Dear Agatha,
Thanks for being there for people like me. Three different men are currently proposing marriage to me. The first one is in love with me, but I don’t love him. The second one I love so much just as he loves me, but the he isn’t ready to marry. He says I should give him till 2014. I am already 26 years old, add five years to that and I would be 31. For me this is a little bit tricky. The third guy is in love with me and seems ready to settle but I can’t read him at all. He is always giving excuses when the matter of marriage comes up.
What do I do?
Confused Girl.
Dear Confused Girl,
There is no way you would be able to make the right choice with three different men asking for your hand at the same time unless you have always had a clear impression of what you want.
At 26, you should have been better prepared for this moment. Had you done a lot of thinking, had your own solid ideas about the right kind of man for you, there would have been little confusion in your head over the suitability of any of these men for you.
This is because from the very beginning, you would have recognised in them the one with the most quality of your ideal man.
Therefore the process of elimination comes from the choices you have made as a woman. If you are the kind of woman who is only concerned about the physical looks of a man and not about his inner qualities, chances are you would settle for the most handsome of them all.
And if your concern is the one with the most money to spend on you, your choice would favour the man who has the money to lavish on you.
Unfortunately, these aren’t the right prerequisite for a happy marriage. A lot of things go into it. For a marriage to succeed, there must be a physical, spiritual and soul meetings. Unfortunately, many intending couples concern themselves only with the physical which is why many marriages are running into troubled waters.
What are your choices? What excites you in a man? Something on the periphery like his looks or money or something deeper than these?
You may have to excuse yourself from the pressures of these men to enable you retreat into yourself; that is, if you don’t know what you want already in a man.
In arriving at your decision be careful, you don’t over-value what isn’t valued. Life is not perfect hence no one is perfect. In looking at the shortcomings of these men, consider your own first then look for the one that best complements you. Your own weakness should be his strength and your strength his weakness.
You must look at the one who has the potentials of being your best friend and why you think you don’t love one and love the other the most. Sometimes, your current values may be the reason you think you love one and don’t love the other one.
Having a crystal vision of what you want helps put a lot of things in clearer perspective. Why do you think you don’t love the first guy? What values are you using to judge him? Has it to do with the possibility that he doesn’t have enough money like the others or lack the right kind of qualification?
Why do you think you don’t love him? You see, some of us don’t realise what we have until we lose them. That is when we come to realise that values we thought were important never were.
Delete his name from your list of suitors only after you are sure you will never have reason to look back later in life and regret not constructing your tent with him. Many women are so much in a hurry to get married that they forget to pay attention to what is important in a marriage. At 26, taking an extra year to ensure your marriage would do you no harm is not a big sacrifice.
Why is your second option insisting on waiting till 2014? For a woman in a hurry to marry, that is a lifetime to wait. Unless you trust him and be in love with him, this could be an endless wait.
Such a proposition takes planning, massive involvement in his affairs while at the same time trusting him enough to give him the liberty to achieve his dreams for that period.
Beyond being in love, what other things are on ground between the two of you? Frankly, this is a huge sacrifice he is requesting of you considering the fact that you would be 31 when he is ready.
For you to accept this, you must have a firm commitment from such that its terms must be known to every stakeholder in your families. Importantly, you must know why he needs that length of time to be ready. Because marriage is a journey of endless sacrifice, you must also be convinced about the workability of the promises you go into.
If your heart is in tune with this man, work something out with him along the lines of a more acceptable date for the two of you. Like you, he must be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to help the relationship grow. If he insists things must be done his way, it underscores problem and possibly what would be the pattern of your relationship. At every point, a couple must be able to negotiate their differences in such a way it becomes acceptable to both of them. The moment a couple is unable to reconcile its differences, the relationship becomes tiresome and bumpy. It is best to avoid taking into the institution too many garbage because they would eventually be the ruin of it.
Since the third man who is ready to marry is indefinite and secretive and you cannot say what he wants, it is best you allow him be rather than force him to do what you want.
In all these, learn to be honest and realistic in what you do.
Good luck.
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