Dear Agatha,
I am an avid reader of your column and have benefited from your responses to people's questions.
For two years, my girlfriend and I were happy together, and our relationship was the envy of others around. But all that changed when her ex-boyfriend who has been out of the country came back and her attitude towards the relationship changed.
Before now, we were at liberty to call or receive each other’s call as often as possible. But not anymore, these days I would call her and she would refuse to pick my calls.
Early last month I went to visit her but she wasn’t comfortable with my presence so I left. After an hour, I tried calling her but her phone wasn’t going through so I went back there but she was not at home. I decided to wait for her. But I ended up waiting till the morning of the next day.
Just last week, I saw the name and number of her ex-boyfriend on her phone. When I called to enquire if he knows anybody by my girlfriend’s name, he responded by referring to her as his girlfriend. Severally, I have called my girlfriend to clarify the actual nature of her relationship with her ex but she keeps telling me they don’t have anything together again and that she has only seen him twice since he came back to the country.
Please what do you think I should do about this?
Felix.
Dear Felix,
When things get this messy, it is best one step aside. This is to enable the other person who is having doubts get clearer signals concerning his or her feelings for the current person in his or her life.
Only one relationship of the many we enter into in life is expected to have a happy ending. Many things add up to make what appears to be so perfect not so perfect any more. You simply didn’t realise it, this other man has always been between you and your girl except that he has never manifested as a major threat to you until now.
Obviously your girlfriend hasn’t gotten over her feelings for her ex. Chances are that she and her former boyfriend were never apart even while he was out of the country. Loneliness and trepidation over the uncertainty of the future with the other man may have driven her into your arms.
With the man back, she realises that their dream can come true after all and that whatever she may have had with you is nothing compared to what promise this other man have always held, and still holds for her. It’s unfortunate that you are the one at the receiving end of all these, the one whose heart and happiness have to be sacrificed for her own happiness.
Life is about gambles, choices and decisions. Since she has started avoiding your calls, exhibiting unease at your presence in her house, refusing to explain her whereabouts to you, don’t linger too much around her if you ever loved her. This is one painful sacrifice you have to make for her. Give her the chance to be happy with her man. I appreciate that she lacks the right to treat you so shabbily or without offering you any explanations but forcing her to choose between you and her former boyfriend would not endear you to her now, rather it would only make things worse between the two of you. Her problem is the lack of honesty and transparency from the beginning. She should have told you from the beginning her arrangement with the other man as well as why she is going into the relationship. That would have prepared you for this moment instead of giving the impression that she and you had a future together.
The issue has gone beyond her, to protecting your person from both hurt and ridicule. You can either decide to drop out completely from her life by refusing to call her or visit her anymore. The only draw back is that she may come around later to accuse you of being unfair to her, leaving her for another woman.
Besides, it is a cowardly way to end something that gave you so much joy in the beginning.
If she is refusing to take your call, send her a text message insisting on discussing something very important with her. If she still refuses to give you an appointment, inform her of your decision to give her a chance to be with the man she loves better than you. In the text, let her know that even though you are hurt by the development but you love her enough to let go if it would make her happy.
Don’t bother if she still refuses to take your calls or reply to your messages. Your conscience would at least be at peace within you that you tried your best.
If it is any consolation, every relationship we go into in life, including the ones that end up on the altar are all gambles because even in death some of us still regret the choice of the person we spent our lives with.
God may be saving you a lot of stress in the future because of the many things He knows about us, which we don’t know. Whichever way it ends, learn to trust and support the will of God for you since some of the things we regard as disappointments in the beginning of our journey in life turns to be blessings at the end.
Good luck.
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