I am a full-time housewife, thanks to my husband’s provision. He gives me enough money to take care of myself, our three-year-old daughter, two of his relatives living with us, and everything else concerning the household. I know that as a woman, I should have my own money. That’s why I manage whatever money he gives me well enough to save.

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I am not here to brag, but I have enough in my savings account to buy a plot of land and start a building project. My husband doesn’t know this. Sometimes, I think about telling him. Nonetheless, I am hesitant to do that because of our living situation. Let me take you back to when I was pregnant and almost due for childbirth.

When I got to that stage, my mother-in-law called my husband and told him that his niece would be coming to live with us and help me out with domestic work. She said the girl would be like a daughter to me. I didn’t have a problem with having an extra pair of hands to make work easier for me. My concern was that she did not discuss this with me. If I am the one meant to be helped, then why did she not talk to me directly?

Although I was not pleased with her approach, I didn’t make any big deal out of it. The girl they brought is a young adult. I took her in and took care of her as I would my younger sister.

The three of us managed until the baby arrived. Then my husband came to me again, saying, “My mother wants to bring another one of my nieces to stay with us. This one is a child.”

This time around, I let him know I wasn’t happy with his mother’s actions. I told him, “Your mother acts as if I don’t have a say when it comes to running my home. If she wants someone to come and live with us, then she should have spoken to me about it.”

I then told him that we were not ready for another mouth to feed. We were one year into our marriage at the time. I felt our marriage was too young for us to open our doors to people. “We are still managing life. And we need our privacy,” I calmly explained to him.

He didn’t listen to me. He dismissed my concerns with the statement, “You don’t have to worry about that. I can take care of all of you.”

He is the man, after all. So I let him have his way.

Just last week, my mother-in-law called the girls and asked them if I was maltreating them. They said no. Then she asked if I was maltreating my husband. They said no to that too. They told me everything after the call ended.

I was very angry, but I didn’t let it show. I smiled sweetly and praised them for telling their grandma the truth. Lord knows I have never been cruel to those children. I love them like my own. I talk to them in a way most adults don’t talk to children. We have a strong bond because of this. We are so close that they don’t hide anything from me.

I don’t know why their grandmother asked them those questions, but it made me feel she sees me as a bad person. This is the kind of drama I didn’t want to deal with. It was the reason I have never liked the idea of any relatives living with us—whether my in-laws or my own family. My rule was that members of our families would visit us and go back. But my husband chose to listen to his mother instead of me.

That evening, my husband was in a cheerful mood when he got home from work. I seized the moment and jokingly asked him, “If God helps us to build our own house one day, will anyone from either of our families stay with us?” He responded, “Yes, of course. The children will still be there.”

That was when I calmly told him what his mother had said to the children. I wanted us to talk about it so I could let him know I didn’t appreciate his mother’s involvement in our lives. He didn’t want to talk about it. Rather, he left the room and never brought up the subject again.

I have been questioning my place in this marriage since then. My original plan was to buy the land and surprise my husband with it. It would be my own way of supporting him to build a future for us. However, the way he handles decisions when it comes to me is making me reconsider everything.

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It’s not as if I don’t want the girls around. My fear is that eventually, my in-laws will succeed in turning them against me. I have tried so much to get into their good graces since I married their son. But no matter what I do, they don’t see the good in me. Judging from their attitude, I am convinced that they are waiting for me to mess up so they can swoop in and cause problems in the marriage.

This is why I believe the girls should go back to their relatives. We can support them from afar and still treat them like ours. It will be less complicated than having them under the same roof with us.

Once again, my husband refuses to listen to me. Either he doesn’t understand the implications of his mother’s nosiness, or he doesn’t care how it makes me feel. It makes me feel like my opinion doesn’t matter in this marriage. If that’s the case, then my money is not needed, right?

I am in a place where I am ready to build my own house. I’m just unsure if I should involve him in that plan. I know that if I give him the money to build together, he’ll still make all the decisions on his own. Will I be a wicked wife if I work on my project secretly?

—Jasmine

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