Don’t want to live with my future mother-in-law

Dear Pastor,

I have enjoyed reading your column. You have taught me many things. I am a 23-year-old woman.

I am having a relationship with a 24-year-old man. We love each other and we are planning to get married. We are having some problems and we decided that we should write to you. I have two brothers and one sister, but my boyfriend is an only child. His father left his mother when he was 12 years old. You can say that from that time, his father was never in his life. His mother was a helper, but she was able to send him to school. He went to a popular high school in the Corporate Area. He graduated and went on to university. In the meantime, his aunts and uncles helped his mother to purchase a two-bedroom house through the National Housing Trust. My boyfriend and his mother live there.

We want to get married, but he does not want to move out of his mother's house. I told him I do not want to live with my mother-in-law although she has accepted me as his girlfriend and I love her. Both of us are Christians and I have quoted the Bible to my boyfriend, telling him that a man shall leave from his father and mother and cleave to his wife. He said he cannot leave his mother, because he wouldn't want to know that because he left the house, something went wrong with her. He could not live with himself.

This woman is strong. She is not ill. She does everything for him. She has spoilt him. One day I told him that God may take away his mother from him and he was very upset. He did not speak to me for days, so I had to apologise to him. He has a good job, and so do I. Both of us are university graduates. I am not in debt. Although I am still living at home, I am hoping that soon after we are married, we could rent a place together, but this man says he wants to make an addition to his mother's house and we can live there together because the house would be willed to him, so why should we pay rent if we can avoid doing so?

He got a friend to draw up a plan for the addition to the house. We will have our own bathroom, a very large bedroom and another room, so that we can accommodate a child. I do not want to fight my boyfriend over his plans, but I have not made up my mind whether I should live at his mother's house. I like the idea of being separate and apart from in-laws. What do you have to say on this matter?

M.L.

Dear M.L.,

You say that this man is still living at his mother's house and they get along very well. She does everything for him.

I have taken notice that you mentioned that she has accepted you as her daughter-in-law. This young man has proposed to you and you have told him that after you have got married, he should leave his mother's house. He has advised you that he will not leave, and there is enough property for him to add on to his mother's house.

I suggest that you cooperate with this man. If after you have got married and moved into his mother's home, and you can't get along with her, you can move out. But right now, don't make that an issue at all. Marry the man and do your best to cooperate with him.

Pastor