Mother-wife rivalry.

We women not only pray for good husbands, but also pray for good mothers-in-law but unfortunately we aren't always lucky with that one. You can get the good man alright, but if the mother in law doesn't like you then there's a very big problem. This problem can lead to lack of peace of mind when you've done nothing wrong as some mothers-in-law are always on the quivive for the smallest of faults you show, they do not hesitate to scold you lr even call you names. They create rivalry where there wasn't any before. They make it seem like the wife is trying to "steal" their sons away from them, some mothers-in-law are just paranoid people, they make a fuss out of everything, they even go as far as guilt tripping the husband while throwing tantrums that are mostly uncalled for when the husbands tries to make them understand. Some of them can be really difficult human beings!

On the other hand the wife thinks that she's now the woman of the house, she's now a top priority of the man and he should put his family's need before any other thing. Wives strive to gain the respect of their mothers-in-law before the marriage so as to access the kind of person she is while the mother does the same, access the kind of woman the wife - to-be is, the point is that there's always this unspoken thing right from day one. Some wives try to gain a kind of control over their men and when their mothers sense this, they go into defence mode. "I won't let her do that to my son", "that charm cannot work on my son" blah blah blah. I sometimes wonder why this happens on many occasions.

On examining the situation of the married couple where this wife-mother rivalry exist, it seems to me this rivalry is more pronounced when the husband is the only child or son of his mother or in families where the mother is overly protective of her sons. It is okay for mothers to behave like that but they should know that the son isn't going tp marry them. They should know that he has his own life to live and will someday leave them to start his own life. I don't see how hard this reality is to accept to be honest. One of them would have to leave anyway whether or not she agrees to marry him off. They also don't know that when they do this, they aren't only making life miserable for the wife but also for the husband. Imagine coming back home from work as a man and instead of being greeted with a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek, you get complaints of how your mom came to your house and slap your wife for no apparent reason. Most of these sons can do anything when it comes to this because first, they can't beat their own mothers, the least they can do is explain things to them and make them see things from their point of view. When he raises his voice at her she starts saying that his wife has done some black magic on him to make him disrespect her in such a way which only grows the aversion of the mother towards the wife. The resort most of the husbands make is to travel far away from where the mother is else, it might reach a point where the wife can't take it anymore and may try to retaliate, humans do have limits. As a man, an African man to be precise, imagine coming home to the news that your wife hit your mom when she came to fight her. Now no matter how you see that from the African perspective, the wife would always be viewed in bad light.

I am not saying in these situations that the mothers-in-law are always the transgressors. In some situations some wife hardly have any basics about being a good wife from their parents so it is only natural for the husband's mother to want to teach her how to take care of her son, besides she knows him better than anyone else. If the wife is unwilling, unyielding or lazy or of a really bad character, it's only natural for the mother-in-law to spring into action to protect her son's home.

Most of these mother-wife conflict can be avoided when we learn to understand both parties and when both parties are really committed to understanding each other. Matrimonial homes don't always have to be a source of commotion. It is her home where she Should be at peace. If she doesn't have that peace in her own home, where else would she have it.

May God bless us with understanding mother-in-law and make us good wives to our husbands. May God bless the men with a peaceful home.

Thanks for reading.

P. S: The content of this article is mostly from an African perspective, I don't know if that's the situation in other parts of the world.

Yours Layly,

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