Wellness & Fitness

Choose your ‘lovely’ husband, not the mansion he promised

Hubby

Work with him at this time of great stress for him. PHOTO | BD GRAPHIC

My husband is an executive and has been very supportive and lovely. Recently, he went to the village and returned with his ailing mother-in-law. Then everything changed.

I find that he is now distant and has become quarrelsome. I don’t know whether he is going through stress due to the mother’s illness or it is because he became 50 recently and still has not built a house as he promised; I remind him often. I want him to cool down but I want to understand him first.

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You define the problem rather well when you say: “I want him to cool down, but I want to understand him first.” Ask yourself what he might want in this whole picture?

Have you had time to stop and wonder if your husband has anything he might want out of this whole scenario? To start at the end, you sound like a clear minded person, who is methodical and meticulous in the way that you do your things as quoted above.

You have also made the point of being orderly by reminding your husband of a promise he made and one he has been unable to keep.
Interestingly, your question does not give a hint as to whether he is unable or unwilling to build you a house. If unwilling, then perhaps he has, in his mind, decided he does not want to spend the rest of his life with a woman who nags him about everything.

First, his mother, then his irritable moods and then that he is now an old man of 50, and finally that he is useless in that he is unable to keep his promises.

Yours sounds like the classical error many women make in their relationships, and I loathe to give agony-aunt type of advice. Please indulge me today.

Elderly woman

Your mother-in-law has a medical condition, and both you and her son have the duty to take care of her. Life is simply like that.

That elderly woman, you must remember, carried your now husband in her womb for nine months. When he was born she took care of his every need. She spent endless nights changing him, feeding him and simply being his mother.

I will assume you have your own children and that what I am describing makes sense. That being the case, I would like you to fast forward and put yourself in her shoes, say 40 years from now. You are 75, have just been diagnosed with diabetes and hypertension, and your memory is failing. What must your son do?

It goes without saying that your son must first and foremost make sure that his marriage remains intact. That way he and his wife have a good chance of making a good team to better look after you.

Put another way, your son and his wife must act together to give you what you deserve, caring and nurturing in old age as defined by nature.

Take a deep breath and say to yourself, “my mother-in-law is not my competitor. My husband has a right to worry about his mother, but also has the responsibility to look after me and my children. All of us belong to him, and he belongs to all of us.”

Too simple, you might think, but you’re not seeing the point that a man with a sick mother might become withdrawn and irritable leads me to tell you so.

What is the link between his not building you a house and his mother’s health? Indeed, how much has he had to spend on the health of his and your parents?

Why have you not played any role in the project of the house? Why must he be the one to build it? Would it not perhaps be better for you to do this most important project with this “very supportive and lovely man?”

Many have said that life begins at 40, others have argued that life ends at 50, meaning that if a man has not made it by the latter age, then he is unlikely to make it after that.

Useful life

How much pressure have you put on your poor lovely guy to perform? How often have you reminded him that he is approaching the end of his “useful life”. The questions you raise are many and go to the core of a relationship in marriage.

What, for example, did you plan to achieve together at 50? Was it defined in material, monetary, spiritual or psychological terms? Was success to be determined by having a house or by having a home?

Which is more important for the two of you? Before you tell me both, let me remind you that the majority of mankind don’t always have both.

Indeed, millions seek houses only to find they have no husband. Only a month ago, I saw the wife of a rich 50-year-old man who tried to kill herself in a mansion in the leafy suburbs. All the money, gold and diamonds brought her nothing but misery and sexually transmitted diseases.

A friend sent his driver of many years to see me with the wife over the deteriorating health condition of their mother. They were a couple to behold. Simple, connected, deeply spiritual and content with their station in life. They lived in a rented house, and said they were happy to have the ailing mother come and live with them. What a contrast!

Talk to your husband, if you do tell him you love him and would like to be part of his good and bad times. Work with him at this time of great stress for him.

This article was first published in the Business Daily.