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

Question:

We have been living together for almost four years … Everything was good until we got married. Immediately after the wedding it was good for a while until my mother-in-law appeared in my life. Every day she visited or called us at least 3 times and after our son was born she began to visit us more often, very often, the wife did not listen to me anymore, we were not able to make any decision together, because she was doing what her mother was telling her. I started to lose my value in the house. Now we do not live together for two weeks, my wife wrote the application for divorce, as my mother-in-law had advised her. I do not know what to do. I talked to my wife to go somewhere together far away from her and our parents, just us three, at least for a week, but she does not even want to hear. I talked to her mother to no longer control my life but she did not understand, telling me she helped us that way. Help me please.

The husband and his wife form 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 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 should know and understand that his/her girl or boy becomes one flesh with her husband or his wife since they god married and that he/she should not control or manipulate their marriage. Therefore, every pastor must insist at the wedding to make parents understand how it is right to refer to their children since they get married, and children should also know how to relate to their parents and not to accept control and manipulation if somehow any of their parents will insist to do so, as it is in your case.

It is sad that neither your wife understands any of these things and allows to be totally controlled. My advice is to do the following …

Pray to God and fast

Bring this problem to God and start to fast so that He may work in this difficult situation. Go and tell your parents, brothers, and other believers to fast with you and pray for divine intervention. Put your trust in God firstly, pray and fast.

Seek the help of the priest/pastor who officiated your wedding

Both your wife and your mother-in-law violate an important principle established by God. It is therefore important to go to the priest or pastor who officiated the wedding (covenant marriage) and to present the problem to him and then ask him for help and intervention. Any pastor or priest who seriously considers his responsibility that God has given him, will rush to intervene and speak with your wife and mother to make them understand the sin they have started to do, and unless they repent and stop the evil that they have started to do, they have to be disciplined by the church according to Scripture.

God help you keep your family.

Translated by Felicia Rotaru