dishusbandmata

 A wise person once said “ First impressions last long ” and when it comes to meeting new people especially if they happen to be members of our new family or extended family by that thing called “love” ,it is important that we deliberately make sure we create good impressions. This is because according to Andrew Grant, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression”. Although not all   first impressions are necessarily true, it  is usually a herculean task to change wrong first impressions. Just this afternoon, I was chatting with a friend and she ended the conversation with “dealing with in-laws is a skill” . While almost everybody wants to be married, not everyone wants to deal with in-laws or the stereotype mother in-law. The latter seems to be the most unloved compound name word and some people have even been known to pray that they would not have one by the time they meet their spouses! Well that kind of prayer is only fair to be answered if ...

During the countdown to my wedding day, we had various levels of counselling; both solicited and unsolicited advice.  One of the most profound words I heard came from a wise Professor who told me “ Your mother-in-law is not your mother, so don’t treat her like your mother”.   I was so relieved to hear this as pretty much everyone else had said the opposite.  I am a friend to my mom, and having known her all my life - we’ve got banter! We can argue and deliberate on issues.  She gets my personality.  How long will it take my mother-in-law to get me? Will she even want to?  These were the kind of thoughts I was having as I pondered about the woman who was going to come into my life on a permanent basis in a few weeks. Marriage gives you a new family by law.  People you would probably never ‘get close to’ become ‘family’ because you ‘fell in love’ and made the deal permanent.  My husband-to-be was the only male in his family so I was really ex...

  This writer has not written to entertain us but it is her sincere prayer that by your reading this. Your marriage or someone of someone you know will become better  We all come from different families where we most likely got our values and identity.Growing up as children,my siblings and I were  brought up to respect each other's privacy, we were taught that the fact that we   are siblings was not an     automatic license to each other’s lives, neither   did   bearing the same surname   confer shareholder’s rights   in   the other person’s affairs and as we grew older and began having our own families, each one of us became more assertive. We showed our love to each other without any feeling of entitlement. We realized early all eight of us were different and there was enough room to be different without feeling judged. I did not think it was different in any other family until I got married.  My husband comes from a cl...

I didn’t understand my first encounter with sex. Yes I didn’t have an inkling what it was because I was about six years old. You heard me, six years old. My mum would leave us- my two brothers and I in the care of a male neighbor when she goes to the market. He lived in a one bedroom apartment downstairs and we lived in a flat upstairs. My mum went to the market like two or three times in a week. We would all be playing in the room, then he would bring out a coin for my brothers and ask them to go buy sweet. He would lie me on the floor, remove my pants and remove his trousers and in my young mind I didn’t know what he was doing to me. He would get up when my brothers start knocking on the door after buying and eating their sweets. I remember one day I felt this peppering sensation in my vagina and I kept scratching down there and I wanted to tell my mum but I didn’t know how to say it. I tried to say it but couldn’t know what to call my vagina to my mum or say exactly w...

  I always love to read posts from this blog because I can relate to all of the stories. They are so  'up my street'  if I can use a Newcastle slang. I can truly identify with them. It is like reading it in  '3D' as if I was there.      One of the recent posts which Gracillis wrote    “ The Enemy next door”  story  struck a special cord. The story reminds me of a teacher in evening classes back then. While  I was growing up, it was quite common for children to have additional classes after school in a  different educational setting, usually not in their original schools. This had the added advantage of bringing many brains from different backgrounds and sure saved one from being just a local champion. Like most parents who wanted the best for their children,  I was not left out as my father in particular who valued education enrolled me for evening classes. At that time in my country...