A reader of my Column forwarded these questions:
Question 1: A son would give his father N5,000 and Mum, N2,000 and a loaf of bread, every month he visited home. One day, his mum was not around when he visited. He gave his dad the usual N5,000 and told him to give his Mum N2,000 and a loaf of bread as he had always done. He left. Being hungry after a while, his dad, in an attempt to take some slices of bread, discovered that N20,000 was concealed inside it by his son. He could not understand it. “Could it be that his son had been enclosing N20,000 in the loaf of bread he had been giving to his mum for four years?” He wondered. What will you do, if you were the man? Will you confront your son or your wife?
Family Tonic: God joins a husband and his wife during their wedding to be one. It does not matter, therefore, whether our son gives me more money or to his mum, since what belongs to me, belongs to her and what is hers, is also mine. What is wrong is the concealment of the bulk of money our son gives her. It will not be good for me to confront him. I will discuss the matter with my wife first, and the best time will be after our morning or evening devotion.
At that time, after brief prayers, I will remind her that God has made marriage to be immutable and that it is a vow the two of us made during our wedding before God, man and the devil, to be one and that, “We are no longer two but one and it includes our purse. This is why some couples have a common purse, and where they have separate bank accounts, each person knows what the other is doing with it. That day, you remember that we vowed to be one, ‘For better and for worse’, until death separates us,” I will remind her.
I will apologize to her in any area I can remember that I have not been living up to expectation. This will include our finance and or any other area of my life, and I will promise her that it will not happen again. I will remind her of God’s warning to us, after joining us, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder”. No man, I will remind her, means no man, whether our children, immediate family members, friends, lawyers, Magistrates, witnesses, et cetera. God holds responsible, therefore, anybody that contributes in any way, in the divorce of a couple.
I will then lay the card on the table, telling her the implication of what our son has been doing, though he might not have considered it, that he was separating the two of us. “What I guess he was doing was to show you that he loves you more than he loves me,” I will tell her. “Darling, but how will our family look like, if I allow such a thing, and perhaps, build love with our other children? Did it not ruin the family of Jacob, when he preferred Esau to Jacob, while his wife preferred Jacob?” I will ask her. I will remind her, how that enmity between Esau and Jacob lasted, even after Jacob and his family had spent hundreds of years in Egypt.
I will make her to realize the implication of what has been happening. “Our son gives us N27,000 every month, which is not known to me, and I appreciate him only for N7,000, since N20,000 is concealed from me,” I will tell her. I will remind her, how the two of us have been telling lies before God. “When I told you to pray the other day, did you not thank God for N7,000 our son gave us, though you knew that it was N27,000? Would God be pleased by that? Was it not telling lies? Will He accept that prayer?” I will ask her.
I will encourage her to discuss the issue with our son during his next visit. It will be better that way than for her to talk to him through the phone. I will encourage her also, to apologize to him for not discouraging him from the practice all the years. I will leave it to her conscience concerning what she has been doing with the money. Does she spend it for the upkeep of the home? Have I left the expense of running our home to her without contributing anything? Does she use the money in buying clothes? Could she then have been right, when I confronted her concerning the source of the money for her new clothes and she gave me flimsy answer?
Does she spend the money in her parents’ home, if so, why has none of them called me to appreciate what we have been doing for them? Or does she tell them to keep sealed lips? In that case, what type of relationship is she building between her parents and me?
What will show if she feels guilty and repentant will be determined whether she will apologize to me, with a promise that it will never happen again. It is also her responsibility to encourage our son to apologize to me for the deception. If my son apologizes, I will accept it unconditionally, without retelling the story or stressing the implication of his conduct. I will thank him for the big chunk he has been giving us, stressing that some of his mates may not even enquire about the welfare of their parents, muchless providing for them.
Question 2: A couple resolved on the first day of their wedding, not to open their door to any guest. The husband’s parents came and knocked and the couple refused to open for them. Not long after, his wife’s parents came and knocked. With tears in her eyes, she could not bear it. “I can’t do this to my parents,” she said and opened for them. Her spouse did not say anything. They were blessed with two boys before they had a baby girl. During the naming ceremony of the baby girl, the man spent lavishly in entertaining their guests. “Why did you spend in this manner, and you didn’t do so, when the boys were born?” His wife asked. His response was quick, “She’s the one to open the door for me”. Was he right?
Family Tonic: Generally, women handle family issues more than men. Some men forget their parents once they are married, but most women continue to be making sacrifices for their parents. However, in the narration above, the couple made a wrong decision, not to open their door for anybody. One of them must have suggested it. The partner would have opposed it. If it was not opposed, they would have relaxed the decision when they saw Uncle’s parents. I will not blame Aunty for opening the door for her parents. I cannot imagine, if any of my daughters would have behaved differently.
Uncle’s silence after many years is dangerous. His wife was living with a man with bottled anger! People like that can kill. He should have discussed the issue with his wife a long time ago. There is no issue a couple cannot discuss.
For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi: 0802 3002-471; [email protected]
