Every Day Feels Like a Mistake Since I Moved in with My Husband’s Family

He was my dream husband, until I moved into his parents’ house

When I brought him to meet my father, I was scared of what would happen. My father rarely likes the men I bring home, not even my male friends. So when I introduced them and my father actually took a liking to him, I knew he had to be the one. The man for me.

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When I met my husband, he was everything I ever wanted. Fine, smart. We could not keep our hands off each other, which led to our first pregnancy, even before we got married. But we knew we were going to marry anyway, so we kept it. I had my first child before the wedding.

We moved to his parents’ house during the later stage of my pregnancy because my parents had to travel far to my hometown for my grandmother’s funeral. I couldn’t go. I was heavily pregnant, always tired, sweaty, and uncomfortable. That first pregnancy journey was difficult for me, but it seemed worth it at the beginning. The joy, after all, comes when you finally see the baby. The initial plan was for a natural birth, but in the end they had to perform an emergency C-section. The complications from that birth were so severe that I couldn’t return to my job. My position was taken by someone else. Since then, I have been managing my sister’s shop for her.

We got married, and we had another child.

Now, years later, we are still in his parents’ house. My husband refused to move out after the marriage, saying he is saving to build a house. We have two kids together. The elder one is in school, but my husband doesn’t pay his fees, or for food, or for the little things required at school. It’s all on me, including feeding them at home, and I am slowly collapsing my sister’s shop trying to keep up.

Living in his parents’ house was not what I bargained for. When we moved in during that first pregnancy, it was supposed to be temporary. That was our unspoken agreement. I thought men loved their privacy, a place where they could enjoy their wives, come home to their own family.

There is always someone watching me. When I cook for the family, someone says, “Hmm, the salt is too much.” When I train my children, I hear, “That is not the way to bathe a toddler. You’re doing too much.” How I do everything is questioned. “Why did you leave the broom there?” There are always people in my face.

If you are a private person, maybe you will see things from my point of view. It is an awful feeling, knowing there is a shadow hovering over you.

He is capable, but he is reluctant. Maybe I didn’t see it before, but deep down he might have always been a mama’s boy.

But here is what I know. My husband owns a car that he could use for work, but he has given it out. When he gets money from sales, that is when he uses it to fund his partying lifestyle. He uses it to go out. But when I complain or try to take action, my mother-in-law will have my head. She says I am weak. She calls me a witch, a bringer of bad luck who just brought problems after childbirth.

And ever since I lost my Dad, they have made it a point to make things hard for me. Things have only gotten worse.

What Will Make You Leave Me After Forty Years Of Marriage?

I can’t go to my mom’s because my elder brother has been sick since last year, and his wife came and left him with my mom, saying she is tired. There is no room for me there.

—Mansah

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