In sharing his experience with me, he wrote, “My mother died over seven years ago but what died with her was my marriage of 12 years. My ex-wife is from a rich family and she never failed to make the class disparity between her and my people obvious. She carried on as if the presence of my mother and two sisters irritated her. I am the only son of my mother and the economic pillar of the family. There was nothing I didn’t do to make this woman embrace my people but she would always behave as if they were beneath her.
“When age and ill health began to descend on my mother, I begged my wife for us to move my mother in with us, because looking after my mother in her old age is a promise I made to myself, due to all her sacrifices in my life. She vehemently refused! What I found unforgivable is that this woman knows how close I was to my mother. And I hated to have her out of my sight. The worst being her continued threat of walking out of the marriage because (according to her) she doesn’t lack admirers.
“On the day she said that to me, I told her that she has my blessing and permission to leave the marriage. Otherwise, I would leave the marriage before she does. My mother was everything to me. That I turned out to be the man my wife found good enough to marry is because my mother spent a better part of her life in community farmlands, to send me to school.
“She was widowed early in life. Life was so hard for us that I was the only child she could train to university level while my sisters dropped out of secondary school to go into skill acquisition. Towards the end of my university studies, even my sisters began to contribute towards my welfare. Can anybody ever repay such sacrifices in a lifetime? Yet, one woman would expect a man to throw all that out of the window because she is a wife! Although we have two children together, our marriage broke down irretrievably.
“I couldn’t understand why she would resent those that mean a lot to me. My affection for my mum and sisters never affected my responsibilities in the home, yet she had a problem with that! My mother died in the arms of the woman that I later got married to, when she was feeding her at the hospital.
“If there’s one thing my new woman used to warm her way into my heart, it’s her selflessness towards my mother and the exceptional goodwill she has shown towards my sisters. She has been accused of using my soft spot for my mother to find a place in my heart. Honestly, I will never stop putting a smile on her face for that reason alone. Please tell bad daughters-in-law like my ex-wife that in the end, they are the losers! Unless they don’t have children who will one day bring home a spouse that will pay them in their own coin. People forget easily that life runs in circles. My ex-wife is a deaconess and marriage counselor in church.’’
From Oby
Being gracious towards people who have a special place in the life of a spouse is winning half the battle of marriage. Such gestures give root to JOY in marriage. When some marriages are troubled, it’s strangers that some wives turn to for ‘advice’ because they don’t have a relationship with the people, who CAN draw the man’s ears. Even if a mother kicked against the son marrying you, shouldn’t you make efforts to make her realise she was wrong about you?