Dear Agatha,
Thanks for being there for us every day of the week. May God bless you and also solve your problems.
I got married last year and since then my husband’s three brothers have been living with us. Not once have I been allowed to enjoy my marriage.
Although we live in a three-bedroom en-suite flat, I lack the freedom to do as I please in my home. For instance, I cannot dress the way I like around the house. I cannot embrace my husband intimately the way I want because of the presence of these people.
I have complained severally, but my husband insists that they are his responsibility since they no longer have parents.
In fairness, they have always lived with him; but I didn’t envisage they would become nuisance in my home or marriage.
I am fed up and want them out of my house. Although they help with all the housework and have never been rude to me in any way, I want my husband to myself.
Besides this is the amount of money he spends on their education. They all attend expensive private schools. And they still have very far to go because the last one is just entering his first year in senior secondary school. He seems not to be thinking about his future at all beyond making life easy for his siblings. When I pointed this out to him, he told me not to interfere; but I can’t help worrying about it. He should be planning for our children, not investing all his money on his brothers who may turn against him tomorrow.
I don’t know what to do to make my husband understand me. He thinks I am simply being selfish and unreasonable on this matter.
Agatha, help me.
Tope.
Dear Tope,
Happiness is measured by the amount of happiness we are also willing to invest in the lives of people around us. You cannot be talking about your own happiness without thinking of all those whose happiness and lives are dependent on the decisions you make.
How do you think your husband would remain happy with you if the brothers he had cared for before meeting you, all whom you knew depend on him before you married him, are suddenly made to leave the only security of the home they know, all because you have refused to tailor your happiness to accommodate the allowances of sharing it with others?
In his shoes, how would you feel if he is asking you to make the same choice you are now forcing him to make? Sincerely, you are not being fair to these young men who have given you no reason to complain about their attitude towards you.
If they gladly do the house chores, what else do you want? A three-bedroom en-suite flat gives you all the freedom to do as you like with your husband since nobody is sharing your bathroom with you.
You can effectively indulge all your romance inclinations right inside your bedroom. Your case would have been understandable if the place were a one-room affair where nobody even has the privacy to dress. Your reasons for wanting them out of the house in such a situation would have been understood against the background that a man and woman need private time to bond as a couple.
But definitely not in your case where once the bedroom door is closed, you both have all the privacy in the world to do what you want.
The consequences of the decision you want your husband to take against his brothers may not manifest today, but later when your husband or you may be in desperate need of the help of these young men.
Even if they desire to help, if they have wives like you, the women may also prevent them from doing what is right. The dynamism and unpredictability of life makes your decision very unwise and uncalled for.
Don’t forget that the boys are orphans. As the wife of their brother, you occupy a vital position to help them translate their lives positively in the way their mother would have done, had she lived. Being the first woman in their small family since the passing of their parents, you stand the chance of making positive history by investing selflessly in the advancement and future of these young men.
Frankly, if his brothers turn against him in the future, it won’t be a lack of appreciation of your husband’s positive role in their lives, but of your own negative influences. Their protest would be against you for coming to spoil something so precious and rare. Your husband is a responsible man; don’t discourage him because when you would need this aspect of him, you may not be able to bring it back to him if you encourage him to deviate from what he is doing now.
Ensuring they get the best education is the best way of insuring the happiness and future of your own children. This is in the sense that with quality education, they would grow up to be monumental successes in their areas of academic pursuits, leaving your husband free of the attendant pressures that come with ill-equipped foundations. With good jobs, your husband would not suffer the undue financial strain that would most likely come if he fails to give them solid educational heritage now.
Also, he is trying to prevent the bitter resentment and acrimony that come with the feeling of being used and dumped. There is no way these boys would feel happy if after cleaning him and you, they are also made to clean after your children while they have nothing to show for all their investment of care in the growth of your family.
Yes, his children are important, but so also are his brothers whose lack of parents makes them very special to your husband. Today, he is the only father and mother they have. And don’t forget that whatever intimacy you may have with him, his relationship with his brothers predates yours. There are some very vital family secrets which when they begin to discuss would make you a complete stranger in their circle.
If you’re wise, you would play your role as their mother with joy, even if you feel regrets over your lack of intimacy. Being grown children, they know when the mood calls for them to give you both the privacy when the occasion demands at any particular time. And once you are able to gain their respect and trust, they would come to value you more than their brother because you would be like the mother nature denied them of having for long.
Wisdom calls for caution and reason. Give to them your heart, commitment and love. If you love your husband, you would learn to support his dream of having to cater for his brothers. You would also respect his wishes as well as motherly compassion for these orphans who, from all indications, still desperately need motherly love.
You swore to stand by your husband through thick and thin. This is the time he needs you the most to help him achieve his dream of maintaining a fair balance between his responsibility to his siblings as the eldest child and to you as his wife.
If romance is what you desire, turn your bedroom decor around. A few delicate touches and splashes of soft furniture and decorative items could turn an ordinary decor to an exotic setting, potent enough to induce intimacy between you and your man anytime he steps into the room.
And who says you cannot appeal for help from these young minds in your quest to win further his heart. Remember, they have lived with him all their lives; hence have one or two information about him, which you don’t have. For instance, they know precisely the type of food or thing to keep him happy. Encourage them to teach you everything you need to know about him. You can only get them to help you improve on the quality of your marriage by giving them all the freedom to be part of your lives and remain wanted in their brother’s home.
Marriage is an unpredictable journey. Help is always required from every source to make it work, especially as the years grow older and circumstances change. Today, you may feel on top of things necessitating you to demand that he quits his brothers from your home; but a time would come when you would desperately need the comforting presence and support of these same people to make him listen to you or stop him from calling off the entire partnership between the two of you.
Believe me, nobody has the panacea to a completely trouble-free marriage; no matter how deeply in love two people are, there is always a bad day, a day when everything doesn’t make sense, when all those feelings of love vanish, leaving in its wake only bitterness and resentment.
It is on a day like this that you need the love and help of other members of the family to put sanity back into your life.
For a day like this, give these boys the freedom to be happy and have pleasant memories of their time in your home.
What you need is determination to make them happy.
Good luck.
