When you correct your spouse too much

The marriage between Mr. Benjamin Peters and Mrs. Rita Peters (not real names) is not what you may refer to as a happy one. A first time visitor will know that the marriage is not healthy. In fact, it is very, very sick. Imagine entering their home, ringing the doorbell and both of them come out to open the door to welcome you. And as you are about to take your seat, you hear the man barking at the wife: “who put that tumbler on top of that book shelf? I have already told you since we got married that I like my home being tidied.” The woman then replies, “I am not the one who put it there” and the man changes to a higher barking channel, “but didn’t you see it? Or don’t you have eyes? If I as a man can see it now, why can’t you as a woman see it before now?”

This is the scenario in a home, where one of the spouses is “Mr. corrector” or “Mrs. corrector.” In this case, the man is “Mr. corrector” while the woman is “Mrs. correctee.” Now, how would you feel, if you were in that kind of marriage? Certainly you wouldn’t call that a happy marriage. It is not as if what Mr. Benjamin Peters did that day was a one-off. That is how he behaves. He corrects his wife constantly both publicly and in the privacy of their home.

One day, Rita almost cried her eyes out, when their five-year-old son said, “Mummy, why is daddy always shouting at you? Why is daddy always quarreling with you?” On many occasions, Rita had pleaded with her husband that he should stop correcting her in public and in the presence of their children, but her husband wouldn’t agree. Rather, he would say that errors should be corrected immediately they are made. With this kind of belief system possessed by her husband, Rita found it difficult to make her husband change his ways. Her husband keeps blaming her that it is her behaviour that makes him to keep correcting her and that if she changes her behaviour, he will stop correcting her.

But come to think of it, who has a problem among the two of them? Is it the man or the woman? As for me, it is the man who has a problem and it is a very big problem. He lacks patience and self-control. He lacks maturity and the knowledge of how females are wired. That is why he thinks that he will get the best out of his wife through constant corrections. Among other things, he also does not have respect for his wife. When a man has respect for his wife, he will not treat her this way. And when a woman has respect for her husband, she will not treat and live with him the way Jezebel treated and lived with Ahab. Imagine a wife telling her husband, “You no dey see? Abi you dey craze?”

I have discovered that many people who correct their spouses so much have inferiority complex. Their own way of dealing with their inferiority complex is by proving to their spouses or their subordinates at work that they know better than them. What I mean here is that, they may unknowingly be fighting their inferiority complex by putting on a superiority complex. People like Benjamin Peters can change their ways and stop inflicting pains on others, if they apply the golden rule that says, “THEREFORE, WHATEVER YOU WANT MEN TO DO TO YOU, DO ALSO TO THEM…” Love you.

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