everhopeful:
@op: Your wife seems to me like good woman. I believe that during your traditional wedding, your wife was told that your mother is now her mother and your family is now her family, and it seems your wife wholeheartedly took those words literally, believed this and acted accordingly since you said she has a good relationship with your mother.

Your action just told her the reality and don't be surprised when she actually starts treating your family as different from hers because that was the message you guys clearly passed across: that your mother is not her mother and can never be.

Your home is yet young, so please do not destroy it with carelessness. Your primary interrst shouldn't be about rights or wrong but about the fact that your wife felt hurt by the exclusion, which may have been reduced if she wasn't the only spouse in law as this may otherwiise have reduced the impact of the exclusion.

If really your priority is in making your home work and not on people taking sides, I would advise that you apologise to your wife and let her know you consider her a part of your family. Tell her you naively thought it was just a picture and didn't think she would be hurt.

May God bless and keep your home.

Seriously it was never caused any serious quarrel between us. To be factual, I just felt let down she felt offended afterwards. I mean, that was not the first picture we took on the day. We had taken several others with her in it. I felt if she had just taken it as what it is as soon as she was told,then she wouldn't have felt bad about it at all. Your stance and hers just made me realise some people could attach unrelated meanings to things, thereby making the the simplest things seem complex.

iliketheSunrise:
op, I side with you. you had the right to take the photo without your wife in it because this was a photo meant to be of you, your siblings and your mom. this was a "mum with her children" photo. your wife was not supposed to be in that one photo because it's for your mother and the children she birthed, simple.

it doesn't mean op's wife isn't part of the family or that they don't care about her. I'm sure y'all took other photos and she was included. seriously, is your wife illiterate? this shouldn't even be an issue to her or to anyone. let the woman (your mother) take the photo with her children. this was her retirement party; she needed that one photo with her children and since it's have gone about your lives in different lands, it would've been nice for her to have that one photo of y'all together but your wife had to ruin it for her.

Nice one coming from a lady. Haba! Why evils? My wife no be illiterate o. Na correct university graduate sef.

bennyrazz:
@op, you were right. I don't know why some women choose to be dramatic over non-issues

Exactly the right word to describe it. Womenfolks could be dramatic at times.

sexymoma:
That's not what we are saying here ma'm, the op never said she s been maltreated.... ok let me cite an example, when ma mum was ordained, she told that photographer to take pictures of she and her children, she and her grandchildren, she and her sons in law, vice versa, if one DIL was to claim she s her daughter pls which category will she fall in... The lady is just been childish, and bliv me the op's fams will still talk about her in their mist.

No,they won't. No one even saw it as something. I didn't even think anything of it until she started giving me some face. That was when I realised she had taken offence

eezeribe:
Op, your wife is very lucky. If I were any of your siblings, I would have insisted that she shouldn't join in the picture... Not minding whose OX is gored.

And you Mr OP, it seems you don't exert your Authority over such issues

That could cause some grudges between you,don't you think?

uyiekpenm:
oga your wife is not an outsider and should be considered as a daughter too.
tomorrow if she starts to treat your mother as an in-law you will be the first to complain.

my mum in law treats me as her daughter. in fact if you are not well informed you will think she is my mother. in my house nothing like daughter in law or real daughter. every one is the same making the love to flow. stop the segregation .
You better change your ways.

I think you are just being a "woman" and African. The love between everyone in my family is rock solid. No discrimination whatsoever. Both my mum and my wife are lively cheerful people. I find this stance and the whole argument so "petty". I mean, it is just a picture for God's sake. The pettiness in the discussion was what really pissed me off. It shouldn't even had been an issue at all. I guest you womenfolks are just what you are. You can be troublesome at times

lilmax:
common sense is not common after all..... let her give you attitude, when she's tired she'll come back to her senses

Haba! I no say make you yab my wife o. I just want to know if my position on the matter is really wrong as they both think. No fighting, just some normal misunderstandings that are inevitable in marriages. You too will get there someday, if you are not married yet.

My mum's retirement party was yesterday. So me, my wife, and our three months old daughter had to travel down home to celebrate with her. Me and my siblings are all graduates except for the last born,as expected we've all left home to chase our different dreams in different lands. So occasions like this now feels like family reunion IYKWIM. May I add that I'm the first born and the only married one out of her five children? So the occasion was the first one with the nuclear family finally getting extended.

To the real issue; It was time to take pictures.Several shots with various categories of people had been taken. So a picture of mum with her children was called. My siblings were already set. I was called on to join in. Soon as I joined, my wife, seeing another picture was about to be taken hurried along to join, and she was told by one of my siblings that it's a children alone with mum picture. I signalled to her to let us take the picture, but she refused. Immediately asking what I meant by that,she jokingly insisted she must join in the shot as she is now a child too. Others pleaded to let us take the shot first as we had taken several other shots earlier on. She insisted, and the picture was taken with her. No issues about it as it was just a picture, and we were in a merry mood.

Afterwards on our way back home, my wife started giving me some attitude. She had taken offense that I agreed to take the picture without her. I tried to make her see that such pictures could be good for memoirs. I cited an instance of dead elderly people's burial programme booklets, where such pictures could be labelled "mum with her children" during retirement party. She never saw reasons still. She had to seek her mum's opinion about it, and her mum opined that she was right. That's what got me confused. Was I really wrong, or were they just being African? What's your stance on this?