What to do when your mother-in-law controls and manipulates your wife and marriage?

Question:

We have been together for almost four years… Everything was going well until the wedding, after the wedding it was good for a while and then my mother-in-law appeared in my life. There wasn’t a day when she didn’t visit or call us at least 3 times. After our little boy was born, she started visiting us more often, and my wife no longer listened to me. We were not able to make a decision together, because what my mother-in-law told her, she did. I started to lose value in my house. We haven’t lived together for almost 2 weeks now, my wife filed for divorce, also on my mother-in-law’s advice. I do not know what to do. I talked to my wife to go somewhere together without her parents and mine, to be only the three of us for at least a week, but she doesn’t even want to hear of it. I talked to her mother about not sticking her nose into my life, but she doesn’t understand either, claiming that she is helping us. Help me please.

Husband and wife are one body

It is very sad what is happening to you, and that your mother-in-law does not know her place and role and does not respect her daughter’s marriage. In the book of Genesis God said:

 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24 NASB)

 Every parent must know and understand that his daughter or son from the moment of marriage becomes one body with their husband or wife, and in no case must she break into their marriage to control or manipulate it. That is why any pastor at a wedding must insist that parents understand how it is right to relate from now on to their married children, but also that children know how to relate to their parents and not accept control and manipulation if somehow one of their parents will insist on doing this, as in your case.

It is sad that your wife does not understand any of these things and leaves herself completely controlled. My advice is to do the following…

 Pray to God and fast

Bring this issue before God and start fasting for Him to work in this difficult situation that has arisen. Go and tell your parents, brothers, and other believers to fast with you and pray for divine intervention. Put your trust in God first, pray and fast.

 Call on the help of the priest / pastor who officiated your marriage

 Both your wife and mother-in-law are violating an important principle established by God. Therefore, it is important to go to the priest or pastor who officiated your wedding (marriage vow) and present the problem to him and then ask for his help and intervention. Any pastor or priest who takes his responsibility to God seriously will hasten to intervene and speak with your wife and mother-in-law to make them understand the sin they are about to commit, and if they will not repent and not stop from the evil they are set to do, church discipline will have to be applied to them according to Scripture.

 May God help you keep your family safe!

Translated by Nicoleta Vicliuc