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igbo cultural society ics


Mother-In-Law

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*Marriage is a thing of the heart. Do not confuse or abuse it.

I never knew they are wretched and greedy. They still pretend. The truth of the matter is that people knew this but refused to talk. Sometimes, they do, but it`s been difficult for me to comprehend. To differentiate between native and academic intelligence, is in this lamentation, my difficulty. I am at odds. People should help…

All they have achieved is making me forget my parents. My mother-in-law is marrying me and my father-in-law is my father. Their other two daughters became my sisters and the two sons, my brothers.  Help! How do I get out of this quagmire? This is greed:

What can I do to make my mother-in-law understand that Petra is my wife? The mother is deceiving me. Turning me away from my roots.  Am I not foolish by keeping my eyes on someone else and gradually losing my parents; without whom, I could not have existed to know the person I call my wife and her parents.

My mother-in-law strategically found her way into me through her daughter... though, we leave far apart (over six hour’s journey with an aero plane), and still she found her way. The modern communication devices are one of her “weapons”… There is no day that will pass by without my wife engaging her mother in a marathon of selfish and greedy discussions at my own detriment.

 I blame myself. Initially, I confined to my wife everything. I Gave her every detailed pieces of information about my family thinking that I have a wife with whom I (we) can shear ideas in other to build a common goal on how to start a new family of our own. I never knew I was preparing a ground for my own doom. But is discussing my family with my wife a crime? The real question could have been: to what extent did I do that? A friend named Obi, blamed me for this; and asked me what she said about her family. She said almost nothing I replied; except an inference on my real brother’s attitude towards in her first two months of marriage. This was damaging. Obi blamed me too…

The change

Chameleon. The creature we so much like watching; maybe. When it comes to movement, it very lazy and has a very clever character, that is: it adapts easily. It can camouflage. This is a perfect character. Hidden to be revealed, as the environment dictates. It changes.

Remember all we tell and do when the love is still new. When the mind has not been chequered by mixed feelings, damned dominating feelings, ruffled ego, that protrude out of self centeredness. Have a retrospect of the early days of “I love you” and all that surrounds you including your parents. Money is honey…

Yes, I will. Yes, I will. She was not so perfect a girlfriend. In fact, we never had this time. There were no courtships. I thought she was brought up like every other average child in a well-to-do family. For this reason I accepted my parents’ choice. It is a part of tradition that one’s parents can make such choice. I should have known how dangerous this could be… But I said yes. I will. She lacked that native intelligence. This concerted its self moments after we got married…

Get the point. All was fine within and withal us. My family was the only priority then, when we used to talk out our hearts. We believed every word. Every lie we told. She adapted very fast. My lovely chameleon. Everyone loved her. She was another child of the family.

Mrs. Haard Chilaka, my mother-in-law, was then pretending. She showed her best, but for those who could then read those wrong words on the wall, saw that she was worryingly meticulous. My mother-in-law is very greedy and mischievous. And has marred our marriage....

After a while, our love changed to something better and we felt like we could move to another stage in life where we could probably thereafter, envelope another of our hidden heinous characters. Getting married. At this point, both parents got deeply involved. The best faces were shown. The colours remained ebony. No changes. The situation remained neutral but tensed. The only that filled the air was love. The laughter was brighter and lauder. Fully brightened lips revealed the perfect arranged set of teeth with a gap. This was concealing the facts. Mrs. Hand Chilaka, the would be mother-in-law, was pretending to be very “Gospeled”. She counted the beads on the prayer tool called Chaplet mercilessly. May God forgive those who mask in his name and still offend him. These set of church goers, I call rich sinners. The poor sinner are easily forgiven. Every face had a story; some are hidden. This is a period when pretence used to be an open secrete. If you are to be a future heinous mother-in-law or daughter-in-law, pretend, a least for now till “married” comes into use; you are a poor sinner.

All this while, one of the legs has suffered a lot of pains. Because of the phase in life which my then girlfriend was in, was critical, she had to bear the burden.

Now she is a wife, both legs are bearing the burden. Relaxed, that is. She received every attention from both sides of the family. The new child and star is here. Mrs. Hand Chilaka’s blood pressure that’s little above average has now normalised. Thank to my also answering “Yes I will” in response to the Priest’s rehearsed question. If you are once married in court or in the church, you can never forget this short question that is always boring.

Time has gone by. Events have been recorded. Every side withdrew into its sheath for the next strategy. The war. The war between in-laws. The war without a cause, but termed: who dominates. If the husband is well-to-do, sort of, the war ends mostly disastrous. God forbid…  

A new family has emerged. Ah! What is going to be the best next colour to camouflage in? All I need now is my husband. But how? Lo, my mother is there. Out of experience she will give me the best. Mother and child must put heads together in order to carry on the war… 

My wife changed. She is pregnant. She will deliver soon. The fruit of the marriage was blessed with a child. My wife turned another leave. The character drastically changed.

I do not see anything bad in mother and child relationship. But in what scope is it going to spread and affect the three sides: First my parents, my in-laws and my own family which is now a stake?

She has soiled me.

No weapon is beautiful. If anyone points at you with any, you have only these alternatives: retreat, surrender, or bear-like bear the course and get killed... Among the weapons I have come across or head of, including the one that downed the satellite that could have “destroyed” the earth because of its toxic content had it hit it, is human word. Was this not another method of testing another beautiful weapon? Thanks to the creator of human race, the test was very successful…  

The strategy number one has been achieved because it worked. They have conquered me. When am I going to understand they have done this? I am now short sighted; blind folded, may be. Am suffering from  emotional bullying from my mother-in-law. She has a very refined way of chipping in her very destructive wills on me. “am only trying to help you understand the fact, because I have experienced this sort of thing from my husband’s relatives”; she would say. If I venture to know how and why she would quickly add: “you will understand me later or you are being over sensitive”. When I ponder over her words, I usually see some glimpse of light. My mother-in-law has constantly in her sneaky way insulted my parents and how they brought me up. What I have not summed the courage to ask her or myself is: why am I beginning to get new lessons on upbringing at over 45 years? Dose this not foolishly define me? Is it because I am marrying their daughter… My parents are more important to me than my parents-in-law. I respect them but I am yet to realise how far they have gone in separating me from the people who may come to me when they have won the battle and I become isolated… Leave alone. I know what am doing... sometimes one head is better than more. I know what I am doing. My parents and their children are yet to realise this. When it is too late…

At work, I do not have rest of mind, because my mother-in-law for sure, blocks my calling home to ask my wife for one or two things. It is not very easy for me to attack or chase her like a dangerous snake out of our life. But she is destroying our marriage… My wife has, like a sectarian been addicted to preaching of her mother. She has no human feelings about my parents and brothers and sisters. My wife has no idea that she belongs – according to our way of life – to where I was born and raised. My mother-in-law has soiled my marriage…

Their second strategy. War of words. The silent destructive weapon. They want to use this now to over dose my mother.

to be Continued…. 

©a.izundu’2008

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