Man over board:Mother or wife?

He is on a cruise with wife or girlfriend and his mother. Suddenly the boat begins to sink. So here he is faced with an instant, life and death decision: which one to save.

Wife or mother?

“I feel my mother’s love is sweeter than any love and cannot be replaced,” says Terrence Ferguson, 38, representing the view of more than half the people to whom All Woman posed this potential dilemma. “If I had to save a life I would save my mom. I cant get a next mother but I can get a next girlfriend.”

Ferguson has been with his present girlfriend for about 15 years.

Mike, a sound system operator in his mid 40s, agrees.

“You can replace the wife,” says Mike, who has been married for nine years. “But you can’t replace the mother. So if I could not save both I would save my mother.”

Mike believes that his wife would do the same thing.

“I think that she would save her mother too, if the roles were reversed,” he adds.

Indeed, says this 29-year-old journalist, who, like most persons, asked that her name not be used. Peter, her boyfriend of four years, would just have to chance his luck in the drink. If he couldn’t make it on his own steam then he’d just have to drown.

“If I had to choose between him and my mother I would choose my mother,” our female journalist says. “There is a special bond between us and no one can come between us. She carried me into this world.”

She says of her boyfriend: “Peter is a real mama’s boy. She used to do everything for him before she died. So if she was still alive maybe he would have chosen her.”

Both, this reporter says, understand either’s closeness to their mothers. So when Peter’s mother was alive it didn’t cause a problem in their relationship.

“Because he was very close to his mother he has no problems with my closeness with my mom,” she says.

Does choosing one’s mother over wife or husband mean that the mother’s views also take precedence in the relationship?

For some couples it can be. Like this couple, in whose three-year marriage the mother-in-law thing sometimes intrudes. To the chagrin of the wife.

“In any Christian marriage the spouse’s view should be above any family member,” she tells All Woman. “So it is not me, mommy, daddy and husband.”

“There have been times though,” she laments, “when I felt that my mother-in-law’s views were taking precedence over mine. But we (my husband and I ) were able to discuss it and move forward.”

According to our interviewee, the competition between herself and her mother-in-law was particularly strong during the early days of the marriage. “I think it is an initial thing where mothers are not used to being second place in their sons’ lives,” she says. “They were first for so long that they can’t get used to another woman being there as competition.”

For the husband, who, also, wanted his name withheld, his difficulty, initially, was not being able to share with his mother as he used to.

“I am a very open person and before I got married I used to tell my mother everything,” he explains. “But my wife was not comfortable with that… and I

respect her position.”

In the case of sinking vessel his mother is the one that would have to grapple for the life vest while he swims with his wife — but not because she is his primary love. Mother remains his first love, but practical and spiritual reasons would cause him to save his wife.

“She (mother) is my first love because she was there long before my wife,” says this husband. “But if the boat was sinking I would save my wife because in the Bible — Ephesians 5: 31 — it says that a man must leave his mother and father and join with his wife and they shall be one flesh.”

In any argument between his wife and his mother, our husband says, he would support his wife for the simple reason that she is the one he lives with.

“My mother lives far away so I don’t spend that much time with her,” he says. “But I have to see my wife everyday so in the case of a fuss I would side with her.”

But putting one’s mother above one’s husband or wife is a sign of emotional immaturity, argues gender expert, Hilary Nicholson.

“It means that those men have never weaned themselves of their mothers and became adults…” she says. “The same goes for the women who put their mom first.”

Nicholson, who has been working in gender relations for over 20 years, says that a mature couple should be independent, with out such great reliance on their mothers for social, physical or emotional needs. Trust and equality in the relationship are also important.

“A completely mature adult can stand on their own two feet — maturity is a totally sharing relationship between the partners,” she says. “They don’t rely on the mother figure to get through with their food and emotional caring.”

Adds Nicholson: “Many men still go by mom to eat, have clothes washed and so on even though they are married or in a relationship. They find it difficult to wean themselves from mom.”

That view struck a favourable cord with our journalist, whose boyfriend, Peter, used to have such a close relationship with his late mother.

She recalls disagreements with Peter’s mother about how to take care of him.

Says the reporter: “At one point she used to dictate things to me like how to iron his clothes, cook for him and so on. She used to do everything for him.

“I did not believe in that and the more that she dictated is the more I rebelled and refused to do it. Eventually, she stopped and I started doing it. I did not disrespect her but I told her to stop nagging me. He did not pay us any mind. But she brought him up unable to do anything for himself.”

Another problem highlighted by Nicholson was inequality in the way the partners view each other. Too often, she says, the men saw the women as being unequal.

“Men see women as expendable and replaceable especially their partners,” says Nicholson, who works with the women’s right group, Women’s Media Watch. “I have done many workshops and much research and from a Women’s Media Watch perspective in society there are a lot of images of one man with so many women.”

She goes on: “So you have a Shabba singing about ÔA trailer load of girls’ and a Beenie Man singing about ÔMan fi have nuff gal’. The girlfriend or wife is not valued for herself and being special.”

Terrence’s girlfriend agrees with Nicholson. One’s spouse should always come first, she believes. But she knows that the man with whom she has been for 15 years would likely choose his mother first in a difficult situation.

Says this lady: “I think the wife or girlfriend should take priority. But I know that my spouse would say his mother even though it is not something that we have ever discussed. They will say that you can get another wife but you cannot get another mother. They think that we can be replaced.”

Notwithstanding Terrence’s position in that sinking boat situation, Terrence can be assured that he is the one who his girlfriend would choose rather than her mother.

Nicholson makes the point that mistrust between the sexes is another major reason why the mothers tend to be given priority over wives or girlfriends or husbands or boyfriends.

“One of the major things coming out of our workshops between the sexes is that they don’t trust each other,” she explains. “From they are small both girls and boys are taught to mistrust each other whereas they can freely love their mother. Their mother wont betray them or let them down.”

Some men find it hard to wean themselves from their mother, says gender expert.

But putting one’s mother above one’s husband or wife is a sign of emotional immaturity, argues gender expert Hilary Nicholson.

“It means that those men have never weaned themselves of their mothers and became adults…” she says. “The same goes for the women who put their mom first.”