His Pay Can’t Run Decent Home

Dear Agatha,
May God continue to bless you as you solve people’s problem.  I thank God for the wisdom He gave to you.  Keep it up.
I have these problems worrying my life.  Since I got married, I have been the one bearing the financial burden of the family.  Before I married my husband, I asked him all the necessary questions about his finances as well as his social life.  He gave me the necessary assurances about his ability to take care of a family. Satisfied, I accepted him for who he is.
I married him thinking that by the time both of us combined our financial resources together, we would be able to move ahead. Unfortunately, things aren’t turning out as envisaged.
Immediately after the wedding ceremony, he started complaining of not having money. To be frank, I was a little bit disappointed with what I saw when I moved into his house, but I took it all in my stride trusting God that things would become better. But it is so disappointing that as I write things haven’t moved beyond the point I met him.
I advised him to change his job since it is not fetching him any money but he wouldn’t listen until recently he decided to do so.
There are so many important as well as essential things to be done but there is no money to do them. The little I am earning will not solve half of the problem.  I am so worried and I do not know what to do to uplift my family financially. I am a graduate while he is not. I am working in a one-man business. Please I need your sincere advice on how to solve this problem.
Worried Wife.

Dear Worried Wife,
For how long have you been married and how much faith do you have in your man as well as the marriage?
Life isn’t always the way we envisage. Many a time, we come across challenges meant to align us with the real plans of God for us. A marriage has to have history and character to excel. Whatever it is you are going through is meant to give you and this man the right kind of foundation to give peculiarity to your union.
Everything in life has a stage and to get to the next stage one requires a focus fuelled by determination to achieve. You cannot have everything in one day. If this man had everything in life, he won’t need so much in his life making it difficult for you to stamp your personality into his life.
You are meant to start on this scale with him to give him hope in himself and the union. Your presence isn’t by accident, but by the divine design of God to help both of you come to that special area God planned for your lives while living together.
As his woman, you are to encourage him, not nag him or remind him of his limitations. Everybody is entitled to his or her day in court; therefore this man is entitled to you hearing him out; his reason for the seemingly inactive life you think he lives.
You knew he isn’t a graduate before marrying him so that shouldn’t come to play now. You married him of your own accord and with the belief that it would work. That he isn’t a graduate or doesn’t have money now isn’t the same thing that he would never have. There are many families today where the woman is the one providing the most financial support. Such families are still happy and well put together because the woman despite her privilege position knows her limitations as well.
If you want this marriage to work, bury those disappointments you feel at the quality of life he is able to give you now and begin to make plans on how you can help. Accept the fact that it is what he can afford for now and limit your plans to what you have at hand and not what you wish to have.
Bear in mind that you are at the river of reality; where dreams are put on hold and the actuality given the freedom to exist. From what you have now, what changes can you bring about in your home? Look around you, what tangible thing can you improve on in your home? To help you, look for that object you feel most uncomfortable with and make plans to change it. If it is the only thing you do this year, it will at least give you some measure of happiness as well as the comfort to stay in your home.
Nobody gives happiness; it is something you have to get by yourself through the help of God.
Determination is what you need most in this marriage to make the difference. This is what would fuel you to pray and overlook the immediate to look into the future. If you believe in your marriage, it would be easier for your husband to succeed. All he needs is your support, which would also be an encouragement to you.
Good luck.