Met Him Via Phone Chat, Can He Be Trusted?

Dear Agatha,

I have been dating this guy for two months now though I have never seen him. We are only communicating by phone. The whole thing actually started this way. I met his brother on ••africhat•• and we started talking. He asked me to be his girlfriend, but I declined on the ground that I don’t love him.

He later gave me his brother's number to reach him since his phone had a problem. I started talking to his brother and we became good friends. In the process, we became attracted to each other. So, when he asked me to be his girlfriend, I wasn't surprised. I accepted his proposal. This led to both brothers having a disagreement but my boyfriend says he doesn't mind. He says he loves me and I know I love him too.  But my problem is how can I fall in love with someone I have not seen? How can I be sure he isn't cheating and won't cheat on me? 

It happens that guys seem to be attracted to me a lot and from what he tells me, girls also fall at his feet. I know that I can be faithful to him, but I am not sure of him. Agatha, despite the fact that I have not seen him, I really love him.  I don't know what to do.

Please help.

Onyeka.

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Dear Onyeka,

First things first, you owe his brother certain explanations. Granted, there was nothing you could have done to stop the way you feel about his brother, whom you have never met. You must do everything within your powers to ensure both brothers get back on the friendly lane.

The younger brother has every right to feel bad because he gave you the link. If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t have met his brother through the phone.

Yes, you may have told him of your disinterest in him but how do you expect him to react to you and his brother, one you have not seen, dating? As a woman, wishing to be part of the family, your responsibility goes beyond what you feel for your boyfriend. You should be concerned about the problems between the two brothers. How you handle it would go a long way in assuring the younger brother, especially, of your importance to the family.

You must also remember these two are brothers, with history and family ties you don’t have yet with your boyfriend. The euphoria of a new and rather strange love may make him say all sorts of things but when it comes to the bare essentials, don’t be surprised he may not be so vocal against his brother.

And with the strange way you are kick-starting this relationship, you need a lot of supports from within to give you the necessary assurance of the rightness of your choice. Also, he is in a position to put a big damper on your relationship with his brother if he is that sort of persons that see nothing wrong in making up stories about other people. An injured mind is one that has to be courted, smoothed as well as nursed to full recovery.

Go, if there is any way you can get him to talk. You need to explain to him all over again why you can’t date him. He has to know that it takes a different kind of chemistry for two people to feel right about each other. At the meeting, beg him to understand and to give you and his brother the support to be happy together. Solicit his friendship. Make it appear as if you really need his blessing as well as support to make it happen with his brother. At one time or the other in our lives, we always want to be given certain level of recognition. In this instance, do it for the sake of your happiness as well as the harmony of the two brothers.

On the issue of falling in love with someone you haven’t seen physically, well, anything can happen between two people. Love doesn’t have to follow a familiar pattern for it to be established. This is where the mystery of God reigns supreme in the affairs of men. When God means for anything to happen, He does it without apologies to known laws or familiar patterns. That is why He is God. He is unquestionable and unanswerable to you and me.

If this is the way He has chosen for you to meet your ideal man, who are you or I to complain or condemn?

Everything is right and marvelous in His sight, so accept him and learn to trust him, as you would with any other man you are meeting in the conventional way.

To understand your feelings best, ask yourself why him and not the brother you have seen or all the other men throwing themselves at your feet. What makes him different from all the others to have gotten you to consider him at all?

Your reasons for falling for him lies in the mystery of your answer. Most times, love doesn’t happen on the strength of a person’s look, it takes more than that. It takes, most of the time, certain things we don’t even know, something that has no name but which keeps holding us back until it meets the person it desires the most.

His voice must have committed the right signal to that secret force inside of you to make you open up your heart to him.

When things like this happen, the best option is not to fight it but to allow it flow naturally.

But that doesn’t mean you both should not make the effort to grow the relationship beyond telephone conversation. Make arrangements to meet, no matter how complex the logistic of doing so is. Both of you must show a commitment to be serious about each other, support your love to fulfillment through deliberate planning of your options as well as merging your dreams.

There is no way you can merge and grow your dreams if you limit it to just telephone conversation. You must be able to recognise each other physically when you meet on the road. There is still no alternative for inter-personal relationship. Love is a very personal thing and cannot effectively be realised without both of you seeing what the other looks like.

All the fears about unfaithfulness, deceit can only be tackled if both of you get to meet and discuss as two people who like each other and want to make something out of the relationship.

Good luck. 

How Do I Wrest Myself Free From Masturbation?

Dear Agatha,

Please I am a guy who has taken to the habit of masturbation. What do you think about it and what effect is it likely to have on my sperm count as a man? Please advice me.

Maxwell.

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Dear Maxwell,

Masturbation is self-stimulation engineered to cause sexual sensations or satisfactions. It is a habit in most people that started in their teenage years. Mostly a problem with men, insecurity and lack of confidence to approach a member of the opposite sex begins this process of self-expression.

For women, lack of sexual satisfaction as well as fear of getting pregnant are mostly the reason young girls take to self-expressions.

It connotes a person manipulating his or her genitals to the point of intense pleasure or orgasm. Although many health providers say there is nothing wrong with the practice, however, once the excitement dies down, guilt and or shame takes over.

A survey on the subject suggests that approximately 94 percent of teenage males and about 70 percent of teen females have at one time or the other done it and are still tempted to do it.

Even though like all sexual habits, masturbation falls under the taboos, sexuality experts are of the view that people who masturbate tend to function better sexually when with a partner because the act of masturbation has given them full knowledge of body secrets. Therefore they know precisely how to direct their partners to fulfillments. 

Despite what most people think, masturbation appears to be a normal as well as healthy way to get sexual satisfaction. It is one that is safe and does not run the risks of pregnancy, STDs or incompatible sexual preferences.

From available facts, masturbation does not have to diminish the experience of intercourse because for many people, it is not a one or the other concept or reality. For most people, orgasm from intercourse is less intense because their own masturbation pattern differs from the sensation of arousal or response when they are with someone.

For women, in particular, the pleasure from masturbation is more intense than both the experience of intercourse and orgasm through intercourse, for different reasons. During intercourse, while a woman experiences closeness, tenderness, and lust, she does not usually get the stimulation on her clitoris that she is used to or familiar with from masturbation. This is neither good nor bad.

To ensure sex remains a unity tool between a man and woman; particularly as its affects the foundation of a good marriage, despite the pleasures individuals get from self-stimulations, partners should teach each other how to give pleasures in other ways. When partners combine their knowledge of what they have learnt about their sexuality through masturbation; they can help each other achieve an unimaginable height of satisfaction. This is the area sex becomes evolving and patented to suit individual needs.

The only negative effects against masturbation remain our moral and religious values. This is the point sexual satisfactions give way to other considerations, which are totally alien in the bedroom. The anxiety of our moral and religious beliefs bring with it a lot of issues which include the propriety of engaging in an act created to be performed by a member of the opposite sex. With this comes low confidence and very low self-esteem which all have direct bearing on our performance as well as ability to give pleasure. Your fears about being able to produce healthy sperms in the future following your dependence on masturbation are natural but lack enough grounds and medical support.

So, the issue of whether it would affect the quality of your sperm in the future doesn’t arise at all. This is because masturbation is generally not physically harmful. Frequent masturbation does not reduce your sperm count nor does it affect your ability to achieve an erection. Younger men may be able to get an erection and ejaculate every day. But as men get older, their ability to achieve daily erections may decline. This is a factor of age and has nothing to do with the frequency of masturbation. Also, there is no evidence that frequency of masturbation affects a man's ability to produce sperm.

As a matter of fact the more often a man ejaculates the more sperms he produces. Most experts would recommend masturbation as a normal part of sexual life because it has its positive effect on the quality of sex.

However, it could be a problem if the act is always enveloped in guilt. This comes from public moral perception on the issue of masturbation. Boys who generally masturbate will develop guilty feelings that what he is doing may not be correct and it may affect him later in his married life. Such feelings over a long period of time may create a low confidence and may lead to impotence. Men especially who engage in the act have a tendency to finish it up quickly before anybody catches them in the act. So, the period of erection is reduced, and if this has become the practice over time, it follows that during intercourse, he would ejaculate early.

After a while, this becomes a huge problem. Some people get addiction to this masturbation, such that after marriage also they get more satisfaction in masturbation than the actual intercourse and lose interest in sex.

Even if they do have sex, they find it difficult to beat the habit as they continue to masturbate, which in the end could lead to major marital problems.

Whatever you decide on, ensure you are on top of the situation at all times. If you are the type that cannot control your urges of self-stimulations, the best bet for you now is to begin to cut down on your habits, as your woman may not take kindly to competing with this practice of yours when she demands for your time and attention.

It is always imperative you ask yourself why you went into it. Knowing the why would help you map out the how of getting out of it. There is no way you can help yourself beat the habit if you cannot control your emotions.

Good luck. 

My Ex Wants To Share Me With His Wife

Dear Agatha,

There is this man I was dating before he got married. The problem now is, he has refused to let go of me and sincerely, I don’t want him to let go either.

He keeps coming to my house to plead to have sex with me; a request I have kept turning down because he is now a married man.

The new thing is that he is now planning on taking me to the United Kingdom with him. I am confused because I don’t know if this is true love but the truth is I can’t do without him.

Confused Lady.

 

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Dear Confused Lady,

He wants to take you to the United Kingdom as what? Bedmate, live in lover or his second wife?

Don’t you think this move is rather late in the day considering he is married to another woman and doesn’t have the freedom to associate with you anymore?
If you were more than just a girl he gets good sex from, don’t you think he would have married you no matter the conditions that made him marry the other woman?

Sincerely, if you have any self-respect, you would urgently terminate every relationship between you and this man by putting as much distance you can possible between you and him. Rather than consider his offer, you should feel insulted by it and tell him to his face what you think about him and his offer. What this offer connotes in plain English is you are good in bed but not good enough to be a wife. Why would you want to be his mistress when you were first in his life and he left you to marry a woman he met after you?

I appreciate how much losing him may mean to you especially if you have come to love him dearly but it is only for a short while provided you are wise enough not to prolong the journey of pain and disappointment.

Deep down, do you think this guy loves you? Has any respect for you feelings, cares about how you feel? Think, if he did, why did he leave you to marry another woman? What excuse did he give you to have made him leave you for the woman he married?

That his family forced him into it? If this is his excuse, why didn’t he stand his grounds if you were that precious to him? Why didn’t he show desperation to have you in his life if sex hasn’t always been his ultimate interest in you?

In his wife’s shoes, how would you feel if your husband plans on dumping you for his ex-girlfriend?

In your own interest, turn down his offer. He is no longer free to love you and since he has made his choice by walking another woman down the aisle, he should do the honorable thing by sticking with his decision. It is the least he can do for himself.

Encouraging him to betray this woman is to further drive the digger of hurt into your heart and soul. There is no way he would leave his wife for you. Once he gets his fill of you, he will leave you all over again to be with a new catch; a woman he considers to be better than you in bed.

Coming to plead for sex with you should tell you that all he wants is free sex, which you are foolishly giving to him despite what you say. If you are so desperate to believe everything he tells you, it follows you would do anything to be with him.

You can bet your life that should you get pregnant; this man would not stand by you or accept responsibility for the child because something in your values doesn’t sit comfortably with him.

If you stop worrying about not wanting to lose him and concentrate on how much happiness and fulfilment you want from life, it would be a lot easier getting over him.

Life functions on what we feed into it, on how we colour it. If you insist on brooding over a relationship that was never meant to be, you will continue to hurt yourself and sink your entire future by the choices you are about to make.

Marriage is sacred. It is between two people. If he wants to end it, he doesn’t need you to help him end it. He made the choice to marry her without consulting you so if he has any regrets, he should be man enough to face the consequences of his choice without involving you in his scheme.

Let him know you have enough problems of your own without him adding to it. Also make him understand every marriage needs the dedication and input of the couple to work well. And that if he continues to misbehave and refuse to stand by the vows he made to his wife on the day of their wedding, there is no way he can get the best out of his union with his wife.

On your side, this is the time for you to be bold and not give in to emotional sentiments because such emotions can really hurt you as well as make you lose confidence in yourself completely.

Again, you should develop certain pride in yourself. If this man isn’t interested in showing you respect, give it to yourself by calling his bluff. When next he comes to you, tell him, you would appreciate if he stays away from you for now primarily because your feelings for him are still raw and you are unable to keep him at bay.

Only determination would help you forget him. One of the ways to is to move away from where he can get you easily. I know nursing a broken heart back to good health isn’t easy. Some days appear good while some are particularly bad and lonely. On those days, if care isn’t taken, there is the tendency to throw all caution and pride to the wind to beg the one leaving to come back.

If you are honest without being told, you can tell why he made the choice he made. Had you demonstrated some level of moral discipline and values, you may not find yourself in this emotional mess you are now in.

It is so difficult when you are trying to do the healing alone. This is the time you need your friends’ support to drive away the gloom, reason rationally as well as divert your attention away from the obvious.

Go to places you have always wanted to go; places that won’t in any way bring back the memory you are trying to forget. Immerse yourself in other challenges as well as interests that give you little or no time to think of him. Furthermore, dream of new ideas and intentions to help prevent such pain again in your life.

Over time, such company and tasks would water down your thirst for him and give you the strength to move ahead.

Remain focused on and pray for support from God to help you give new meaning and focus to your life. Making your peace with God swallows up a lot of problems in the daily struggles with life.

Good luck. 

Hard To Say His Biological Mother Is A Whore

Dear Agatha,

I have just been told by my doctor, that I’ve very limited time to live. According to him, leukemia has eaten too deep into my system.

That is okay by me since I have lived a good life and can say I am fulfilled. My only child is doing very well as God has blessed me with four beautiful grandchildren.

I can’t complain except that a recent letter I received, threatening to smear my happiness.

It all happened 40 years ago when a prostitute who used to patronise my shop got pregnant. That day, she came to my shop located at Campus Square, Lagos, to buy rice. I noticed she had puffy eyes and wasn’t in her usual jovial mood. She didn’t take her food away but sat on my side of the table. I allowed her be. It was more than a whole hour before she told me about her predicament. She was pregnant and wanted to terminate the pregnancy because it would affect her job.

Being childless after three years of marriage, I advised against it. She asked if I would be interested in having the baby since she had no intention of keeping it. I told her I would give the whole world to have a baby to call my own.

I said this to encourage her. That was the last I saw of her until one morning, I came to my shop to start preparing for the sales of the day and I met the most shocking but pleasant sight in the world. It was a beautiful bouncing baby boy in a milk carton. He was neatly dressed. Inside the carton was a note from the mother that I should look after the baby as mine since I desperately wanted one. In it, she told me, she wanted the freedom to live her life the way she wanted it and didn’t want a fatherless baby stopping her.

I was sad at her rejection of the baby but glad she gave him to me. Six months before the incident, my husband and his people had thrown me out for another woman who was carrying my husband’s baby.

That morning, I didn’t bother with my shop that day; I took the baby to my mother in Mushin.

That was how I started a new life all together with the child. He brought me luck because suddenly everything started working well for me so much so I was able to buy an expanse of land at Palm Avenue.

I was able to send him abroad to read medicine and today he is one of the very best in the country.

Now, his biological mother has sent a note insisting, she wants to meet him. I called her on the number she gave, she assured me her intention is simply to know him and nothing more.

Agatha, the question is how do I tell him he isn’t mine? How do I tell him that he bears my mother’s maiden name? And that he is the son of a prostitute and that he has no father?
He is a very sensitive young man. How do I face my grandchildren with the truth concerning their heritage?

Do I beg her to allow me die before breaking the news to him and his family? Would he ever be able to love me again as his mother or accord me any respect for lying to him all these while?
Please help me resolve this issue before I die. This is a race against time.

Arinola.

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Dear Arinola,

I can imagine all the different emotions going on inside of you. It isn’t easy coping with the knowledge that any moment one would stop breathing but don’t we all carry around the same death sentence? Even the doctor who has given you the verdict isn’t exempted from the mortal end we all come with.

For this reason, learn to celebrate each day with thanksgiving to God for His mercies that have kept you thus far. For the experiences as well as the opportunity of allowing you share in the excitement, pains as well growth of this young man.

Also celebrate the gift of your grandchildren as well as your daughter-in-law. You deserve to be happy after labouring to sustain his life through his nascent days to adulthood.

These are memories and investment no other woman can take away from you or deny you the opportunity of savouring.

Yes, she gave birth to him that is a basic fact which cannot also be denied her, for this she has a right to meet with him and get to know the son she carried in her womb for nine months. After all, if she had made the choice many young girls in her position daily make, you wouldn’t have had him to nurse.

Again, don’t forget that she had a choice of strangulating him at birth, dumping him inside the toilet or dustbin but she elected to bring him to your shop as a special gift to you. It could have been another woman who had him in your place. Something could have happened to you that morning to stop you from coming to the shop. The baby would have been taken to the Police Station and subsequently to the motherless babies’ home.

Call her whatever name you want to call her but she ensured she gave her baby to the woman she knew would give him a good home. She must have known how desperate you are to have a child, knew about all your matrimonial problems due to your childlessness hence decided to bless you with her baby, who she knew she could ill-afford to look after at that time.

That she knew where to locate you with a note suggests that she has never been far away from her child. What she feels is natural, she longs to touch as well as behold the child she carried in the secret of her belly.

Whether she is or was a prostitute is immaterial, this would never stop the maternal longings she has endured all these while.

Whatever her short-comings God designed your son to come to you through that process. If she hadn’t gone into prostitution, gotten pregnant in the way she did, you wouldn’t have had a child to call your own. She could have gone into prostitution simply to help give you this child. God’s ways are mysterious.

So in more ways than one, you must ensure their re-union and help douse the attendant tension on the part of mother and child.

This child is yours because you nursed him from the first moments of his life. He has your love deep inside his heart, so don’t be afraid he would ever stop loving you or abandon you now when you need him the most.

Besides, you must believe in the job you have done on him. If you planted love and wisdom into him, this is the time for you to reap it. We are products of our up-bringing. If you didn’t bring him up to be unreasonable, rude and unappreciative of the efforts of people, he would never blame you for lying to him or condemn you for it.

Your guidance too would help both mother and child talk without bitterness. No doubt he would wonder at the manner of mother abandoned her child at birth. Just as he would condemn her choice of a trade but you can help him get over the pains by pointing him at all the good reasons why he should not turn his back on her now.

But before that, call him to tell him about his past. Start from the very beginning of your own story. How you were driven away by your husband and his family over your inability to have a child. Paint the picture of your pains, rejection as well as embarrassment. He has to be made to feel in vivid picture what you went through. This is called playing on his emotions. It is the only way he can think objectively, appreciate the sacrifices of you and his mother to enable him forgive. His human feeling has to be brought to the fore in your presentation.

Then tell him of how you first met his mother leading to the time she came to your shop early that morning to tell you about her predicament and all the things you both discussed.

Prepare the grounds by telling him all the good things you observed about his mother, her smile and good nature. Include the fact that something must have pushed her into prostitution. It is imperative he has something positive about his mother to hold on to, something to help him cope with the shock of her presence and actions. When we are drowning, we all need something, even if it is a fragile straw to hold on to hope.

The bit about finding him at your shop door, the note and the joy you felt at having him should form the concluding end of your story.

Beg him after this, to forgive the lies you told about his identity as well as his mother’s behaviour before telling him of her wish to meet him.

This is an issue you both have to iron out on your own before bringing your daughter-in-law and grandchildren into the picture.

Call his mother only after you have done this.

Don’t worry, God, who has been in charge of your affairs before you were born, knows about this development and has taken care of it ahead of time. Just trust Him and celebrate His mercies in your life. Already, it is well.

Good luck. 

My Grandparents Can’t Be Part Of My Success Story

Dear Agatha,

My mother was the only parent I knew. My father abandoned her when she was pregnant of me. According to her, her parents also turned their back on her because of their Christian beliefs. She had to struggle with the help of a kind neighbour who offered her shelter to bring me up on her own.

After she had me, the neighbour who was childless took me away from her so that she could improve her lot in life. It was at this point her parents once again took her in.

Her parents refused to have anything to do with me insisting I was the seed of the devil. It was this neighbour who trained me despite the harassment she was constantly subjected to by my grandparents.

She kept telling my mother and I that I was a gift to her from God and that she didn’t care what my grandparents thought of her or me.

When my mother left for east in pursuit of better education, she didn’t make me feel her absence. Every month, she would take me with her to see my mother. It was a huge sacrifice but one she made with all happiness.

After her graduation, my mother met and married an Ibo man. She didn’t hide the fact that she had a child from the man. As a matter of fact she came to see my foster mother and me with her man. We also attended their wedding even though my grandparents refused to allow me into their sitting room during the introduction. We stayed outside all the same.

Her visits after her wedding became far-spaced when she got pregnant. But she kept calling and sending us money to feed. From what I gathered from my foster mother; the pregnancy was a difficult one so also was the birth of the child.

I was in my final year in secondary school when my mother died at childbirth. The love and support of my foster mother helped a great deal during the dark period. She left behind two sons.

Despite the death of my mother, my grandparents’ attitude towards me didn’t change. As a matter of fact, they said my mother’s death has something to do with me, that she died because of the sin she committed with my father.

Today through the grace of God and my foster mother, I am a medical doctor. I have reunited with my brothers who are also doing fine.

Now I am about to wed. My grandparents whose other child died five years after my mother are now desperate to have me. They want to be part of my life, going to the extent of trying to accuse my foster mother of stealing their grandchild and poisoning my mind against them.

When that ploy failed to yield any result, they have since taken to begging my foster mother to help talk to me. Strangely, my brothers don’t like them and are solidly behind my decision not to invite them to my wedding.

But my foster mother is against my decision. She says I owe it to the memory of my mother to be polite to her parents even if they treated me badly. She wants me to forgive them and give them the honour of hosting the traditional wedding ceremony. I have told her, it would take place in the only home I have ever known throughout my life but she still persists that I invite them. I cannot bring myself to forgive or forget how they have treated me all these while.

Would they have come if I were a beggar? If my foster mother hadn’t taken me in, given me the best of education would they have acknowledged me as their granddaughter?

I don’t want to disobey my foster mother, but is it right to associate with people who never cared about me? Who from day one rejected me and at every opportunity called me the seed of a devil?

It doesn’t make sense to me. Please help me because I don’t know what to do.

Morenikeji.

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Dear Morenikeji,

Long before we were even conceived, God has outlined the pattern, colours as well as texture of our lives. We don’t have a choice in the matter of who our parents are, or the process that give birth to us. These things come from God.

That you came through the woman that carried you in her womb or the seed of the man you don’t know, are part of His plans for you. They didn’t happen by chance. He knew your grandparents would reject you from the womb and that your mother would die early in life hence stationed a childless woman to foster and provide you with a home.

When He also created the woman, He knew she would not be able to have a child of her own, hence planned for you to come the way you did to give her complete control over you.

You wouldn’t have been able to stay with her if your grandparents had shown you love and accepted you whole-heartedly. If you had a father, he too may not have allowed the situation of his child staying with someone he considered a complete stranger.

Doubtless, God planned your destiny and that of this woman to function as mother and child.

This is why you must listen to her and forgive your grandparents and give them the honour of being present at your wedding. It is the least you can do for the memory of a woman who gave you life and showered you with love while she lived. Despite their attitude towards you, they gave birth to that woman who never for once displayed any regret or shame at having you when she did. She was willing to put her life on hold to have you all alone when other young girls would have considered taking their own lives or terminating the pregnancy.

There is no contesting the fact that your grandparents were really off the mark in their attitude towards you but God knows best. Who knows if you had grown with them, their resentment of you may have prevented you from achieving the height of success you have attained now.

Would they have been able to fund your medical education? Would you have been able to endure their bitterness at close range? Who knows they, through their attitude, may have pushed you into a life-style, which would have effectively terminated your God given destiny.

A lot of people we today brand failures, urchins, armed robbers, drug addicts were not created by God to be any of these. They too came with the same promising future you came with but got derailed by the situations they found themselves in. Many of them were meant by God to be doctors like you, captains of industry, successful politicians, money bags but never got close to any of these dreams, the environment they found themselves in were hostile to such lofty dreams.

Had you grown with them, the level of hatred your grandparents displayed for you would have driven you into the waiting hands of any man, making the same mistake your mother made. That God gave you another home to enable you grow up into who He desires you to be should make you forget whatever wrong these two must have done to you.

Inability to forgive them places you under unnecessary spiritual constraints. It is pointless trying to do God’s work for Him. You had no hand in what you are today so why now being the one to insist on doing things your own way?

You got to where you are through the mercy of God so why not extend the same mercy to these old people who have little time to live? Why do you want to contribute more to their misery? Burying all their children in their lifetime is more than any parent can bear. Although they appear to be normal but everything inside of them has stopped beating. What you see are empty shells. Only your forgiveness as well as showing them love can put some flesh on the hollow of the emptiness they are now facing.

They made their choice to be bitter and resentful of you; you also have it in your hands to make the choice of being happy and free of guilt in your life.

Look at them; in all honesty, do you want to end up like them? Unfortunately, if you refuse to forgive them, you risk ending up like them because their inability to forgive their daughter and show you love brought them to this end. If you also refuse to forgive them and show them love now that they desperately need it, you are also like them in more ways than you realise.

Take your brothers and go to them. Judgement is for the Lord. Together with your brothers, fill their hearts and lives with love. It doesn’t make you less of your foster mother’s child, or less appreciative of her role in your life.

Going to them would only serve as the icing on the cake as well as showcase the good work she did for you. She must have a pure heart to have done all she did for you and your mother despite the attitude of your grandparents. If you refuse to listen to her, you would be failing in your responsibility towards her as a loving and respectful child.

As a mother, she has given you a commission to go and make peace with them. Obey her so as to continue to enjoy her blessings as well as the mercies of God.

Good luck.