“I am a man of 35 years old, but today,l feel like a stranger in my own house. I live in a one-room apartment with my wife.
Last year, when my wife gave birth to our first son, my mother and my younger sister moved in to help with “Omugwo” (postpartum care).
I was so happy. My mother is a widow; she sacrificed everything to send me to school, so having her around felt like a blessing.
But it has been 14 months.
They haven’t left. Every night, my wife months.
They haven’t left. Every night, my wife and I sleep on the bed with the baby, while my mother and my 22-year-old sister spread their mat on the floor right next to our bed. We are all breathing the same air in that small room.
I’m frustrated, my mind is burning like fire inside & can’t hold this to myself anymore. For one year, I have become a “celibate” man in my own marriage.
Anytime I touch my wife at night, she jumps like a snake has bitten her. She will whisper, “Are you mad? Your mother is right there! Your sister is watching!” I got frustrated and did something I now realize might be strange.
I went to meet my mother and sister to talk to them “man to man.”My mother laughed and said,
“My son, don’t mind her.
I am your mother. I have seen it all. Just do your thing, I will cover my ears.
It doesn’t bother me.”
My sister even joked about it, saying she would put on her headphones so she wouldn’t hear anything. I was relieved! I went back to my wife and told her the “good news” i explained things to her, i told her mom & my sister says they wouldn’t mind and besides they’re not kids
Instead of being happy, my wife looked at me with pure disgust.
She said, “You went to discuss our private life with your mother? Have you lost your shame?” Now, she won’t even let me hold her hand.
She has turned her back to me for 3 months straight. She says if I want “action,” | should rent a separate house for my mother. But how can I throw my widowed mother out when she has nowhere to go in this Lagos? Is it wrong for a mother to stay with her son? Why is my wife making this look like a crime? My mother says she is comfortable on the floor, so why is my wife the one complaining?
I feel like my wife is using this “shyness” as an excuse because she secretly hutes my family and wants them to suffer. Am I supposed to choose between my mother’s comfort and my wife’s
“shyness”? this is exactly how women push a man out to another woman yet start complaining!
I love my wife and i honestly don’t want to cheat on her but the way things are going i might have no choice.
