I don’t like his mother

Dear Agatha,

I plan to marry the man in my life in October this year. As a result, he took me home recently to meet officially with his parents just as I took him home to meet mine too.

His parents stay in Abeokuta.

Although the mother didn’t say or behaved in any way to me, but I can’t help not liking her, especially as she appears to be very close to my boyfriend.

Rather than sit near me, my boyfriend sat beside her and they were just talking and laughing in small voices. My boyfriend was so relaxed in her company that he almost didn’t want to go when I gave him the sign I was ready to leave for Lagos.

Knowing him, if I didn’t make the sign he would have suggested we stayed with them for the night. I wasn’t in the mood to do that.

She even followed him to the car where they hugged and kissed each other bye on the cheeks.

It made hate her the more. I have never liked to settle with a man whose mother is alive, but I can’t help falling in love with my boyfriend.

Given all the unpleasantness and meddlesomeness of mothers-in-law, how do I discourage this closeness between my boyfriend and his mother? How do I make sure when I come in as his wife, she stays away from my home as his mother?

Worried Girlfriend

Dear Worried Girlfriend,

Are you sure you desire to be married in life, have children and also see your children get married?

If you want all these things, you won’t begrudge the labours of a woman, wife and mother who put her everything into making her home and children the success you want to be part of.

If that woman didn’t put in all the efforts into the lives of her children, the son you want to marry, would you have looked his way if he was a miscreant? That woman you are already praying against her life and benefits of her labour, is instrumental to the composition, both spiritually and physically of your boyfriend.

Be careful what you wish this woman because life has a way of bringing back to our doorsteps what we wish for others. One day too, you will be a mother to a son who is old enough to marry. How would you like it if the girl turns out to be like you? How would you feel if you suspect her of praying against your success? Don’t go shopping for problems in a mall that has no such commodity.

This is the mistake many young girls make and when the trouble appears in capital letters, they begin to look for who to pin the label on.

If thinking that far into the future is too much to imagine; how would you feel if your brother’s girlfriend is praying against disharmony in your family? Doesn’t want your mother around your brother or alive for that matter?

Has it occurred to you that the children you would have would be part of this woman; her grandchildren and that whatever attitude you put up now would affect the lives of the children you would have in this family forever? If you brew hostility in this family, you won’t be the only that would be affected negatively; your children will also be affected on account of your conduct.

This woman hasn’t done anything wrong beyond opening her home, life and heart to you. Because she loves her son, she allowed you to come into her life and home. When did it become a capital offence to be close to one’s son? Is your mother not close to your brother?

Not every mother is like her. Another would have told you in explicit words and action to disengage from her son’s life. The fact that you were relaxed enough to observe how she and her son talked as well as their closeness, shows she didn’t do anything to make you uncomfortable.

Their friendship and closeness means she invested heavily into his life and that you should do everything to learn about the man you want to marry from her. There is nobody that knows a man like his mother. Don’t forget that this woman gave birth to him, nurtured and moulded him to be the man that he is today. There is nothing she doesn’t know about him because your boyfriend is her product.

You can safely call her your boyfriend’s manufacturer; which means she has his complete manual which she can either manipulate in your favour or use against you. She only can tell you about his different moods as well as what can clear those moods when they come. She knows the best way to his stomach as well as the kind of things he likes in a woman. Don’t forget that she heard him make his wishes about the kind of woman he would end up with as a child and she also saw the kinds of women he has romanced since he became old enough to date. No wife can wrestle a son from his mother.

She also witnessed his disappointments and regrets; has inkling into the kind of life he wants for himself and with the instinct of a mother, knows the kind of woman who would make her son very happy.

The fact that she hasn’t said anything negative about you to her son is the reason he is pushing ahead with whatever plans you are both making. If she had called her son to the bedroom to have a private discussion with him, you would have known from his mood that his relationship with you didn’t meet up with his mother’s approval.

Even if she is impossibility itself, as a good woman; one brought up to cherish family values, you should be thinking of how to make things better between you and her so that the man you both have in common would be happy.

Even if she has reservations about your suitability for her son; you can change her mind by going on your own to visit her and ask for her help on how to make her son one of the happiest men on earth.

Win her heart by asking how to please her son; that you desire to be a good wife to him hence your decision to come to her as the only woman who knows the man you are about to marry the best. By asking for her assistance to make her son happy, you would allaying whatever drawbacks she may be having about you as well as give her the opportunity of getting to know you better.

Only a woman with wisdom and good heart can please her in-laws. You must at this early stage begin the process of learning how to balance the politics of living with your in-laws without headache.

Take it from me; you will always need her support in the days ahead; when the cloud of reality takes over your home and the challenges of adjusting into each other descends. It will not always be a bed of roses. You will need this woman you don’t want today to be on your side in the battles of making your marriage to her son work.

A good woman builds her home with the right attitude while a bad one destroys it with the wrong attitude. The choice is yours.

Good luck.