Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Thorough Tutorial On Interracial Marriage, Internet Dating


Dear Agatha,


You are indeed a rare gem in the tackling of affairs, relationships and my sincere prayer to you is that your hands would continue to be lifted up higher.


My question is this, what are the practical ways of making interracial marriages work as well as manage internet relationship? I would also be glad if you tell me the dangers of internet relationship.


Confused Man.


Dear Confused Man,

One of the major challenges facing interracial marriages is that of harmonisation of broad cultural and social differences. Man is a complex entity whose environment further makes multifaceted.

For an interracial relationship or marriage to work, a couple must first address the issue of their different environmental upbringings to avoid strangulating the relationship mid way.

This is because no matter what we profess, we are essentially the product of our environment, which means certain behavioural pattern are so entrenched they become irrevocable in our attitudes towards life.

For instance, a culture that supports tremendous respect for elders will find it almost impossible to tolerate the liberalness of a society where children can boldly address elders by their first names. The couple involved in such a union will first of all have to abridge the rigidity of their cultures to have a common ground for the relationship to survive.

Such an arrangement needs more than the average understanding, support and tolerance to be able withstand external influences and sharp opinions from family members, who may not understand the need for the compromises and sacrifices their child is making for love.

The man especially, must be very understanding, resolute about what he wants from life to be able to make a success of his relationship.

This is on account of the pressures his own family would put him through, the names he would be called and estrangement he may suffer as a result of his foreign wife and new ways.

While a woman may be able to adjust after a while, the inbuilt male ego makes it very difficult for the man to make such major adjustment to his character and person. Even, if he desires to make the adjustment, his male ego more often than not, makes it impossible for him to bend backwards, especially when surrounded by friends and family.

As the man, be sure you know what you are going into as well as the sacrifices you have to make to help the woman in your life survive the challenges of taking on a new culture outside her own. Also be prepared to be a patient teacher, tolerant husband, a loving father as well as good friend to the woman who is living familiarity for unfamiliarity.

To do this well, the man should undertake a study of the culture of the people he wants to marry into. Knowledge gives a good insight into things which power alone doesn’t.

The man may have the power but a good knowledge of his wife’s culture and environmental influences would give him a better insight into how to manage his home.

Above all, the man should learn to be fair-minded at all times. When the woman behaves out of line, he would have the fairness of mind to know it wasn’t intended to insult his position or his people.

In all these, what counts is honesty. If a couple is honest and willing to put the interest of the other person before own, no matter what part of the world or cultures they are coming from it will work.

The same principle applies to internet relationship. Men and women who favour it should from day one have the determination to tell the truth always irrespective of what is involved. Once trust is secured, other things would fall into place.

Lie is the danger to every relationship.

Good luck.

Besides Sex What Can I Do To Win Her Heart?


Dear Agatha,


I wish to express my indebtedness to you for your kind counsel to humanity. Almighty God will endow you with more wisdom.

I am a young man in my 20s and have been in relationships with women and most time, it seems we are not really making any headway.

I have this particular friend of mine whom I love and cherish so much that I would like to spend the rest of my life with her. We have been friends for so long now, but one thing baffles me she doesn’t seem committed or open minded towards our relationship though she has always claimed to be in love with me, and also a nice friend. This has continued to be a source of concern to me.

When I told my friends about it they said there must be a level of intimacy in a relationship. Usually a physical intimacy between a dating couple for the relationship to attract the type of exchange of confidence I desire.

They are of the view that the lack of intimacy with my girlfriends is the reason they don’t confide in me. They further argued that until I learn to have physical intimacy, I could never get into the heart of the woman I cherish. Now my questions are: must one really engage in physical intimacy with a lady before she can really open up or show commitment?

Secondly, what effect does physical intimacy have on morality?

Finally, what other ways can a man get into the heart of the woman he is in love with?

Worried Guy.


Dear Worried Guy,

Your friends are wrong. A couple doesn’t have to be physically intimate to be able to talk and share information about each other. It is an act that comes from trust and acceptance of the other person, as your own extension.

This comes from a deep realisation that a relationship has many facets, all which need constant attention and synchronisation to make it whole.

If all your previous dates have problems talking to you, then you have a problem of taking the women in your life out of their shells. Whether you make love to them every single day and hour won’t change the fact that you lack the ability to attract their trust sufficiently to confide in you.

Therefore, begin the task of having conversational intimacy by looking at your own faults. What are the issues that interest you in life? What are your interests in these women? What sort of friend are you to yourself? There is no way you can be a friend to anybody if you haven’t learnt the act of being your own friend. Intimacy with anybody comes from the type of relationship one has been able to cultivate with self. For instance, if one has the habit of lying to him or herself, there is no way, that person will be able to tell the truth to anybody.

A person who has trouble accepting the person God created for him or her, to be able to ever accept the defect in another person or the uniqueness the other person has will be a tough task.

Developing intimacy with another person is an effort that comes from accepting yourself as your own friend.

Therefore, first learn to be at peace with yourself, accepting things you can do as well as acknowledging your own limitations. This way, you will be able to recognise the needs of those close to you, their apprehension as well as the hesitation to let go.

These are challenges sex doesn’t mean love. Rather, it complicates in the sense that issues that need verbal solutions are taken to the bedroom and at the end of the day are left unresolved. This in turn piles up the bin of unattended issues, which at the end of the day destroys the future of the relationship. At this stage, not even sex can cover up the decay in the relationship, whereas a friendship that is able to talk out their differences will survive tougher challenges because it has the trust to attract loyalty. By the time sex is introduced, it simply becomes the icing on the cake.

And if your friends were right, how come sexually active relationships, including marriages are all crumbling like packs of cards? The simple answer to that is friendship and not sex is the cement that holds any relationship together.

Therefore strive to become a very good friend to your partner to be able to attract confidence and loyalty. It is always easy to confide in one’s friend than one’s lover.

Offer your woman friendship to earn her trust. Once you do that, it would be easy to get her to talk to you about herself because that way she is assured of your support, which drives away the fear of condemnation.

Many a time, dating couples are afraid to talk about themselves or their past for fear of rejection. You agree the human nature likes to project self in the best possible way especially to strangers and only opens up to those considered to be friends.

You will fare better with your date if she sees you as her friend.

There is no way your morality would not be affected if you take to building your relationship on sex. Once you begin it, it becomes very easy to jump from one girl to another and very soon a habit which will conflict with whatever moral or religious inclination you may have built over the years.

And because sex doesn’t insure against disappointment in a relationship, you end up experimenting with so many women and at the end of the day confuse yourself about the right choice of a woman.

So be careful whom you listen to. God is the only one who can direct you in the best way. To be sure, look at the success of your friends in their relationships? How many of them despite being sexually active are able to boast of stable and consistent relationship?

Good luck.