I’ve been married for six years with two kids. My husband and I have very demanding jobs, but as is expected I have to add home duties to my workload. I have found smart ways of balancing the stress by making sure that I cook for the week during weekends. On weekdays, I may cook rice, yam or others for evening meals, but all my stews are cooked during the previous weekend. We live in our own house, and to be honest, I don’t sweep every morning. I am usually so tired in the mornings because I have to get the kids ready for their father to drop them off before I also get ready to go to work. I try to sweep the compound two to three times a week. We don’t have trees on the compound and the compound is cemented so it doesn’t look messy even if I haven’t swept in a few days.
Two years ago, we lost my father-in-law. He had been ill for a while and he went peacefully in his sleep one midnight. My mother-in-law was the only one left in their house and she started complaining bitterly that all her children have abondoned her. She gave birth to five children. Two have already passed, the other two are also not in the country. My husband is the only one here. Since my husband didn’t want his mother to be alone in their house, he suggested that one of their cousin’s children should come and stay with the old woman. The old woman refused to accept it, but my husband ignored her and got the girl to come and stay with her like a caretaker. My husband was sending them money every week. But barely three months later, the girl packed her things and left. She called my husband, crying on the phone that his mother is impossible to live with and she cannot live with her anymore. We thought the 17-year-old girl was just disrespectful until my mother-in-law came to live with us.
It looked like there was no other option so she joined us and we rented her house to someone. The woman is extremely difficult to live with. Barely a week after she joined us, I woke up to hear someone sweeping the compound and singing loudly around 4:00 am. I am always the first to wake up and I wake up at 5:30. I went over and told her the compound is already clean. I had swept the day before. She told me as a woman, I should be up by 4:00 sweeping the compound every morning whether I had swept the previous day or not. I had to beg her and take the broom from her and force myself to sweep before she went back to her room. I came back from work on the same day and she had literally rearranged my kitchen. She had changed where I place my utensils and spices. I asked her and she said that is how it should be done.
When my husband got home, I told him about this. He tried talking to his mother, but nothing came out of it. The woman is an order freak. She can’t stand a little mess in the house. I really wish I can show you guys pictures of our room. It is not messy, I am not a messy person. But I have kids who are 5 and 3 years. The room is bound to be in a little mess. I fix it the best I can, but I am not a housewife, I work too. This woman is always complaining about how I am not doing well to keep the house in order. She will wake up around the same 4:00 am and be washing napkins in the kitchen sink and singing to draw my attention. I respect her a lot because she is my husband’s mother, but I am already stressed and overwhelmed all the time and the few hours of sleep I have left is cut short by her singing at dawn.
I can be having conversations with my husband in the hall and she will come and speak directly to him, telling him our clothes are too dirty and he should tell his wife to go and wash them. We have a small laundry room and she went to inspect it. I do everyone’s laundry on Saturdays. Now she wants me to add Wednesdays to it. The last time, she said washing machine does not wash clothes as well as a woman’s hands so I should stop using machine and wash clothes like a real woman. There are so many things she has done and the last time, some of her words got to me that I started crying without even realising it. How can you tell me my husband had a lot of options, but you don’t know why he chose me? She also said during our dating time, she should have allowed me to stay with her for a while because she didn’t know I was this untidy.
My husband has told me this is temporary. But It has already been over a year and she is still with us. She was so nice to me when my husband and I were dating. She was even very nice during the first few years of our marriage, but the moment she came to stay with us, she has become someone else. God knows I am trying hard to balance my work and taking care of home. My salary is slightly higher than my husband’s salary and without my job, our finances will be greatly affected, so it’s not as if I can leave my job and become a full housewife to please my mother-in-law. Nothing even pleases her. I’m just tired of her.