He Loves, But Doesn’t Trust Me

Dear Agatha,

I am 26 years of age in love with a man who would be 29 this year. Our relationship is five years old. There is no questioning the fact that he loves me as much as I love him. He is equally caring.

But the problem is that he doesn’t trust me one bit. He believes that any boy or man that calls me on my phone is either my boyfriend or daddy.

Expectedly this is causing major hiccups in our relationship as he finds it extremely difficult to believe any word I say. He once told he finds it difficult to trust any woman because he considers women generally untrustworthy

Agatha, I have never cheated on him and will never do it. Tell me how to go about earning his trust and stop all these instances of misunderstanding between us.

Do you think he will marry me? If so, would the marriage last since he can’t trust any woman on this earth?

Queen.

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Dear Queen,

I am not a soothsayer, so I lack the power to say if he will marry you or not.

However, from his attitude towards you, it is clear there is an experience from his past which is making him unable to completely trust any woman again in his life.

This is what you should find out if you really desire this relationship because there is no way love and mistrust can exist side by side in a relationship. It is either he believes sufficiently in your person to accept everything about you or doesn’t.

Your first task is to go back into his past. Not just his relationships, but to his childhood. What type of relationship exists between his mother and him? If he classifies women as being generally untrustworthy, it means he doesn’t trust his mother as well. So, the problem goes beyond what you are looking at to something you cannot handle on your own without information from him or anyone close to him.

When a man finds it difficult to trust a woman, then there is a painful memory or incident in his past that is embossed and embedded in that part of his memory only he can reach. That memory has gathered so many cobwebs to the extent he thinks he has forgotten all about it but is unable to progress from the point of the incident.

Because it is a memory so etched in the deepest part of his heart and has erected blocks to make it harder to find, you have to learn to apply caution and wisdom to get him to talk about it. This is the time you must deploy all your feminine charms, prowess and tact to get him to talk about this incident.

Prepare for resistance and stubborn refusal to visit that incident. Don’t be deterred because it has nothing to do with you but as a result of inner struggle to open a very old wound he thought he had wrapped up nicely.

His reluctance would be more difficult to break if the issue has to do with his parents’ relationship. This sort of issue requires absolute patience so you must have plenty of it if you really love this man and hope to spend the rest of your life with him.

Frankly you are the one who has to do the most work in this relationship of getting him to learn to trust. So, are you prepared for the challenges of nursing a broken trust back to life? Mind you, a broken trust is the most important challenge in a relationship. Whereas a broken heart can be mended when true love flows in, trust takes more than love to mend. In his own way, he may indeed love you but without the concomitant trust to lay the right foundation, you may end up disappointed at the end of the day.

Whether it has to do with his family or former relationship, he needs your understanding as well as support to be able to heal properly. While it is not a case of you pretending to be who you are not, it is going out of your way to be nice so as to elicit his confidence.

The faith to allow the feelings that brought you both together sprout solid roots.

One way you can do this is by being absolutely open about your past, male friends, engagements as well as movements. Let every chapter in your life be opened for him to browse through anytime he wishes. Don’t wait for him to ask questions before giving him answers.

Refuse to be frustrated by his constant quest to know the identity of all your male callers. If possible give him the phone to talk to them if that is what would make his develop the right trust in your person.

Always have it at the back of your mind that whatever caused his insecurity in women cannot evaporate within days. It could take almost forever but if you learn how to be patient and considerate of his feelings, he will eventually forget all about the time of his pains.

Encourage and court his friendship because it is easier to trust a friend than a lover. So work on the quality of your friendship to help improve the quality of your relationship.

If you two are still having the problem of trust after five years of staying together, it shows that your relationship lacks the help of trust to pull it out of the point you started with.

The danger of all this is that in the last five years, the relationship has not grown beyond your starting point. It is dangerous for you in particular because this man hasn’t given you any solid commitment to anchor your desire to be with him for the rest of your life. Rather all he has done is to make you understand in very unmistakable terms that he doesn’t trust any woman including you.

I tell you, it isn’t going to be very easy getting him to change but if you are determined as well as have the ability to treat him like a baby, you will end up being happy eventually with him.

Good luck.

Biblical Injunction: How My Wife Is Married Off To Suit Restitution

Dear Agatha,

I am in severe dilemma over what to do about the development in my home where a church has broken the peace I have enjoyed for 18 years in my home.

I married this woman as a second wife under the native laws and customs system 18 years ago and have three children with her. To the best of my knowledge we have had a smooth relationship. She and my first wife are close and even though I am an Anglican, we have managed our affairs quite well.

Our first son is a year two student of one the private universities while our second is warming up to go into the same university this year.

Three years ago, she told me of her desire to change church. I didn’t object since it was a church matter. I actually gave her all the encouragement since her happiness was uppermost in my mind.

Immediately she became a member of the church, Deeper Life, I noticed she changed completely, first were her trinkets and her manner of dressing. In place of the clothes she favoured, she started wearing shapeless clothes and without consulting me, stopped dressing her hair.

Just as I was trying to grapple with these changes, she began to complain about our marriage. She said was a visitor in my life and that she had committed the sin of marrying another woman’s husband.

My first wife had to come into the matter when her complaints were becoming too much. My first wife assured her that having lived with her for 18 years, she was glad at the opportunity of knowing her.

Without any premonition of what was to come, she woke up one day and packed out of my house saying the church said she should. I watched her move out of the house in a trance. To me it was like watching a movie.

She didn’t make attempt at taking the children with her, as she said the church warned against it. Nothing the children, friends and family members said could change her mind. I even went to the church to threaten them but I was told to leave her alone.

Six months later, they forced her to marry a man who is 12 years her junior.

The question I am asking Agatha is whether it is right to take the wife of another man to another man? Is that what the Bible says? What kind of church would be so callous to separate a woman from her children? She says what she has done is restitution. Is it right?

Please help me because I have read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and I haven’t seen any portion to support what this church has done to me. She remains my wife since I haven’t divorced her and have no wish to.

Olalekan

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Dear Olalekan,

There is indeed no aspect of the Bible to support marrying off the wife of another man to another in the name of restitution. This doctrine is strange. At all times, the application of the Bible is based on God given wisdom. Since God isn’t the author of confusion it follows, He would never allow His words be used to cause pains and disappointments in the lives of His own.

Granted that the Bible talks about restitution when one becomes born again, its proper application has remained a subject of controversy. In some churches, this woman would not be encouraged to go into another marriage almost immediately but given the support to help her begin another life in company of her children. At least her nudge towards matrimony will not be this immediate to give her time to adjust to her new way of life.

Therefore, this doctrine can only be the product of this church, not that of God. Even if they are insisting on restitution on account of her presence inflicting emotional pains on your first wife, they have destroyed whatever point they hoped to gain with the stance by arranging a marriage between her and another man irrespective of his age.

In asking her to leave the home and husband of another woman, they should have considered principally the feelings of those innocent children. They are the real issue here. The best the church could have done is to support her to be alone with her children and not commit the legal and moral offence of encouraging her to marry another man while turning her back on those children.

I fail to see the moral ground of this marriage. What sorts of marriage are they hoping the two can have? A marriage where one is coming with 18 years of experience against the other one’s zero experience?

Furthermore, what about the children? Are those children also to be deprived of the love and presence of their mother on the basis of her making the first mistake of marrying another woman’s husband? Should solutions to a mistake and problem ignore reality and objectivity of the situation on ground?

God appoints to us all responsibility for our actions, which means, her responsibility to her children cannot be ignored whatsoever. Marrying her off to another man cannot erase the fact that she has a past, perpetuated by her three children, even if they feel your feelings or presence amount to nothing in all these, while same cannot be said of the products of her union with you.

Without fear or favour, what they have done paints the Christian responsibility to us as superficial and hypocritical.

The church and society owe children a good measure of responsibility, which at all times has first call over all other issues. To have coldly ignored the children in the decision of restitution, amounts clearly to throwing the baby out with the bath water. There is no justifying whatsoever the decision of the leadership of the church to separate a mother from her children.

Frankly, with the way things have turned out, there is nothing you say to this woman now that would make sense to her or change her current feelings towards you. Allow her be and concentrate your energy on those children who by now would be wondering why their mother left them without thoughts.

You must do everything possible to protect them from any psychological problem that might arise from all these as well as whatever negative attitude they may want to develop to the things of God.

Understandably, you have every reason to be bitter, resentful as well as confused but the best approach to things like this, is allowing the will of God prevail at every turn of event. It is a battle beyond you, one only God has the final say, because sometime what we think is right in our eyes may be wrong in His estimation.

Until He speaks on this issue, don’t because of what has happened make you lose faith in God or His ways. However, we, as human beings, try to interpret His thoughts. But we will never succeed at knowing the secret of His ways. That is why He remains God and we Human beings.

The greatest joy you can give to yourself and these children is to ensure they succeed in life. This is what you owe them. Your claim to them remains without dispute. Always remember this at all times to make this period endurable for you.

Good luck.