My wife’s three brothers came to our house one Sunday evening. They didn’t come to visit their sister. They came to warn me. The eldest among them told me that if I couldn’t give their sister a child, I should let her go so another man could. The youngest was more aggressive. He said they had been patient with me for too long, and if I continued wasting their sister’s time, they would take matters into their own hands.

My wife was sitting beside me when they said these things. She didn’t utter a word. That silence has been troubling me more than the threats because I know this isn’t entirely about children. There is something else behind their sudden concern for our marriage.

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My wife had a child before we met. I knew about the child when we started dating, and it was never a problem for me. We fell in love, got married, and began building our lives together. We’ve been married for eight years now. We wanted to have children together. We talked about it from the beginning of our marriage, but things haven’t happened the way we expected.

A year after our wedding, my wife’s father died. Her mother had passed away many years earlier, so when her father died, the family house became empty. After the funeral and all the necessary arrangements, my wife suggested that we move into the property. At the time, we were renting elsewhere, and moving into her father’s house seemed like a sensible decision.

I agreed.

My wife is the eldest of her siblings. When their father died, they couldn’t agree on what to do with the house. Some wanted it sold so they could share the proceeds. Others preferred renting it out and sharing the income. My wife suggested another arrangement. We would move into the house and pay rent to the family. We agreed to pay the prevailing market rate.

That is exactly what we’ve been doing. Every month, we pay rent just as we would if we were living in a stranger’s house. But even that arrangement hasn’t brought peace. Sometimes, one of her brothers wakes up and decides that monthly payments are no longer convenient. He wants two years’ rent in advance.

My wife and I would discuss it, gather the money, and pay. Another time, someone would complain that the rent should be increased because similar houses in the area were going for more.

For years, we have tried to meet their demands because we didn’t want unnecessary family conflict. There were times I suggested that we find another place to live. I was tired of the constant interference. My wife didn’t want to leave. It was her childhood home. Her parents had lived there, and almost every room held something she remembered about them.

Around the time we began having concerns about our difficulty conceiving, we started seeking medical help. We visited hospitals, underwent examinations, and followed the treatments recommended to us. It hasn’t been easy. There are months when we become hopeful, only to be disappointed again.

My wife already has a child, and because we haven’t had a child together, people sometimes assume the problem must be mine. I don’t spend my time correcting everybody’s assumptions. Our medical situation is between us and the professionals helping us, but I never imagined her brothers would use it as a reason to threaten me.

The problems escalated when one of them got an opportunity to travel abroad. He needed money. Rather than find another way to raise it, he decided that selling their father’s house was the solution. He convinced the others that the property should be sold and the proceeds shared.

My wife refused. They accused her of being selfish. Then they started accusing me. According to them, my wife would never have opposed the sale if I wasn’t influencing her. They believed I was the one encouraging her to hold on to the house because I wanted to continue living there.

That accusation annoyed me. We were paying rent. In fact, I had sometimes argued that we should move out to avoid these very disagreements, but her brothers had already made up their minds about me. Gradually, the disagreements about the property became disagreements about our marriage.

And then they discovered a subject they believed could weaken us: our inability to have a child together. They began asking why their sister was still married to a man who hadn’t given her a child after eight years. They reminded her that she was getting older.

They couldn’t convince her to sell the house, so they began attacking the marriage they believed was giving her the confidence to refuse. If they could separate us, perhaps they could get what they wanted. Then came that Sunday. They arrived together, and from the moment they entered, I sensed that this wasn’t an ordinary visit.

They went straight into the discussion about our marriage. They questioned my ability to father a child and suggested that their sister had wasted enough years with me.

I expected my wife to intervene, yet she said nothing. Just one sentence would have been enough, but she remained silent until they left. Afterwards, I asked why she didn’t defend me. She said she didn’t want the situation to escalate.

“You allowed your brothers to threaten your husband in his own home just because you didn’t want to escalate the fight?”

That was when we had our own argument. I told her I couldn’t continue living where people felt entitled to walk in and threaten me while she watched. She got angry and walked away.

For eight years, I have loved her and remained committed to our marriage. We’ve faced disappointments, made plans, and supported each other through difficult periods, but I’ve never said anything against her brothers. She allowed them to say bitter things against me. So I packed a few things and left the house. I texted her, “I’m going to look for a house for us. You either move in with me or stay there and destroy our marriage with your spoilt brothers.”

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She didn’t respond to that message. That also annoyed me, so I decided not to say anything to her again. It’s been over a week, and my wife hasn’t said a word. She posts on her status as if everything is right. She posts happy moments with her brothers as if they were not the same people who came to threaten me.

I’m beginning to feel like the whole encounter was a plot to kick me out of her life, and I’ve played myself into their trap. I’m waiting to get a place, go back there, and pick up my things. If she doesn’t follow me, I will take it as the end of our marriage.

And I will never blame her brothers for bringing us to this point. I will blame everything on her because everything she’s doing makes me feel like her brothers’ attack was all part of her plan.

—Courage  

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