What can I do to get out of this mess?

Dear Yemisi,

I have been following your column and pieces of advice for people for some time now. I believe you will not hesitate to suggest ways out of the problem I am having in my matrimony.

I am a 38-year-old born again Christian. I got married some 15 years ago to the man I felt I share the same philosophy with. But I have come to realise that I made a very big mistake in my judgement as the union has been hell on earth in the last eight years.

I have prayed and waited on God for solution endlessly, but I am not seeing the answer to my prayers. I am a civil servant while my husband was an insurance expert in the early days of our marriage. The running of the house was initially based on 50-50 contribution. The union is blessed with three beautiful children (two boys and a girl).

I have observed over time that I am nobody to my husband and his family. Though my in-laws did not hide the fact that they didn’t love me right from day one, I had felt it was an initial teething problem with newly weds and that with time, the hostility will fade away. But till date, nothing has changed. They treat me as an intruder and my husband, a mummy’s boy, is not helping matters as he is in total support of their hostility. There is nothing that I do that goes down well with them.

This hatred became too obvious to be overlooked when my husband lost his job. Since I am now the only one working and taking care of the home, I am now a subject of attack for my husband and his family. It is believed that I am responsible for his job loss and misfortune.

For six years, I have bore my destiny in my hands. I take care of the children and pay their school fees. I have often counselled my husband to think of what he can do. Instead of coming up with ideas that can change his status, he keeps asking for sex at every point in time whenever I am at home.

I always oblige him, but I am getting fed up with his insatiable thirst for sex as we keep having it unprotected. He keeps sounding it to my hearing that I must not tell him that I am pregnant, yet he has refused to use condom. Even when he was duly employed, the only commitment to the family is food allowance. He is fond of saying that he does not believe in paying the school fees of his children aside their other needs because he is of the school of thought that when children grow up, they often take care of their mothers and not their fathers.

As things are, Dear Yemisi, I don’t know what to do as I keep running from one counsellor to another. I am afraid of going back home after the day’s work as my husband is unpredictable and hostile. He suspects every move I make. I don’t know what the children and I have done to deserve such treatment.

Dear Yemisi, I am no longer happy being a helpmeet to this ungrateful man. I feel like walking away from home while taking my children along with me.

What can I do to get me out of this mess? I am counting on your counsel and those of your readers because I am being pushed to the wall by the day.

Worried Wife/Mother.

Dear Readers, the worried wife/mother is in dire need of your counsel to give her relief as she is seriously troubled. What do you think she should do in order not to take laws into her hand? I will appreciate your intervention as you send to 08055001741 or yemiaofolaju@yahoo.com.