Another Story to Share

Hello wonderful people, I trust that by the special grace of the living God, this new month of March will be a month of divine uplifting for us as we remain daily in the love of Christ.

I saw a post on one of my social media platforms and the post was about marriage; someone had brought an issue that bothered on her marriage to a group I belonged to and before I could lend my thoughts on the issue and pen my comment, the comments icon had been disabled so I decided to share my thought via this blog. The very few comments I read on the issue broke my heart; to know the mindset of a lot of people concerning marriage made me realize why we have this high rate of failed marriages. So here is the story:

My mother-in-law’s first advice to my husband (I was seated beside him) was, “Don’t show too much love to your wife.” Please note that during the wedding, she did not come with the engagement requirements (dowry and traditional marriage rite gifts for my family) and she acted aloof and negative throughout the ceremony. She did not sit with parents in the front seat, but sat at the back. My husband’s action since then has been as follows:

·         Verbal and Physical abuse

·         Continuous disregard for my need

·         Utmost disregard for me before his family

·         Once there is disagreement, he leaves the house to go stay in his family house for days. His mum stays there

·         He doesn’t call my parents or siblings even after they call severally to check on him. He said I must not give him the phone when my family members call me and he’s beside me.

·         He does not pray with me.

Please what do I do?

I feel terribly maltreated. I developed these bad palpitations after I got married and these things started. I have lost two pregnancies. My monthly salaries go to his expenses.

Looking back, I had more joy as a single lady compared to after I got married. It’s been sadness-ridden 27months. I want out.

My Response

My darling sister, I want to wish you a big welcome to the examination room of life. Every stage in life comes with its own challenges and hurdles to cross as you grow, now you are in mid-life stage of life’s hurdles and with God on your side you can come out of it stronger and victorious.

In your first stage of life, you learned to grow from being a baby to being a toddler, you learned to talk, walk, run, sit, and stand and all that. Then you began to learn to read and write and began to learn to move from a child to a girl, then to a lady and now to a woman. Now you are learning to be a wife.

The first thing you need to understand is that you own your happiness. Never let your happiness depend on anyone but you and God. Allowing your emotions to be controlled by any one including your husband is giving such a person too much power over your life and such a person can use that power as he/she wishes even to your own detriment. The ability to control your own emotions is a powerful tool that God has blessed you with and you need to use it wisely and not give it to anyone.

You should not be miserable in marriage just because your husband is not seeing the value in you. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see a powerful woman whom God has made in His image and likeness who has been fearfully and wonderfully made? If not, then begin to look deep within you and dig out the giant in you. Know your own worth, value yourself first. It is the value you place on you that your husband sees and appreciates. Don’t let the value your husband has placed on you or that which his mother has placed on you be above the value you place on yourself. Value yourself and in no time your husband and his family will value you.

Then in Genesis 2:24 we read that “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,” if your husband does not know this, you should know it. So your mother and father or his mother and father have absolutely no significant contribution in your marriage. Whether he relates with your family or not is of no significance at all and that should not cause you sleepless night in any way. If he does not want to talk to your family members, simply explain to them that he is not available at that moment and drop it. When he is ready to talk to them he will talk to them. He is currently not giving value to your family members because he has not placed value on you. It is the value that he place on you that he extends to your family. So the family value is not important at this point. Let's work at him building value for you first.

What should be of uppermost concern to you is how to get your husband’s attention and how to dig out the love that God has placed in his life for you. That love that he possesses belongs to you as his wife and not his mother or anyone else. The word of God says a man should love his wife as himself (Ephesians 5:25-29). So your assignment is to dig out that love that God has ordained for you that resides in your husband and that you enjoy it to the maximum because it’s there for you.

You cannot dig out that love with force, not with nagging or with a fight, and it cannot be bought with money. But you will effectively dig out that love by obeying the law of the Lord for your marriage. It is then and only then will you invite the intervention of God into your marital situation and when He intervenes, positive changes begin to take place. Note that you cannot change your husband, neither can you change his mother, the only person that you can change is you and make sure that the change is a positive change in line with the will of God for your marriage.

This law of the Lord begins with “wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18 and 1 Peter 3:1-7), so apply this law to it's tiny detail in your marriage. You will find the code of conduct for a godly wife in Proverbs 31:10-31, apply this codes too; they are very effective. When you prayerfully submit to God by submitting to your husband and imbibe the code of conduct of a wife of noble character, God will cause the impossible to happen in your marriage.

Your mother-in-law and her manipulations are no match for the power of God when you allow God to intervene in your marriage through your prayers and deeds which are in obedience to His instructions for your marriage. Never allow your husband’s negative attitude or your mother-in-law’s manipulations make you deviate from doing God’s will for your marriage. Don’t focus on your husband or his mother, focus on God. Your focus on God will enable you to do the right thing and doing the right thing will help you win the battle over your marriage.
And lastly, you mentioned that your monthly salary goes to his expenses and I would have loved to know why that is so? I am an advocate of a wife financially assisting her husband when the need arises because that is what God has instructed us to do, but your responsibility is to assist and not to be a permanent breadwinner. Is it that your husband is not working? If yes, what effort is he making at earning income? If he is working, then he should take care of his own expenses if he can't be husband enough to take care of yours. With prayers and wisdom, you need to tactfully discontinue carrying his financial burdens IF your husband is making money or earning income.
But be mindful of the fact that obedience to your husband in everything includes the submission of your money if he demands it. But if he has not asked for your money, please don't carry his financial burdens if he is working and earning income it just amount to a waste of your hard earned income. Never think that you can earn his love by spending your money on him. It does not work that way. Love is not bought with money unless you are on a self-deceit and wasteful venture. You can only earn his true and genuine love and respect through the God approach which I have already highlighted earlier.

Be sure of this truth, your marriage will be sweet again. Joy will be restored in your home and love will reign in it as long as you are willing to fight for it.