Husband Upset His Wife Refuses To Stay Home & 'Pretend' To Be A Housewife To Please His 'Traditional' Parents
He wanted her to be someone she's not in the company of his parents otherwise they wouldn't approve of their marriage.
fizkes | Shutterstock A woman admitted that her marriage was on the rocks after refusing to participate in her husband's lies while visiting his parents.
Posting to Reddit, she claimed that her husband's parents are incredibly conservative and traditional, which infringes on their marriage from time to time.
She refused to 'pretend' to be a housewife just to please her husband's 'traditional' parents.
In her Reddit post, the 24-year-old woman explained that her husband and his entire family are all from Nigeria, and most of his family are very strict and traditional compared to her and her family. Despite his family's beliefs, she and her husband don't have a traditional marriage at all, which they're both more than fine with.
"I have a much bigger salary than my husband, this allows us to live a wealthy lifestyle that we could not afford with just his job. I also don't really enjoy cooking or cleaning, he does most of it happily," she wrote. "We also don't want children even though his family is pressing us about when I will be pregnant."
Before she married her husband, he had her promise that she'd pretend to be a housewife whenever they were around his parents so that he'd receive their blessing to marry her.
Since she wasn't Nigerian, she admitted to being a bit fearful that his parents wouldn't approve of her, so she told them what they wanted to hear, which was that she was going to marry their son and take care of him, cook for him, and nurture his children.
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Keeping her promise was relatively easy since they only saw his parents two to three times a year. His parents have no idea that she has a job, much less that she makes more than their son, and think that their lifestyle is because her husband works and provides for them. However, they recently scheduled a 5-day visit with his parents where they would be staying at their house.
She took off work as usual and practiced cooking Nigerian dishes to portray the picture-perfect housewife. But, just a couple of days before their visit, her mother-in-law called to say that she was ill. It was nothing serious, just the common cold, but she told them that they shouldn't come and visit because she didn't want to get anyone sick, so they had to reschedule the visit for another two weeks.
She had to cancel the visit with her husband's parents because of a work conference.
"I was chosen to attend a leadership conference by my work and this was a huge deal to me. I would be gone for two days. I cannot express how big this was to me, and my husband was very happy for me," she continued.
She knew about the work conference for months and had no desire to miss it. When she told her husband that he would need to reschedule with his parents, he argued that his parents wouldn't accept it and she would just have to miss the conference altogether.
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Expecting his wife to pretend to be a housewife just to appease his parents and to miss out on work opportunities that she's been excited about isn't fair to her at all.
The whole "promise" that she made to him before they were married was one thing, but he should be able to defend his wife's choice to work and the fact that their marriage isn't following the traditional path that his parents would prefer.
His wife shouldn't have to be subjected to pretending, and as a grown man, he should be able to defend and stand up for her in the presence of his parents.
The fact is, his compulsion to lie to his parents has everything to do with his own insecurities and nothing to do with his wife and her promises. It seems like the crux of the issue isn't even that she works, more so that she is the breadwinner.
Despite her husband's wishes, she attended the conference and arrived at his parents' house afterward, lying that she had to take care of her "sick mom" as an excuse. When she and her husband returned home, he claimed he was "extremely upset" she'd broken their promise.
To make matters worse, she overheard him on the phone with his brother, confessing that he shouldn't have married her in the first place and was considering a divorce.
At the end of the day, if her husband secretly wants to be married to someone that his parents will approve of, then he has every right to do that. A successful and loving marriage shouldn't depend on the input of in-laws, especially if it means someone in the marriage has to change who they are to fit in.
Hopefully, if a divorce truly is on the horizon, she will find someone who will appreciate her without asking her to lie.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.