When a woman needs extra love

I remember visiting someone when I was in my mid-twenties. We used to be friends when we were younger. But we started growing apart, when I realised that his ways of life might contaminate my Christian beliefs, and when he also realised that I could no longer operate on the same social platform with him. On getting there, I saw his wife heavily pregnant. I said something like, “Ah madam, I no know say you get belle o”. Her reply was something like, “I don nearly born. But your friend say, I too dey complain. He say I too lazy. He say I suppose to dey strong like him mama when him mama get belle.” Her husband then replied, “Na Jesus she wan born?” They were not quarreling at all. 

It took me many years later to realise that hers was the case of a pregnant woman who needed words of comfort, care, concern and love from her husband, but felt disappointed and sad that she was not going to get it. She probably wanted me to talk to her husband to be soft on her and to love her more. But I thought she and her husband were entertaining me with those words. How unwise I was to think that a pregnant woman who was crying for emotional support and love from her husband was just entertaining me with words!

This incidence made me vow to tell men to be more loving and be at their kindest, when their wives are pregnant, nursing a baby, lose a pregnancy or a baby or a loved one, having pre-menstrual, menstrual or post-menstrual tension, unusually cranky or she just wants to be loved as any normal lady.
 
The labour of carrying a pregnancy through delivery and baby care is too much for any normal woman to bear alone. During such periods and the periods described above, a woman needs what a gospel musician, Mercy Chinwo, called “Excess love” from her husband. Never you quarrel or argue or say hard words to a woman during such periods.

Another period in a woman’s life, when a husband needs to deliberately release and pour excess love on her is while she has prepared a meal or done some house chore. 

I wrote in this column long ago of how my departed parents-in-law, Bishop Michael and Reverend Mrs. Rachel Marioghae ate dinner with a pastor and his wife, where they were invited to minister. As they ate, Bishop Marioghae told the pastor’s wife that her meal was very delicious. She did not answer. After some seconds of complete silence, she started crying.

My father-in-law used their native Isoko language to ask his wife Rachel whether he said something offensive to the woman and of course, the answer was no. As the woman kept crying, my father-in-law had to apologise in case she misunderstood his words of commendation. The wailing woman then said that she was crying because since she got married many years ago, her husband had never commended or thanked her for her cooking. 

This made me learn that when I got married never to eat any meal cooked by my wife, my daughters, my caterers or my hosts and hostesses without looking for something good about the meal to commend and thank them for. But Bishop, “What if the meal is totally bad?” I would say something like this, “Thank you for all the labour and time put in to prepare this meal.” No correction? Look for a better time for a self-esteem building way of making your wife or daughter sees how they can cook better. Handle the labour of your loved ones with love. Love you!