Before we got married, we thought of where to live. My wife told me she was tired of her landlord and wanted to move. I was living in my parent’s house. My dad had died and had left a big home for us. I was living in that house with only my junior sister and my mom. My elder brother got married and left the house so when I was about to get married, I convinced my wife to let us use her place until her rent expired. My room in my parent’s house was a single room self contain and couldn’t contain both of us. I told my wife, “Before your rent expires, we’ll look for another place and move there.” 

She agreed with me so right after marriage, I packed my things and went to live with her. I got the reason why she didn’t like her landlord. The woman was changing the house rules every day without consulting any of the tenants. She moved the curfew time from 10pm to 9pm because she said she wanted to have a long night of sleep without being disturbed. My wife was that woman who always stood against her so they both couldn’t see eye to eye. When I went in, her attitude towards my wife changed. She softened up a little and things became better. 

When our rent was about to expire, my wife was heavily pregnant. I told her, “This is not as bad as you described it. See, it’s closer to your workplace and regardless of all the bad things you see, there are positives too. So why don’t we stay for another year?  By that time, the baby would be out and walking so we can have the time and space to pack out.” She didn’t accept my reasons. She insisted for us to move so we started looking for accommodation. The rent charges we met were too huge and apart from that, they all wanted at least, two years’ rent before we could move in. We didn’t have that much but we kept trying until it became obvious that we couldn’t move before our rent expires. 

I tried to reason with my wife again, “You see, this landlord is ready to take one year’s rent from us because we are old tenants. Why don’t you understand so we live here for another year before we move out?” She still maintained her grounds but we still didn’t have enough money to rent so I suggested we move to my parent’s house for a while and she agreed. As I said, it’s a big house with boys’ quarters. No one was living in the boy’s quarters so my mom was about to rent it out when I told her I was moving in with my wife. My mom was so happy, she started fixing the whole house before our arrival. She fixed everything that was broken and painted the house before we finally moved in. 

A couple of months after we moved in, my wife delivered a baby girl. A few weeks later, my junior sister also got married and moved out of the house. It became only us and my mother. My mom provided all the care my wife would need as a nursing mom. She was virtually serving my wife. She would bathe the kid and carry her when she cries so my wife could have time to rest. She would wash our clothes and also prepare food for us. She was doing all this to make our stay here a happy one. 

It got to a time my wife started complaining that my mom was too much in our space. “I’m supposed to cook for you and do the chores a wife has to do but she has taken over everything. She’ll cook from her end and bring it to us. Can you tell her to allow us to do some of the things ourselves?” I found a nice way to tell my mom but my mom felt it was my own decision so she ignored the message and even asked my wife if that was how she wanted things to be. My wife shook her head. I don’t know if she was shy of my mom or didn’t want to upset her. My mom continued doing all that until my wife resumed work. 

We didn’t have to look for a caretaker for the child because my mom was there. I remember one evening we came home and the baby was sleeping. She was eight months old or something. My wife wanted to go for her and my mom said, “You just came back from work. Eat and relax while she also sleeps here. I don’t think she’ll wake up anytime soon.” My wife agreed but came to lodge a complaint against my mum. 

I told her, “My mom feels she’s helping you but if you think you can do it yourself, just insist on it and she’ll leave it for you to do it.” She said I was taking my mother’s side in everything and it made her feel like a stranger in her own marriage. She told me, “It’s been over a year since we came here. Why are we still here but not in our own rented apartment?” 

Honestly, I thought everything was fine with us here and we no longer needed to rent a new place. Once she mentioned it I asked, “But what’s wrong if we live here for a while? The baby is still young. She hasn’t started school yet. Why don’t we wait until she’s old enough?” It turned into an argument. She said I was making excuses just to continue being a mama’s boy. In the end, I agreed to move but I asked her to give me some time to raise enough money for us to leave. I had started a new side business and it was taking everything from my account.

READ ALSO: He Tried To Take It On My Sister After I Broke Up With Him

Since I gave my wife this promise, she had been on my neck every day, asking when we are moving. Honestly, I like it here and I wish she would understand for us to continue living in this place. I grew up in this house and everything around here fills me with content and makes it look like they are all growing with me. My mom needs a companion and it will break her heart to know that we are planning to leave but these are not the reasons I want to keep staying here. The reasons are more financial than emotional. Anytime we argue, she tells me she has money to support me if only I will make the move. 

I haven’t been able to tell my mom that we are in the market looking for a new place. It has become a difficult conversation for me to broach but one day my wife came from town to tell me she had gotten a place that will fit our needs. I went to check with her and it was indeed a very nice place. Access to our working places won’t be a problem and there was everything we’ll need if we decide to move. They mentioned the rent and I went back. I told her it was too expensive. She told me she was ready to pay half. I asked her to give me some time to think about things. A week later, she came to tell me, “I can see you’re not ready to leave your mother’s house and that’s OK. I’ve paid half of the rent for that place we saw. Just give me the half mount and we’ll move there and wait for you. Whenever you’re ready to come and live with us, you can come.”

There’s no problem at my parent’s house oooo. All my wife is seeking is independence from my mom and looking at the amount it’s going to cost us, I don’t think it’s worth it. I’m in the middle of starting a new business. This money can help push the launch date forward if my wife would understand and invest in it but she’s wasting it on a venture we don’t need as a couple. I’ve said everything there’s to say. I’ve even begged her to stay for just one more year. She doesn’t want to. She just wants to leave. 

I haven’t given her the half amount she asked for but she has started packing. Little by little, she’s moving out to this new place. She has even given me an ultimatum. She said if by that time I haven’t made up my mind, she’ll just leave and say bye-bye to my mom. I told her, “You’re destroying the relationship between you and my mom and if you don’t take care, you’ll destroy this marriage. Why don’t you have patience for us to handle this the proper way?” 

Why Are You Still In This Marriage?–Beads Media

It looks like when a woman has her own money, you can’t tell her what to do and mostly they don’t listen to you so my wife never listens. It looks like she has even paid the full rent looking at how she’s sending her things there one after the other. I want to ask the men on this platform, am I doing something wrong as a husband? Am I failing my role as a husband when it comes to this decision? I feel I have a valid point. You should see my parent’s house. There’s everything here to make us comfortable. I’m not even saying we should live here forever. All I’m asking for is time. Ladies on this platform, have you seen what your sister is doing to me? How do I get her to see things my way? I thought of bringing her parents in but it looks like they support her stance judging from the conversations she has with them on the phone in my presence. What do I do to stop my wife from taking this bad decision?

—Agyin

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