Sisters-in-law from hell? Here’s how to handle them

Just like  the late Margaret Ogolla, an author, once said, “A home without daughters is like a river without a source.” As much as we would all love to have sources of rivers in our homes, they could sometimes be the reason the river dries. As women, we are sometimes the reason our families break and we work hard to squeeze happiness out of others as though we are getting paid for it. Do women still fight their sisters-in-law? In this age and time, I believe if you are still working hard to prove to your brother that he has got the wrong woman, you need to take a chill pill and an overdose, for that matter, so that by the time you wake up, your brother will be looking forward to having grandchildren with the woman of his choice. Yes, that same woman you are trying hard to push away!

A while back, my friend Christine called me yelling that her sister-in-law was tearing her marriage apart. This sister-in-law who has since sought refuge in Christine’s house is imagining that since she came from the same womb with Christine’s husband, she has all the authority to decide what happens in ‘her brother’s house’ as she puts it. From deciding what is being served for any meal and what clothes the brother puts on. Seriously, if you are woman enough more than your brother’s wife, why are you not married yourself yet you are of marriageable age? What are you doing in another woman’s house if you can manage one better? Madam, get yourself a man and direct all that negative energy to him.

It is even worse if a whole ‘gang’ of sisters decide to make you their business. They will even want to control the number and sex of the children you are supposed to have with their brother. Gone are the days when a woman got married to a whole community. We no longer have to please every Tom, Dick and Harry in your village to have a happy marriage. As long as our husbands are happy with us, nothing else matters.

The same sisters-in-law who make your life difficult are the same ones who run from their matrimonial homes blaming it on pressure from their in-laws. Like the Bible says, do to others what you would like them to do unto you. If you cannot stand pressure from your in-laws, what makes you think your brother’s wife can stand pressure from you? Charity begins at home and if you cannot put your own house together, stop trying to put someone else’s together. Clearly, you are a loser in that field. That’s why you are still lazing around either in your parents’ or your brother’s house calling shots like someone directing a horror movie!

Woe unto you if your husband listens to his sisters more than you. Men, get this from me and get it clearly because I am not planning to repeat it any time soon. There comes a time in life when your wife takes the first slot, yes, ahead of your sisters. If you cannot stand this thought, then you can as well go marry your sisters and stop making a little hell-on-earth for somebody else’s daughter. Marriages have been broken, lives lost, children rendered orphans just because of sisters-in-law from hell. They are like a terminal disease, which eats into our marriages with no mercy.

Some women have given up and left their homes in the name of sisters-in-law from hell. My advice to them, go and reclaim your marriage! Those sisters-in-law who think they know your man better than you cannot give him what you give him. For those who are undergoing this terrible kind of bullying from their sisters-in-law, stand your ground, don’t let any woman, in the name of a sister, teach you how to treat your man. For those men who listen to their sisters more than their wives, shame on you! If you think your sister knows you better and can cook and dress you better, then you should not have thought of approaching another woman.

Thumbs up to all the women out there who give total support to their brothers regardless of who they chose to marry. As for me and my sisters, we will support whoever my brother brings home because that will be his choice! He has feelings, if the woman is bad, he will feel it on his own. Better a clean seasonal river without a source than a polluted river with several sources.