Dear Agatha,
You may see me as a cradle robber but I am not. I am in love with a girl, who is in Senior Secondary class one. I am 25 to her 14 years of age.
Although I don't intend to marry her now, I desire a relationship with her. However, my worry is that she still has far to go in terms of completing her education and to be ready for marriage.
I need your advice as a mother. She is all I need in a woman. She is God fearing, caring, respectful and I intend to show her love forever.
I really want to know if my feeling for her and waiting would amount to exercise in futility at the end of the day.
I am confused as to my next step of action. Should I wait until she turns 18 before telling her about my love for her or should I tell her now and wait till she turns 18 so that she can make the right decision?
Please, I need your motherly advice. I want to point out that what attracted me to her is her sense of maturity. I initially thought she was about 20 years of age. In addition, she is very pretty.
Chy.
Dear Chy,
Allow her be. She is still too young to carry the burden of your feelings for her. Telling her about how you feel at this tender age would only act as a distraction for her, particularly at this age when she is beginning to notice her body and feelings as a woman. She really needs her freedom to be young and free of any obligations to anybody.
This is her age of learning, the point in her life to dream and make plans for her future. Besides, she has to have the freedom to be a girl first before being a wife.
The way to handle this type of interest is to be a good friend to her family and to be her role model. Since you have the plans to marry her, provide her with a solid support base to keep her morality. Provide her with all the encouragements she needs to come out with flying colours in her studies by offering to help her in the grey areas of her subjects. Having gone through the process, make yourself a dependable resource person in the subjects you have a thorough knowledge of and which she is also studying.
Being a good friend will help her get to know you and come to her own conclusions about you without the burden of knowing you are in love with her. It will also give you further insight into her young mind to help you come to the final conclusions about her.
The danger of telling her about your love for her is that it could drive her away from you completely. But when she sees you as a big brother, she won’t have any inhibitions sharing her fears, dreams and interests with you.
Through this, you both are able to build a solid support base on which to anchor the foundation of your friendship from its neonatal stage. This support base is what offers couple the tool to mend disappointments, pains as well as other challenges of two people trying to make a life together.
As for the length of time it would take her to be ready, it is one of the sacrifices you must have to endure for falling in love with someone so young. Use the 11 years of advantage you have to invest in getting something meaningful for both of you. At 25, you also have a long way to go in terms of putting the right structures in place as a man. Marriage doesn’t just begin and end with a man finding the right woman. It takes a lot more efforts for him to be able to keep the woman happy.
Her age has given you the advantage of time, as pressures wouldn’t be coming from her end for you to marry her before you are ready as a man. As a matter of fact, by the time she is really ripe enough to put the pressures on you, you will be more than ready to care for whatever challenges that come from a man and woman being together.
Rather than waste time on the number of years it would take her, concentrate more efforts and building yourself as a man.
Look at your current level of achievements: are you satisfied with who and what you are? If given the choice to marry her today, are you in the position to adequately care for her and any child that would come thereafter?
The waiting won’t appear endless if you invest your time meaningfully on growing yourself even in terms of improving your educational status. In life, no matter how successful one is, there is always a next level to graduate to. It is that level you should aim while you wait for her to mature and be ready to accept or reject your proposal.
In waiting, you also have to factor in her needs and dreams as a young girl. How far are you willing to support this dream? And how much space can you give for her to be happy? In addition, how long are you willing to wait for her to grow before forcing your presence on her?
You must have answers to all these important questions because she would be interested in knowing when you finally open up to her. Furthermore, the parents would be interested in knowing too once they notice your unusual interest in their daughter.
At this early stage, you must be very clear about the qualities you really want in a woman. One thing is to think you know while it is another for you to be sure. Remember she is still growing and yet to manifest all her attributes as a woman. How much of these changes can your feelings for her withstand and endure? Do you think your feelings for her would be able to withstand this test of time?
All these are what you should properly plan out before you unveil your feelings for her.
Also, begin to pray towards your goal for her as well as the life you plan to have with her.
For now, restrict yourself to being a brother and friend to her because your current role in her life is to help her grow into a responsible young woman.
Good luck.
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