My dear Aquila, the exposure you’re giving your wife to your family is too much. With that level of exposure, they are bound to have violent clashes; so I’m not surprised.
Your Dad shouldn’t be inviting your wife for a personal meeting with him and you don’t even know what the discussion is all about and yet you’re the one he called to ask her to come. Your Dad or Mum shouldn’t be in a place to pass direct instructions regarding anything they want done to your wife. They’re not her head. You are the only head she has.
I understand that in the Yoruba culture, it is conceived that your wife is the wife of the family. And she’s under you while you’re under your parent – indirectly placing her under your parent’s authority. But that’s not the biblical pattern.
A married man is no longer under his parent’s authority. An adult man actually even if not yet married. (See Numbers 30:1-16) Your parents can only play advisory roles at this stage of your life. You’re not under their authority and so your wife is not under their authority either.
That clash between your Dad and your wife could have been avoided if you were the one he had that conversation with. You could have decided if you approve your wife to do what they’re suggesting. It’s your home – not an extension of your parent’s home. The bulk stops at your table. If you do approve, you’ll communicate it to her as your personal persuasion and not an instruction from father in law. If you don’t approve, you were in a better position to tell your Dad straightaway that that wasn’t going to happen in your own home.
A situation whereby they could sit your wife down in a family meeting in your parent’s home and be scolding her for one thing or the other is completely wrong if you want to build a biblical marriage. You’ve allowed her to be disrespected. All your younger siblings are in the know of all the scoldings of your wife. It’s sometimes in their presence. How will they respect her? As the local proverb goes, wherever you sell yourself cheap, you can’t buy yourself back expensive.
You’re the only one that’s in a place to scold your wife for anything. Don’t turn her into a family project. If your Dad or Mum have any complaint or correction to pass across, they should pass it through you. That’s the proper line of biblical authority.
1 Corinthians 11:3 KJV
[3] But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
I can’t find father and mother-in-law in this organogram.
Don’t allow anyone to be violating your God-given headship and be bypassing you to access your wife. Stay in your place. Be the covering you’re supposed to be. Don’t make her appear headless. Don’t expose her unduly.
I must also tell you that your parents or hers are not supposed to be the ones settling quarrels for you. It’s always a destructive approach because they’re emotionally invested. Find an independent couple that’s not related to you by blood that you’ll both submit to who you can both trust and respect – let that couple be your Court of Appeal when necessary.
Your parents are not supposed to know anything about the dirty linen of your marriage. They can’t know it and still be able to relate with you normally. It’s normal for them to get emotional. It’s normal for them to take sides. Even if they’re objective., the person who their objectivity doesn’t favour can easily accuse them of bias.
Long after the two of you have settled the quarrel you reported and have moved on, your parents and family members that got to know about it will not forget or move on. They’ll continue to look at your spouse with that eyes. With time, you would have wounded the relationship between your spouse and your parents or siblings. With time, the relationship between the two parents will also be injured as everyone seeks to defend their own.
Please keep all of them out of your issues henceforth. Retrieve your marriage from their tables.
This is why every marriage needs a discipler – a couple ahead of you that you’ll submit to and who can help you attend to matters. People that are not emotionally invested and who can’t be rightly accused of bias. Who have no connection with anyone connected with you to expose your matter to.
If you follow this counsel, you can begin to gradually repair the crack in your marriage occasioned by the undue exposure of your wife to your family. With time, you both can get your peace back and regain the honour you’ve lost.
Your bother,
PEA.
#resettingtheodds
#makingyourmarriageacenterofrevival
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