Invite your in-laws for an exploratory session so you can get to know theirs before locking things down.

Nobody tells you how tricky dealing with your partner’s family is going to be.

No one gives you that breakdown, so you go into your relationship, marriage or brief meeting of genitals with the fanciful notion that you only have to get over your partner’s ‘quirks’ and you’ll be fine. Those are easy enough, you tell yourself. Small small alcoholism, a couple of kids they forgot to tell you about, maybe a stomach that turns regular food into lethal, room-clearing gas… you know, things that you can get over in the course of a few months.

But then, mere weeks into your happily ever after, you are introduced to a Nollywood witch and told she is your mother-in-law. You meet your brother-in-law, formerly known as Kizito, the village madman, and he promptly asks you for 20 bob. A small woman with no eyebrows makes your acquaintance, asks you to call her mkhwasi then proceeds to show you what drama looks like.

The real test of any relationship is actually wrangling the chaos that is your person’s family, and it’s a shame people don’t talk about it.

In the good old days, when your parents and grandparents took back control of your dating life, the research they would get into would be extensive. They wouldn’t start from scratch either; by the time you were coming of age, they would have been keeping a proper ledger of all their peers and their kids. They would know which potential suitors were raised right and which ones were so stubborn their parents let go and let God.

So when your mom pointedly asked you what happened to Wambui, the girl you used to run around the estate with as a child, what they meant was they had been keeping an eye on her, and she was a strong candidate for you to do life with.

It meant they had dug around for any tea leaves they could find, and the fact that her name was on the shortlist meant her family made very weak tea. No scandals there. No skeletons. Just a good, solid, Christian family.

These days, you’re on your own.

You may ensnare yourself a hell of a catch, only to discover that her father is a disgraced former politician. Or the proprietor of a popular brothel in town. Or you could learn, when she’s already picking out curtains for your house, that her mother has an A+ Tinder profile and a boyfriend you went to campus with.

Maybe there is a long history of stubbornness in the family. Or cooking with cucumbers. Maybe there is a tendency to say ‘irregardless’ rooting around somewhere in that gene pool, in addition to rickets. Perhaps the men in the family inherit the night-runner crown once they turn 16, and if no male heirs exist, the solemn responsibility falls to the husband of the first-born daughter.

The more pressing concern, of course, is that there are ‘characters’ in that family who belong on a Real Housewives show, and who will make your life a living hell going forward. The way with such characters is that they never reveal themselves in good time. All through the courtship, they will be mum, smiling and saying good things about their sister. And then as soon as her belly starts to distend, they unleash their true selves. Suddenly, secrets are spilling out of the woodwork faster than you can keep up.

Oh, you see Uncle Kimani? Don’t leave your kids alone with him. No reason, just don't.

Oh, that is Auntie Jemimah. We don’t talk about her anymore because she got pregnant for her son-in-law. If anyone asks that’s our nephew Jayden. Not her grandson.

Oh, that room stays closed. Our great great grandfather sometimes comes to visit and sleeps in there. Yeah, he’s been dead for years, why do you ask?

Baby? Come, let me introduce you to the woman my father left our family for. Everyone thinks she’s my mother, but my forehead isn’t long enough. Right? Right?!

Every family has its madmen, to be fair. It is prudent, however, to invite your in-laws for an exploratory session so you can get to know theirs before locking things down. Till death do us part is an awfully long time. You don’t want to be stuck with a family that wears matching outfits on Christmas. 

[email protected]

@sir_guss