Aunty Amara, good morning ma. Thanks for always been there for us( AVL family members). God will continually strengthen and uphold you and your family members.
I'm writing concerning my mum( please this might be a bit long). I want to seek your advice on how we (her children) can help her. I am the first born in a family of six(four children and our parents). My dad have always been a source of constant headache to all of us especially my mum, and it's telling on her.
As far as I can remember, right from childhood, my mum have been the one paying our fees, buying our clothes, feeding the family and every other things. Although she hides it from us by giving the money to our dad, who will then give us (especially school fees) but we still know what's happening. That is not even the issue, he does some things like
1) He said my mum's mother and all her siblings are witches and wizard, so he stopped her from communicating with any of them
2) He always confront anyone that is her friend and tell them to stay away from his wife. She doesn't have one person to call her friend.
3) He'll always say mum is in charge of everything we need at home while he's in charge of project. The projects we've seen so far are: building house, buying cars, buying different clothes and shoes all for himself.
Whenever he collects rent, he'll find a reason to quarrel with everyone at home so we won't ask for money. And we can't go close to his cars except to wash it, not even my mum.
4) All our prayer point (during devotion) everyday is for witches to die, at times he mentions names indirectly and we must pray loud or he'll threaten to throw us out of his house. And every month, my mum must go for a 3-days deliverance program (at times with him) because some pastors have told him that all her family member's are witches, her mother being the leader. Any month she refuses to go is hell fire everyone in the house
5) He rains curses on us at any slight provocation. He calls my mum a stupid woman almost everything and that her family brought him misfortune. He's a business man oo, he's not rich but what he gets is enough to cater for us.
All these and many more made my mum hypertensive at the age of 40, and she has been on drugs since then. What annoys us is that she always support most things he says (maybe because it is always terrible whenever she does otherwise, I don't know). We don't want our mother to die, because at this rate it looks like that's his aim(cos I can't think of any other reason).
Please ma, how can we help our mother out of all these.
The best way to help your mother out is by becoming the best in all your endeavours. If you are in school, your desire will be to come out tops and empower yourself with the virtues and skills that will distinguish you from the rest.
You have to gather your siblings and encourage them not to frustrate the efforts and the sacrifices of your mum and try their best to minimise wastage and purposeless lifestyle.
When you and your siblings decide to ignore the dysfunctional attitude of your father and focus on building yourself beyond the petty things of your father, your mother will definitely long to spend some time in your own house.
When you are independent, you will have the capacity to pull her out and take good care of her. You will also provide all she needs to be happy and at peace with herself.
Because it is not in your capacity to meddle with their marital struggles and challenges, it will be difficult for me to suggest what she should do or what you should tell her but maybe you can encourage her to seek for counselling or write to me if she feels that she needs counselling.
Though I can tell that she's in an unhealthy marriage and her husband has successfully brainwashed and manipulated her into believing everything he says for the sake of peace, you are not the one to tell her what to do or make decisions for her.
All you owe her is prayers and good conduct so that her heart will be happy with her children and she can bless you all in all your endeavours.
Please don't let his attitude rub off in your life or allow his attitude to make you feel bitter against your father. Respect him and keep to your own space, someday sometimes in the future, he will definitely look back with regrets and disappointment at what he achieved in life.
what mothers do to stay in marriage, shes only enduring all this pain and abuse because of you guy,
ReplyDeleteso the only way to help her is to be great kids , always calm her whenever shes down , one day she will eat the fruit of her labor
May be wrong or right, but I stand to be corrected. Below are my observations and comments:
ReplyDelete"My dad have always been a source of constant headache to all of us especially my mum, and it's telling on her"... My advice is that he (as the first issue) better be rational in his thinking as the firstborn and stop listening to everything his mother says. Women have a way of posioning mind (intentionally or unintensionally)
"The projects we've seen so far are: building house, buying cars, buying different clothes and shoes all for himself." ... If he as the firstborn calculates the amount used in building those houses, it would be enough to pay for all their schoolfess all together times 10times. He didnt say wether her mum has a car or not but there is nothing wrong with keeping your car neat and away from kids.
"He rains curses on us at any slight provocation. He calls my mum a stupid woman almost everything and that her family brought him misfortune." "He said my mum's mother and all her siblings are witches and wizard, so he stopped her from communicating with any of them" That is so wrong of the man. He should be able to hold his temper.
"He'll always say mum is in charge of everything we need at home while he's in charge of project".... There is nothing wrong with that. Couples working together to achieve big projects and still make the home operational is a very good thing.
"What annoys us is that she always support most things he says (maybe because it is always terrible whenever she does otherwise, I don't know)." ....Couple should support themselves but using terrible means to achieving that is not good.
Generally, my advice for the young man, i dont know how old he is, is that he should make a decision to love his father, talk to him and try to understand what the issue is. Pray for him and probably add some love to their prayers. Prayer prayed with love always gets answered.
He should also promote love between his father and mother. I think that should helpe her mother with the illment.
Again he should talk to her mum to find our her pains maybe allthese things he talked about may not be the issue with her.