When you are married to a mummy’s boy

A mother having a soft spot for a male child is not uncommon. It can be due to many reasons.

There is the case of a mother who kept seeing her 32-year-old son as a little boy. He happened to be her first born. When he was to get married at about 32 to a lady of about 28 years, she could not imagine how a 28-year-old “small girl” could adequately take care of a 32-year-old “small boy.” The young man would tell his mother: “Mummy, I’m not a small boy. I can run my home.”

But her son, who equally loved his mother so much, was very wise and jovially firm. By jovially firm, I mean jovial but firm. He used jokes, funny illustrations and other means that prevented his mother from being the supreme commander of his wife and marriage.

After murmuring and fretting here and there, his mother had no option but to accept the marital boundaries jovially erected by her son. I recommend his style. But not every man is like this.

Another mother, who loved her son so much, always made sure that her son ate her meals, instead of the meals cooked by his wife. I’m talking here about a marriage that has been in existence for about ten years with children. The man’s mother was the commander-in-chief of her son’s home. Can you imagine a situation where a wife has drawn the food timetable for the week, only for her mother-in-law to come and make her own?

Some wives have reacted by quarrelling with their husbands and mothers-in-law. As marriage and family counsellors, my wife and I have seen that confronting a husband, who is babyishly in love with his mother and confronting a mother-in-law, who insists on still breastfeeding her thirty something year old son is like questioning two mad people and wanting to know from them why they are mad. So, what should a wife do in such a situation?

Before going into marriage, if the woman notices that the umbilical cord between the man she wants to get married to and his mother has not been cut, such a wife should decide to love her possessive mother-in-law the way her son loves her. She has to first of all convince her husband that she loves his mother.

Once your husband is convinced that you deeply love his mother, he will begin to love you more. It works this way: “If you love my mother whom I love so much, then you have won my heart. I will then love you more.” For a wife to be married to a man who is in his mother’s handbag is not a pleasant experience at all. But such a situation should not be allowed to grow from bad to worse. Such a wife has to meet an experienced pastor or marriage counsellor on how to navigate her way through. But the point I have tried to make here is that, the wife should first of all grow to unconditionally love her mother-in-law. She should also, through her actions and words, apply Philippians 4:8 by talking to her husband about her mother-in-law on only “Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report.” It will be easier for the wife and marriage and family counsellors to convince such a husband to change his ways and be a man, when he is convinced that his wife loves his mother. I pray that your children will not find themselves in such awkward situations. Amen. Love you.