save because my salary can’t take us till the end of the months. I asked her to find something to do but she hasn’t been able to find anything. We sometimes argue over this. She finally decided to move to her parents’ house where she believes she can meet her friends and talk to some members of her church. Before our introduction, a prophet told me our relationship will be fine as long as I can serve and take care of her. I didn’t take it serious because I believe God has the final say. I still have a future ahead of me, now with a child in my custody, I am thinking of divorce so I can focus on other things I need to do and as well as build on my financial stable to enable me care for the baby. From the behavior of my wife, it is obvious she doesn’t understand me at all. What do I do? Troubled Soul. Dear Troubled Soul, Understanding in a marriage isnt what happens in just one day neither has it got to do with age. It takes a length of time for a couple to achieve the kind of understanding that would stop them from thinking about the immediate. You and your woman are at this cross road because both of you have failed to understand that a good marriage is a product of tremendous sacrifices. Both of you must be ready to go the extra mile for the other to be happy. While you must make the effort to understand her kind of person, her training and culture, she must know that nothing good comes without painful choices. The notion that marriage is a happy ever after journey is all wrong. There can’t ever be a happy ending without that period of planting. What we sow in the beginning of our marital journey is what we reap as the years roll by. If both of you are unable to plant patience and support for each other’s efforts, you may never be able to get that kind of life you both wish to have. Frankly, this hasn’t got so much to do with money at the end of it all, rather, it has to do with who you both are and really want from the union. You must admit that as at the time you both met and agreed to marry, you in particular were unprepared for it, particularly in terms of vision and the finance for it. Your first mistake was to have allowed yourself to be sucked into a situation you were ill prepared for. At the time she told you she would support you, you should have asked her the kind of assistance she was ready to provide. In marriages, there are various kinds of backings a man or woman can offer the spouse. If the only assistance she promised you was to get married given the fact that she was desperate to be off the shelf, she has done that. At that point, you should have thought of how you would both survive after the wedding ceremony. If there is anyone to blame, who didn’t properly understand the issues involved, you are. As the man, you should have gone beyond the matter of her help to how you would sustain the marriage. Had you given this marriage thing serious thought from the moment she confided the story of her life, the pregnancy wouldn’t have happened when it did. You would have known that combining your studies, with work and starting a home needed more detailed plannings. The truth is that you allowed this woman push you into a situation you were ill prepared for. You should have been more firm and definite about the patterns you want in your life especially as you were still in school and she just finishing her youth service. There is no way your salary would have been enough given the qualification you presented. Your major mistake was not in being firm at all. Every man that hopes to be the head of a home must first of all master the act of staying focused with that comes the determination to put his woman in check. Whatever it is you are trying to correct is coming a little bit late. In the first instance, there is the issue of the baby who will be the one to suffer if any rash decision on your parts. For the sake of this baby, you and your wife must sit down to re-draw, reshape and plan of your lives. To get the desired results, you must forget divorce and begin to act as the man. If she pressured you into a marriage you weren’t prepared for, you owe it to yourself as a man and your child to resist her attempts to make you end this marriage against your will. That child needs both of you at this delicate stage of life. It is for the sake of this child that you should go the extra mile to ensure things work out between the two of you. unless there is something you are not saying, there is no way every member of her family would support her decision to come back home. Since both of you went through the process of traditional marriage, you must know one or two members of her family that would listen to you. go to these people to explain your challenges with their daughter as well as what led to her packing out of the house. Explain your handicap, including the fears you expressed at the very beginning. Your coming and explanation would help give them the necessary background information into the whole issue between you and their daughter. Beyond the issue of her marrying to satisfy her aging biological clock, you must find out from her, what her take on marriage is generally. There is no way you can guess from the cover of a book its content. What you have is only an image of this woman who happens to be your wife. You need to dig deeper to find her real substance. Finding out who she really is as well as her thoughts concerning marriage would give you an idea of how to tackle the issue between the two of you. To act as an incentive, remember the good times you had together. Something good must have occured between the two of you to make that baby happen; at times like this, it always helps to go back in time to that special period. It aids resolution of disagreement easier to resolve. There is also the need to get your mother and sister to talk to her. When discussing with her, do more of the listening to enable you get a clear picture of what is going on in her mind. You can only talk of divorce when every effort at making things work between the two of you fails. In addition, you must find ways of introducing friendship into your relationship with her. If both of you have started as friends, you both would have found the equilibrium to exercise more patience for your union to graduate beyond its current challenge. What you both want in your marriage takes years to achieve. Good luck.

My wife and sister fight all the time

Dear Agatha, My marriage is just seven years old. I am 38 while my wife is 32. We have two children and we are both working. Until the development I am about to share with you, I enjoyed peace because we both agreed we weren’t going to have any family member stay with us. I actually insisted on this following the breakdown of my elder brother’s marriage as a result of family interference. But I couldn’t resist asking my twin sister to move in with me when she also developed challenges in her own marriage. Although we aren’t identical twins we have always been very close. I couldn’t stand by and watch her suffer at all. I actually went to her husband’s house to pack her things. Our parents are both dead and my elder brother was going through his own challenges so my place was the only one left for her to stay. Besides, she didn’t have money to rent a place of her own just as I could also not afford it because we had just moved into our own house which was an on-going project. Even though I admit making the mistake of not first discussing with my wife before bringing my sister home, I thought she would understand the situation. That night, there was nothing she didn’t say to me when I told her that my twin would be staying with us until she was financially and emotionally strong enough to stand on her own, after all the house is big enough to accommodate us all comfortably. To say the least, I was disappointed with her total response to my sister’s situation. I don’t know if it informed her hard-line posture against her feelings on the matter but I told her that if she wasn’t pleased with my sister’s stay in the house she was welcome to go. I honestly didn’t mean it the way it came out because over 60 percent of the funds used in building the house, including the plot came from her. I just said that to keep her quiet and communicate the seriousness of my position to her. Unfortunately it caught her on the wrong side because from that point, she withdrew into her shell. She stopped asking me anything about the house and when I ask her for financial assistance, she would tell me, she doesn’t have any money with her. She also stopped using the family car I bought and instead started using hers. But the most challenging problem of all is the relationship between her and my sister who right in my presence has threatened to beat her up. I know my sister is a handful but my wife is not making things easy by her attitude. She doesn’t communicate with anyone at home except with her children and house-help. Whenever she sees my sister and I discussing, rather than join in, she would either sit or turn back. The last one happened when my sister who doesn’t take too much pepper complained about the quantity of pepper in her food. Instead of my wife apologising or offering an explanation, she completely ignored my sister who got annoyed and lashed out at her. It was an ugly development because my wife also talked back to her resulting into my sister slapping my wife who also retaliated. The reason I am writing is my wife’s refusal to apologise to my sister. She said she would rather end the marriage than do that. I love my wife but is it too much to ask if I tell her to apologise to my sister who is older than she is? I don’t understand why she is being difficult and stubborn about my sister’s presence in our home. Muyiwa. Dear Muyiwa, She has every reason to behave the way she is doing because you betrayed her. You went against a decision you in particular took without any considerations for her feelings or person. You didn’t act fairly towards her. In her shoes, would you endure or tolerate the situation? Marriage is about giving each other respect and consideration. You disrespected your wife by bringing your sister into your house without first telling her. You failed to reason with her by giving the option of packing out of the house if she wasn’t pleased with the decision you took. The mere fact that you went that far is enough for any woman to close her mind to all that is happening around her. That statement was careless and insensitive. The interpretation any woman would give to it is that you value your sister more than her and that her opinions are worthless to you. For a woman who contributed up to 60 percent to the cost of putting up the house, you didn’t act well towards her. Granted you reserve the right to bring anybody into your house but it is also her right to be told. There is no way you can bring anyone into your house without first seeking her consent especially someone whose stay is indefinite. She is the woman in the house whose duty it is to care for the person you are bringing in. By virtue of her position as the homemaker, she could make life very unbearable for your guest if she isn’t happy with the person. Honestly, you are a lucky man; your wife is a very rare woman not to have told your sister and the whole world whose money was more in the construction of the house. Right from the moment you threatened her, a very troublesome woman would have gone up in arms against you; accusing you of wanting to cheat her out of her investment. Trust me, your sister wouldn’t have been able to stay to complain about pepper if your wife fell into that category of women. Ask yourself if your sister would have tolerated what you are making your wife go through simply because you want to please your twin sister at all cost. You have already humiliated her enough; don’t insist on her apologising to your sister who in the first place had no right to slap your wife. If she has any respect for you, she would not have done that at all. The best she would have done was not to eat the food by excusing herself from the table. What did she hope to achieve by complaining about pepper in your presence if it wasn’t to cause commotion in your home? If her intentions were right, she would have secretly called your wife to point out her observations. The truth is you now have two wives living with you. Even though one is your sister, she is determined to ruin your marriage to your wife. Although you two appear to have a lot in common but as the man, you must learn to be reasonable in your actions. Your marriage doesn’t have to fail simply because your twin’s marriage did. Whatever it will cost you, move her away from your home if you truly love your wife as you claim. You and your twin sister are too much alike for any woman to cope with. Your marriage won’t survive for much longer if you insist on foisting your sister on your wife and marriage. She is your twin but you are now a married man with responsibilities of your own. Sincerely, this is the time for you to be truthful to yourself. Given the attitude she has put up so far, do you still think her husband was wrong in whatever actions he took against her? Do you think you were right to have taken her away from her home? Isn’t it high time you took her back to her husband to make peace between them? Don’t wait until your marriage is beyond redemption before you do what is right. Don’t protect your sister at the detriment of your own home and happiness. If your sister wants respect, she has to learn to give it to people around her. Follow this by apologising to your wife for every pain you have caused her. Indeed you haven’t been fair to her at all. The onus is on you to make your home happy. Good luck

We have difficulties finding words to say to each other

Dear Agatha, My relationship is a year old even though my boyfriend and I had been friends for six years before we started dating. I really love him but we are both schooling in different countries. While he is in England, I am in a German university. This arrangement started some few months ago. We met while in high school and could spend hours chatting with each other. Since the commencement of this distant relationship, things haven’t been the same. Unlike before, we appear not to have anything to say to each other. We run dry of words to say these days. In addition, I have the problem of sexual emotions to contend with. Nowadays I experience these strong urges to masturbate because I am always thinking of having sex with my boyfriend. I am an Indian girl so, really hard for me to do anything that will cause my father to be ashamed of me. I haven’t told my father that I’m dating as he would stop my studies and get me married off to an Indian man. My father has a very strong Indian cultural mind and as my English boyfriend is younger than I am, my father would never agree. Well the questions are, what should I do to control my urges which are becoming stronger by the day? What should I do to be able to talk to my boyfriend for more than five minutes or go beyond the lines of “how are you?” or “how was your day?” Could you also please advice me on how to deal with the situation as my boyfriend wants to talk to my father just to introduce himself so that my father starts liking him and allows him to be my boyfriend? Knowing my father, he will take it the wrong way; he could order me to marry him immediately. I am not against marrying my boyfriend but we are both young to think about it for now; besides, we just started our university education and would want to get a job before even thinking about that. I have gotten myself into a complicated situation which makes me so confused on how to proceed. Please help me. Tania. Dear Tania, The most important thing is the kind of future you want for yourself. More than anything else in life, that should be your focus. It is what you invest in your life now that comes to play in your later years. Every relationship has its transition period; your relationship is going through that period. This kind of period helps it to grow and appreciate in value. Without you both going through this phase, there will be no story to tell. Unless you are both not serious about pursuing a future for your relationship, you must learn to endure this period as you are both investing in the future you plan together. For this reason, learn to control all your urges. Even though these urges are concomitant to our nature as human beings, you must shroud them in envelops of self control. You are a young woman whose future is interwoven by the choices you make today. Without you making some essential sacrifices, including self denial, you will end up being distracted so much so you could lose concentration on your studies. This is why you must fight those urges and not allow them push you into a habit that might end up becoming your doom. Granted if one has been sexually active for a while and is suddenly separated from his or her partner as you are now, loneliness can shove the person into situations he or she would ordinarily not contemplate if with his her partner. But be careful you don’t develop a habit that will cause a secondary problem for you when your partner is back. Though most adults have at one time or the other engaged in some sorts of self expression, not everybody can manage it. A lot of people end up becoming addicts of an inclination meant to bring temporary ease. Therefore, learn to divert your mind from sex. Though not an easy task especially at night or when with two love birds, by channeling your attention to an interest that is totally engaging, will help remove your mind from sex or your loneliness. This is the point you get to, that you ask yourself what other thing apart from lovemaking gives you pleasure. In addition to the usual mercy of a cold bath, throwing yourself into a hobby you like the most, would provide you with the necessary diversion to cope with your loneliness. The tension of sex can sometimes impede fluent communication between lovers who live apart. Therefore, it is important, you both get this out of the way by sincerely discussing how the distance is affecting your moods; there is no harm in telling him how it is affecting you including the bit about you wanting to masturbate. By being frank with yourselves, discussing as sincerely as possible will go a long way in helping both of you rediscover what it was like between the two of you when you were both friends. The reason communication is stalling between both of you is the lack of knowledge on how to import the ease of your friendship into your romance. Although friends, you don’t know anything about your romantic natures beyond sex. Now that distance has caused a kind of separation between both of you, as the woman, you must dig into your communication skill to keep the relationship going until you are able to meet to discuss in persons. Discussion could also be elongated by making him talk about his environment, his lectures, new friends, the kinds of situations he is in and what makes university different from high school. By comparing notes with each other, you will have more than enough to say. It is a matter of being innovative and sincere at every point. Once you are able to break the few ice blocks romance has placed on your way, communication would become easier and more interesting between the two of you. As for your daddy, what is the essence of telling him when you and your man haven’t talked about having a future together? Besides, it is early days yet to be sure of where the relationship is leading to. Given the kind of culture in your country, impress it on your boyfriend to exercise patience to be sure you both want the same things and have an idea of what marriage is all about. It is only when you are sure that you should tell your father about him because the worst kind of mistake a young person can make is to introduce the wrong man or woman to his or her parents. Every parent wants to be sure his or her child has come home with the right man or woman. Until you are sure, learn to conduct your affair with a measure of responsibility. The joy of every parent is to have a daughter who knows her worth in gold. Even though you have become sexually active your graduating with very good result will make your father and family very proud of your achievement. If you cannot give your family or husband the gift of your womanhood, you can give them the gift of an excellent academic performance, even as you conduct your relationship with your boyfriend. It is always better to avoid certain messy situations with one’s family. It is called wisdom of choice. Keep encouraging your boyfriend until such a time you think it is right for him to meet with your father. Besides, it is you he should try to impress first before meeting with your father. If both of you are having difficulties conversing, that should worry him more than the issue of him meeting with your father. There would be no relationship at the end of the day to take home to your daddy if both of you don’t first get your acts together. This is what you must really emphasis on. Finally, learn to take your relationship one day at a time. Like a growing child, it must evolve naturally to the height you both want to take it to. Appreciate every stage your relationship is going through; it helps to stabilize and keep things exciting in a relationship. This way, you avoid confusion that comes from putting too many things on the front burner. For now, concentrate on you and your boyfriend getting to discover your strengths and abilities as two young persons who are in love and forced by distance to conduct a workable relationship. Getting your families involved would only cause unnecessary distractions at this vital stage. Good luck.

She is too dirty

Dear Agatha, My wife is the dirtiest woman I have ever met in life. It is so bad, I don’t bother bringing visitors to the home. Despite having pipe-borne water in the house, her kitchen is always littered with used plates, pots, spoons and cups. Sometimes, the pile could be seven days old. The toilets are as black as the dustbin. Imagine a situation where water flows freely in the house and she finds it difficult to flush the toilet. Sometimes, I would have bedbugs creeping out from my clothes in pubic places. To avoid such embarrassments, I took to keeping my clothes in the car. When I tried moving into the visitor’s room, she fought me all the way insisting that we must share a room together. That room has become like a junkyard that I wouldn’t know where to begin even if I insist on converting it into my room. Her personal hygiene too isn’t any better. She smells as she finds it very difficult to properly wash her body. My children are all boys hence can’t do much. As a matter of fact, her dirty habits prompted me to put my children in boarding school. Severally I tried getting house-helps but none of them stayed for more than a month because of the workload as well as her temper and suspicious mind. If she isn’t accusing me of trying to befriend these girls, she would find the smallest excuse to beat and harass them for one imaginary offence or the other. This provoked me, after years of complaining about her attitude and hygiene, to marry another woman. Most times, I stay over at the new woman’s house. Three years ago, I officially paid her dowry and she has a set of twins for me. I am very happy with her. My sons know about her and sometimes come to meet me at her place. She is known to my family and friends. In the last one year, I have stayed less and less with my first wife. I took pains to give you this background to make you appreciate the depth of my problem. My marriage to her is 20 years old. We got married under the native laws and customs of our people. About three weeks ago, she went to my second wife’s house to beat her up; as a matter of fact, one of the children is in the hospital now as I speak. She was hit by an object my first wife threw. I give God the glory that she is recovering from the injury and that it didn’t leave any permanent damage. Since the incident my family members have told her to go. My elder sister, who all the while has kept away from my home and affairs, is leading those who want her out. I am equally fed up of the whole thing. But my second wife is insisting that she would end our marriage if I drive away the first wife. She said, it would be unfair for me to drive her away after all these years. She is very adamant about it. Meanwhile my first wife is not repentant at all. She is threatening to deal with me, my second wife and her children. The church too has suspended me from my elder position because of the issue of having a second wife. It is really the least of my problem but my disappointment with the church leadership is their refusal to even give me a hearing. Their position is either I drive away my second wife or nothing. They want me to keep my first wife at all cost irrespective of everything she has done. A member of the elders’ council said concerning my daughter who is in hospital that my first wife was provoked beyond reason and that the church should overlook that matter. I felt and still feel bad because if that child had died or sustained a permanent injury, the leadership of the church would have also have described her act as extreme provocation. I need your help in this matter. Alfred. Dear Alfred, I am sure the issue of your first wife’s state of hygiene didn’t start after marriage. A woman with the kind of hygiene problem you described would have manifested some of it during your courtship years. It is either you didn’t notice them or that you decided to ignore them thinking you could cope as the years rolled by. Often that not, the silence-acceptance and tolerance of our partner’s short comings at the nascent stage of relationships turn out to be the bane of the union in later years. Today, you are facing so many issues in your marriage because you elected to turn blind eyes to an issue you should have handled with the seriousness it deserved at the early stage of your relationship. Had you done that, a lot of the ugly issues you are today battling with, would never have arisen at all. Given the picture you have painted of her, getting her to change might be difficult. This is because she is long set in her ways to change from who she current is, to what you want her to become. It is like a concrete mixture which once set, is impossible to shape. Her habit has permeated every pores of her body and life. To hope for her to change at this stage of her life is to wait endlessly for something that won’t happen. The only thing that would make her change is personal determination. But because she really doesn’t see anything bad in the habit she has nurtured all her life, she won’t. To her, she is normal; you are the one calling her ways unhygienic. So something has to make her change and that is her love for you. Unfortunately, you both lost it and forgot the reason for your coming together. You got too pre-occupied with her dirty habit; so much so, you got blinded to her good nature. Your inability to properly situate your feelings for her might have made her stubborn and too angry to change as a form of protest. In the process of trying to adjust into each other, you lost each other; bitterness and disappointment crept into your marriage. This has made it impossible for both of you to apply reason and find solutions to the crisis you are currently having in your marriage. Unfortunately, rather than find workable solution, you took another wife thereby complicating an already complex situation. Even though some people may argue that you had no choice but, the truth remains had you desired a workable solution, you could have done, irrespective of the condition of your home. As a man, you could have applied yourself more by getting a young man to come twice in a week to clean up your home since she was having issues with house-girls. The excuse that she insisted on sharing a room with you isn’t tenable. At that point, you should have told her exactly how you felt, how you have had it with bedbugs creeping out of your clothes everyday at work, how embarrassed of your home you were and how difficult you find living in a dumpsite is. These words though would have hurt her, would also have made her think sufficiently as to want to make a change in her attitude and disposition to her home. No woman wants to lose her home to another woman. That would have been sufficient reasons for you to justify your relocation to the guest room; a move you would have used in teaching her what good hygiene is. Although going to your second wife to fight her to the extent of injuring an innocent child isn’t right but you also didn’t behave right by taking another woman as wife. If you have been married to her for 20 years, it means you cannot totally absolve yourself from the mess your home and wife are. To some extent, you are also dirty to have endured staying in a house as dirty as the one you described. Frankly, it shows your weakness as a man. If you had from the very beginning put your feet down, applied yourself as the man of the house, the situation in your home wouldn’t have degenerated to this level. The church can only advise and not insist on how you manage your home. However, the truth remains that as the head of your home, you owe it to yourself to define your happiness. You are the one wearing the shoes hence knows the most painful point. Good enough you married the two women under the native laws and customs of our land. This means you are free to practice polygamy. No matter how much the children from your first marriage love your second wife, they will never be happy if you throw their mother out of your life, which means, a meeting of everyone in the family has to be called to sort things out. Don’t forget she has given you 20 years of her life, whatever her shortcomings maybe. In the worst case scenario, you will lose your position as an elder but negotiate peace in your home. Get the two women and their children together. By now, your first wife must have realized her mistakes. Every woman will react the way she has done if in her shoes; no woman wants a mate. Don’t forget under her pile of dirt and imperfection, is the woman you once loved and cared for. Your angel wife today could turn out to be something else tomorrow. It is only you that can help yourself to be happy. Good luck.

His mother is the irritation in our relationship

Dear Agatha, Thanks for all your efforts at helping people solve their problems. I have one that I want to share with you. I really don’t know what to do. I got married to an old friend I picked from the streets. We dated for close to three years before we got married. Because I was pregnant, my parents did everything possible to make us happy irrespective of the fact that his mother didn’t contribute anything to the wedding. Unfortunately, I lost the baby after the wedding and ever since, he and his mother have been misbehaving to the extent he has asked me to go. According to him, the baby that brought us together is gone. I tried to make him see reasons to keep the marriage going but I eventually left as it was obvious that his mind was made up. A month after, he called me to come back home. Three months after I came back, it has been one problem or the other. If he isn’t accusing my mother of being the cause of the death of my unborn child; she took me to the hospital when he or his mother weren’t ready to do anything to save my life and that of the unborn child because of his lack of job. Whenever we fight, he picks his things and goes over to his mother’s to stay. Recently, he accused me of answering calls in the night. He not only beat me as a result of it but picked his things and left for his parents’. When my daddy called his mother, she lied that she wasn’t in town so I went to his office to ask for the money he owes me since he has asked me to leave the house as it was over between us. He called his mother who in turn called my father, telling him she doesn’t even know if her son and I are really married hence, the need for us to go our different ways. I have left his house for my parents’. Can I start another relationship because I am bored being alone? Worried Woman. Dear Worried Woman, No matter the challenges your marriage is going through, wisdom demands you apply caution. No marriage is without challenges, sacrifices and sometimes regrets. You are going through these challenges because at inception, you didn’t put the right things in place. People don’t get married because they have to but, because they want to. You got married because you got pregnant; not for the reason that you both desired it at that moment. But having done it, you must put in everything to make it work. A lot of us go through life with burdens we can do without. This is because a lot of us refuse to outgrow our childhood days. Unknowingly, we bring into our adult lives unnecessary garbage from our youths. Some of the mistakes we make in our adult lives are actually those we ignorantly think are right for us, the mistakes of our parents and all the adults that had one thing or the other to do in our lives. Because we grew up believing those mistakes are normal, we imbibe them and infect our own happiness with the pestilences from the past. The burden of your marriage began the moment you and your husband accepted to take on the burdens of your sets of parents marriages. None of you bothered to investigate the failures of your own parents’ marriages, instead you allowed them infect your lives with whatever issues they have been battling with in their own marriages which you and your husband know but are too blind by affections for your parents to see. Honestly, there is no way you can both move beyond the point your marriage is, if you and your husband don’t move out of the control of your sets of parents. In addition, you need wisdom to overcome the overbearing influence of a mother-in-law. You have made the first major mistake of not knowing the nature of your husband before getting married to him; don’t make another costly mistake of ending this marriage without X-raying precisely what you feel for him. Granted things are not too good between both of you now but, if left on your own to tailor your own ways by your parents, things might turn out differently. He’s too much of a mummy’s boy to see beyond his nose and you are too much of your parents’ child, to bother about managing your home like a real woman serious about the well-being of her marriage should. This is why you need to exercise some patience for now; at least, until you are sure of what you really feel for your man and marriage. This is the point you ask yourself the all important questions, did you ever love him that much to have married him in the first place? Would you have married him if it hadn’t been for the pregnancy? If the baby was the reason for the marriage then; what do you feel now for him? Do you think you have the emotional stamina to make things work between the two of you if given the chance? As a matter of fact, how deep is your love for this man? There is also the matter of your perception of him. In your mail, you said you picked him from the streets. This kind of attitude often than not, gets one into trouble because once you think it, you unknowingly begin to act it in such a way the other person is made to feel inferior. If this is the case, there is no way your husband or his family can be comfortable with that kind of attitude from you or your family. In the first place, it was wrong of your parents to have completely taken on the wedding expenses. No matter how much money they have, they should have allowed him contribute something to the wedding after all, it was also his wedding. Doubtless, your parents meant well, thought they were doing you and your man a favour but experience should have taught them that in matters concerning marriages and in-laws, caution should be applied to avoid wrong interpretation of one’s motives. As the case is now, your in-laws are misrepresenting the offer of your parents to sponsor the wedding to mean you would dominate their son. Perhaps the opposition to your marriage wouldn’t have been this stiff if your parents had left the two of you to manage your problems, when you got pregnant. Sponsoring the wedding to your in-laws looked as an act of desperation; one done to make them appear inadequate as well as inferior. There was no way they wouldn’t have sourced money from friends or relations if they had approved of you in the first place. Telling you and your family they don’t have money was to show their lack of support for your relationship with their son. This is the issue your parents should have tackled instantly instead of paying for the wedding expenses. The fact that they failed to act where and when they should contributed to the problem you are having with your husband today. As it is, if you want to have peace in your marriage, it is high time you took responsibility for your actions. There is no marriage in life that is free of problems. The difference between successful and failed marriage is the extra efforts we put into it. If you end this marriage on account of the issues you are having with your husband, would you also run away when problems come in your new relationship? Problems are meant to be solved, so learn to tackle the one you have in your marriage now to avoid greater problems in future. Begin by praying for your husband; he needs your support now more than ever before. It isn’t normal for a man to always pack from his home to his parents’ whenever there is a disagreement between him and his wife. This is the point you begin your prayers from since it underscores an inherent problem somewhere. He certainly isn’t acting normally. It is important you stand in gap for him. This is in addition to changing your attitude because there are things that need practical solutions which prayers cannot change. Do a check of all the things and ways you are a problem in your marriage. Granted, your husband may have his own problems but only a wise woman knows how to curvature her home to success. Overtime, with the right attitude, your in-laws would come to see the goodness in you and accept you for who you are. It takes patience and wisdom to win the toughest of marital problems. Good luck.