My wife’s mother came to live with us right from the onset of our marriage. I had reservations about it, but she assured me she wouldn’t stay for long and she would leave. I trusted her. I hoped it was going to be sooner.

She left after spending one month with us. Just a week later, she was back. Another one month later, she left, and then two weeks later, she was back. She said she was lonely and because I travelled often, it was right for her to live with us and keep her daughter company. I didn’t like it for several reasons, but my wife didn’t know how to tell her own mother to leave us alone to start life together.

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She interfered in our story. When we went out and came home late, this woman would talk to us like we were kids. “As a married couple, home is your place. What are you doing staying in town this late? You’ll leave your kids home and stay out late when they come along?”

I would usually not mind her, but whatever she said, my wife followed. We would be in town and she would be eager to go back home because her mother might lock the door. “Lock the door to my own house?” I would ask. “I’ve told you to let her leave us alone, but you won’t do anything about it.”

We went home, and indeed, this woman had locked us out. It was funny, so I laughed. She heard us knocking and knocking, but she pretended she didn’t hear us. Later, when she opened the door, she did so with a frown and accused us of spoiling her sleep. “You know it’s hard for me to sleep, but you’ll intentionally come in late just to spoil my sleep.”

My wife stopped going out with me because of this. She said she didn’t want her mom to complain. She said we ought to respect her mom because she’d lived longer than us and knew what we didn’t know. I planned to tell her to leave, but then I didn’t want to disrespect my wife, so I stopped myself from telling her.

Everyone in the house would go clockwise, but this woman alone would go anticlockwise. She doesn’t use the stove to cook. She would set up a coal pot in the kitchen and blow smoke into the rooms. When she cooks, you can’t sit in the hall. She would blow ashes all around and would not sweep.

She knows better than us, so she tells us the stove is for lazy people, apart from the fact that it’s also dangerous. She said she had seen it burn a house down, so she wouldn’t use it. Even when you ask her not to cook, that’s the day she would cook from morning to evening and also leave water on the coal pot until the charcoal burned to ashes.

The house has bathtubs installed in both bathrooms, hers and ours. We don’t share a bathroom, but this woman wouldn’t use the bathtub. She says she can slip and die inside it, so she prefers bathing at the back of the house. She would wake up at dawn and bathe before the world wakes up. At night, she would be the last to bathe.

Go to the portion where she bathes and you’ll see soap stains on the painted walls and also spirogyra growing on the pavement blocks installed there. I hate it. I see it and I want to vomit. I’ve told this woman it wasn’t right to bathe there. My wife has also said it. She says we should turn her bathroom into the one she’s used to before she would bathe there.

This has gone on for far too long, and I’ve complained bitterly over and over again without any results. One day, the owner of the house came to see it and was very angry that we were destroying the pavement blocks and also making his walls damp.

I took the heat to my wife, and all she said was, “What can I do to her if she won’t use the bathroom?” Out of frustration, I said, “I’m not going to accept that village life any longer. She should leave if she can’t use a simple bathtub and learn to cook on a stove.”

I don’t know how my wife reported this to my mother-in-law. This woman approached me and asked, “Are you the one calling me a villager? I’m a villager because I don’t want to risk my life? If your mother were alive, would you call her a villager?”

And then she burst into tears as if I’d beaten her. I thought this would make her angry enough to make her leave, but she’s still here. Now she’s upgraded the place where she bathes. She’s used some plywood here and there, but it still doesn’t excuse her action.

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She doesn’t talk to me. My wife expects me to apologize, but I told her I will not apologize for something I didn’t say. Now, I want to risk it all and sack this woman from my house. I’ve respected my wife long enough to tolerate her mother, but it looks like she doesn’t want to return the favour.

I’ve planned what to say. I’ve planned for any other reaction that would come afterwards. I’m going to be respectful about it, but this time, she has to leave so my marriage will live. Am I doing something wrong? Is it harsh to sever the ties now that she’s the one fighting me?

—Aboagye     

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