For forty years, I heard the same phrase, over and overlike a crown placed firmly on my head.
My wife doesn’t work. She’s the queen of the home.
People would smile. Some admired me, others even envied me. And me I believed it. I truly did.
I believed I mattered, that I was valued, that what I did was the most important job in the world. And in fact, it *was* a jobif only it was ever called that.
I was the cook, the cleaner, the nanny, the teacher, the nurse, the counsellor, the driver, the bookkeeper, the organiser of absolutely everything. My working day was at least fourteen hours long, sometimes more. There were no “days off.” There was no “salary.” There wasn’t always a “thank you” when I needed one.
There was only ever:
You’re at home. You’re fine.
My children never once went to school in dirty clothes. My husband never returned home to a cold meal. Our house was always tidy, our lives anchored by my careful work, organised so that everyone else could be at ease.
Sometimes, Id look in the mirror and I wouldnt see a woman. I saw a function.
But Id tell myself, This is family. This is love. This is my choice.
There was one comfort, at leastI believed it was all “ours.”
Our home.
Our money.
Our life.
But reality proved different.
When my husband passed awaywhen he went to meet his makermy world fell apart for reasons beyond grief. It was reality that undid me.
We mourned. People called him “a great man,” “provider,” “pillar of the family.”
Then came the day of the will.
I found myselfhis widowhands clasped tightly, aching inside, hoping for some security, some protection after all the years Id given him.
Thats when I heard the words that turned me into a stranger in my own life.
The house was in his name.
The account was in his name.
Everything was in his name.
And ours became his, in an instant.
My children*my children*inherited what I had watched over, cleaned, and kept a home of for a lifetime.
And me?
I was left without the right to claim even a single, That was mine too.
From that day, I began living in the most degrading waynever in poverty, but in dependence.
I had to ask:
Can I buy medicine?
Can I buy shoes?
Can I dye my hair?
As if I werent a seventy-year-old woman, but a young girl begging for pocket money.
Sometimes, Id hold a scrap of paper, a shopping list, and wonder how it was possible
How could I have worked for forty years, and my labour amount to nothing?
It wasnt just the lack of money that hurt.
It stung that Id been deceived.
That I wore a crown of words, not a crown of security.
That I was a queenbut without any rights.
Then, for the first time, I allowed myself to ask questions Id never dared before:
Where *was* I in that love?
Where was my name?
Where was my future?
And most of allwhy did I believe for so many years that having my own finances was a lack of trust?
Now, I know the truth.
Having your own income, your own account, your own insurance, your own propertythese things are not a betrayal of love.
They are self-respect.
Love shouldnt leave you unprotected.
Love shouldnt strip away your strength, then force you to beg.
Lesson
A woman may give her entire life for her home but the home should have space for hernot only in the kitchen, but in rights, in security, and in money.
Domestic work is honorable.
But dependencedependence is a trap.
Do you know a woman who was the “queen of the home,” only to find herself, in the end, left without rights or a future of her own?
