Living With Husband Who Bears Malice

TODAY’S write up is a continuation of my article in this column three weeks ago titled: LIVING WITH A WIFE WHO BEARS MALICE. I could not follow it up the next Sunday, due to avoidable reasons, and I found myself supplying this column with two other articles. Sorry about that. But before talking about today’s article, it would be proper to refer numerous readers of this column to two real life stories as narrated three Sundays ago.

“Many years ago… Carol and I paid a visit to a couple. We were to inform them of important good news.

We delivered the good news to them in their different bedrooms. Why? They had been bearing malice for about seven years. They were living in the same house for about seven years without talking to each other.

I had thought that was a world record, but was shocked when a young man called on me to intervene in his parents’ marital conflict. They lived in the same house avoiding each other for about twenty- one years or so. Can you imagine that?

No matter how short or long the period of bearing malice may be, the truth is that this is one activity that should never be allowed in any marriage.

I strongly suggest that one of the duties of parents and marriage- counselling units in churches, mosques and other groups should be to grow their people from the childish act of malice. My wife, Carol, and I find it easier to advise men on how to live with a malice- bearing wife than to advise a woman on how to live with a husband who bears malice. Why should the head of the family, the father of the home, the chief provider of the home, the chief security officer of the home, the chief joy and happiness generator of the home, the chief malice bearing extinguisher of the family be the one bearing malice, even for an hour? It is like the case of what the Bible says, “Woe to thee, o land, when your king is a child…” Eccl 10: 16

My first suggestion as a solution is for ladies and families to find out before marriage how emotionally crippled the man coming their way is. Is he a moderate or chronic malice bearer, the type Titus 3: 3 describes as people “living in malice”? If a lady or family knows that they cannot cope with the man who lives in malice, there is no need to get married to such a man. The point I want to make is that “prevention is better cure.”

But if a woman is already married to a man who likes bearing malice, she has to accept to play the role of being his trainer and also to see to it that the children do not inherit the dangerous virus of malice from their father. Col 3: 8 tells us that we can “put off all these; anger, wrath, MALICE…”

I would suggest to women whose husbands are bear malice to stand on the authority of this scripture and other scriptures to help their husbands “put off malice” by letting him know:

• That bearing malice is not good for his health and for long life.

• That bearing malice needs to be put away for their marriage to become happier and healthier.

• That it is not a good inheritance they should pass on to their children.

• That you love him so much you will never allow the virus of malice to kill his God- given joy and happiness.

Next Sunday, I shall write on how a malice bearer can come out of malice. Love you.