Dear Agatha,
I am a 21-year-old undergraduate who has been in a four-year-old relationship. I knew my man when I was still very young and I have been faithful to him. He travelled earlier this year to another state, but before he left he told many people to keep their eyes on me.
Since he left, we have been having problems whenever he phones. Some times he had told me that some people saw me with a guy, while others told him they saw me with married men. After hearing all these stories from him, I would become restless and spend huge amount of money to prove my innocence.
The recent story has to do with a man in the compound of my mother’s elder sister and her family, a place where I also reside.
The man in question has just got married. One evening, a woman who lives in our compound called to inform me that the man’s wife complained to her about me looking for her husband at night. I was so surprised because nothing like that had happened.
Immediately she told me this, I called my boyfriend to inform him of the story, but to my surprise, he told me not to bother him, but instead I should either go and sort my problems out. He took the opportunity to remind me of the several times he had kept questioning me of having affairs with other boys. I have done everything to make him understand the fact that I love him very much and how I have remained faithful to him.
Please auntie do I continue with him or do I quit the relationship?
Iheoma.
Dear Iheoma,
One thing is for you to claim you are innocent of all the several accusations being levelled against you, but the real question is, are you?
How come not one but several people, including this woman are accusing you of the same thing? What precisely are you doing wrong? Why all these people especially the woman single you out as dating her husband? Are you the only single lady in that compound? Why you?
This is what your boyfriend is trying to understand. If the complaints are coming from just one person, they can be said be said to have been made out of envy. Perhaps he would have been able to understand and endure it but from several persons? In his shoes what would you think? Would you have believed the stories from these different people were false?
The first issue here is not for you to convince him about your innocence but that of knowing why you are attracting all the negative comments to yourself. Without you first doing this, the issue of your fidelity will continue to come up and tear the two of you apart.
Is your closeness to all these men the major cause of your problem or just your carelessness about your image to think of the implications of some of the actions you take?
A woman must at all times be conscious of her image and what impact her actions would have on her reputation. To be fair to you, you may be innocent of all the accusations but because you are doing something very wrong through the choices you are making, the accusations will keep coming.
So, you must really sit back to think on what could be making you the target of what you think are malicious gossips against you.
Living apart from each other means you have to be more careful about the company you keep, what you say, what you wear as well as your general conduct. What you will ordinarily do or say when he is around and get away with, don’t expect the same kind of freedom or support when you are separated by distance. This is because distance creates insecurity in a couple that lacks what it takes to trust each other whether together or not. You are young, so also is your man; both of you are yet to master the strength of overcoming the monster of distance, walking above it to keep your hearts united irrespective of what is being peddled about you.
Again part of your problem has to do with the kind of relationship both you had before he changed location. Had both of you taken the pains as well as made the necessary sacrifices to grow your relationships with the right values, he would have exercised certain trust in you based on his knowledge of you. Something is obviously wrong.
However, before calling it a day with him, why not make the attempt at seeing him first to properly explain why you think you are being unjustly accused by all these people?
Your decision on whether to end the relationship will depend on the outcome of your meeting as well as how far you succeed in convincing him of your loyalty.
Good luck.
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