I drew up this case study for a womens meet up in my parish... Ponder on it and let me have your responses please.
I pray
that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the
hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the
saints. Ephesians 1:18
Gbade, a
high flying bank executive married to his childhood sweetheart Arita. Their
home was filled with love and joy and within a year of marriage, they were
blessed with a son, and not too long after that, a daughter. Aritas children
were her life and she found so much joy in them. Gbade didn’t like her
receiving guests at home or going out to visit friends as he believed they
would have a negative influence on her. She was allowed to see her mum once in
awhile and that was it. She didn’t want to rock the boat of her marriage so she
accepted life like that and made the best of her children and husband. The
pregnancys had taken its toll on her beautiful shape and had become quiet
laidback with her looks considering she really had nowhere to go to. It was
becoming difficult to differentiate between her and the paid helps. She really
couldn’t be bothered.
Gbade
complained severally about her dressing and looks, but Arita always told him
she had heard but did nothing about it. When he persisted, it turned into ugly
fights and he finally gave up complaining.
Suddenly,
Gbades attitude towards her changed, he spends most of his time, when home,
nitpicking about her housekeeping, attacking her with cruel words that eat away
at the confident woman she used to be. She tries to be understanding and discuss
the problems he has at work, but his recent escalation of anger scares her. The fights got worse, and the conversation’s
became few, it was only about the children, housekeeping, and meals. Before she
knew it, it was almost a year and there had been no intimate touch between
them, not to mention sex.
Gbade now
kept late nights, and was always away from the house. He only came home to
sleep and change his clothes and he was out again. He always had one business
meeting or the other. His cloths came back reeking of female perfumes,
sometimes, she saw lipstick and powder stains on his clothes. His phone rang in
the middle of the night and it was always a female voice at the other end, she
realised he must be cheating and she confronted him. This only led into a
fight.
She was
scared, had lost her self-confidence, didn’t think much of herself and was
heartbroken. She had no one to turn to. Where was God in all this?, why was
this happening to her?, Life had been un-fair to her she thought.
On one of
her trips to the club with her children, the only place she was allowed to go
to besides the market, she met Tamuno. He was attentive, helpful and always
listened to her. They became good friends and she confided her problems with
him, he advised her and she tried her best to use the advise in her home, but
nothing worked.
She was
at least happy with her friendship and always looked forward to going to the
club so she could meet with Tamuno. He invited her for a movie with the
children the following Saturday and she was over the moon with excitement. In
her excitement, she pondered, am I doing the right thing?
As luck
would have it, Gbade woke up that morning and rushed out saying he had a
meeting, as usual, she quickly chipped in she had to see her mom with the children,
she had called to tell her she was not feeling well. He told her to go ahead
and she felt elated. She hurriedly got ready, and left for the Cinema with the
children, they bought their tickets and as she approached the doors of the
cinema hall walking with Tamuno and the children, Gbade and a lady walked out
with their arms wrapped around each other.
The look
of shock on both sides, and then the accusations started.
They
ended up in the office of a marriage counsellor.
1.
If you are Arita, what would you do?
2. What is
the cause of this breakdown?
3. Who is
the guilty party?
4. Where was
God in all this?
5.
Phew. This is a deep one.
ReplyDelete1) The fact that her husband didn't "allow" her to go certain places shows he was controlling
2) The fact that he was so controlling was probably the first way their love started dying.
3) The fact that she didn't address his controlling behavior and rather just gave up on herself and her appearance is the next problem
4) Her keeping quiet as she noticed his long absences is a problem
5) His absences and obvious philandering are a huge problem. He's clearly cheating on her and putting his marriage at risk
6) Her desire to go out to the club with someone else was another problem
all these problems spiraled into one another. I'd place the larger blame on the husband but they're both at fault.
Thank you for your really long comment :). We also had quite a long debate over it during the women's meeting. ;(most of the women felt the fault was with the woman-As they always say, a woman makes or breaks her home) But in my opinion, like you also said, i would put the larger blame on the man. God made him the head and he definitely didn't try in this his assignment of being the head of the home. *just me thinking*. A team consists of 2. and she didn't go clubbing o..., it was to the movies
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