Let me first of all thank you for your selfless efforts in giving quality advice to people you don’t even know. I am a regular reader of your splendid articles and am convinced you have affected so many lives positively. God will continue to give you the most needed knowledge and wisdom to carry on.
I?m a Nigerian living in The Netherlands, have what it takes to get married at this ripe time, but there is something bothering my mind. I would love to marry a Nigerian woman, not a foreigner.
I am in love with a Nigerian girl here whom I later discovered has been traumatised. She was a victim of human trafficking, forced into prostitution.
I’ve tried to help her come out from her past, but the more I try the more things get worst. From all indications, she?s still dwelling in her past, because most of her attitudes reflect the presence of unsolved psychological problems.
My question is this, do you think is possible for her to come out of her past and embrace the present and future? And in your sincere opinion, is it advisable for me to marry an ex-prostitute?
Please help me out.
Diaspora Nigerian.
Dear Diaspora Nigerian,
What I think has nothing to do with what you feel for this woman. The power of love is such a great thing that it can forgive anything. Hence whatever anybody says or does is immaterial, provided you have the guts and passion to make it work for both of you. Besides, we all come condemned. At least with her, you know what you are going into unlike in other situations where you think the person you are involved with is a saint only to discover the person is Lucifer’s incarnate.
A lot of the time, it is the person we have become that has the essence in life, not the mistakes we made in the past. If her mistake is prostitution and she has repented, who is anybody to condemn whom God hasn’t?
If her offence doesn’t include prostituting her body again, then every other thing she is going through or doing can be resolved by both of you. What is important here is the amount of love you in particular have for this woman.
Because you are going to have the challenge of living with the stigma of her past, you must be sure of your feelings to prevent causing her greater psychological harm. Should you abandon the marriage midway on account of not being able to tolerate any more memories of her past life, you could send her to her abyss. Therefore be sure you know what you feel and is contemplating going into.
Again, it would help if you make her go over again the details of her life from the time she can remember to the time you both met. The information is essential to help you know what to do and where to concentrate efforts in the task of re-habilitating her.
Don’t forget that prostitution wasn’t something she planned on when she came to Europe, but found herself being forced into it by the people she trusted cum with the unfriendly circumstances of her host country. Unless naturally promiscuous, many women who go into prostitution are never happy doing it, hence it causes them to develop psychological problem, because it takes something special for a woman to open herself to any man.
When she is forced to endure the presence, attention and involvement of so many men in her life, it makes her feel inferior and abused. After years of enduring the attention of different men, most of whom are drunks, demand situations of her which in ordinary circumstances should never be made to do, meeting a man who finally decides to treat her like a woman would take a lot of time getting used to.
You are a different ball game, showing her another side of man, one who condemns her body and soul. Right now, she can’t believe you are for real at all, because she is still asking herself the question ‘why her’ when you can get any woman you like to marry.
Sincerely, she is finding it difficult to place the woman she had hoped to be side-by-side with the woman she is now and trying to have an image of the woman you are trying to make her be.
Don’t also ignore the fact that someone’s promise to her got her into prostitution, now you are coming with another promise, can she trust you to help her out of the woods of doom someone callously plunged her into?
Until she is sure of who you are and what your real intentions are, the battle of whether to trust someone with her life once again or continue in the one she has been forced into would continue to go on in her mind.
As a man ready to spend the rest of his life with her, there are certain things you must do not just declarations. You must go beyond the level of telling her you love her to acting it. The first real challenge for both of you is to go with her to those places she frequented, where her trade is known to declare through demonstration your desire to make an honest woman out of her. If not convinced of your intentions before, allowing yourself to be seen with her in her former business district, cuddling her and acting as if she is the only woman alive, would help reduce the tension of anxiety she feels each time she remembers the past and the new future you plan with her.
You have to help her recover her courage to face the world with the little dignity she has. You have to offer her a foolproof blanket of undiluted love and true friendship, enough to make her relax and truly hope for the first time in a long while to hope for something good.
No number of re-habilitation homes can do what your love can do for her. It is only a true, selfless, patient and tolerant person that can drag the defeated woman who has been buried deep inside her out of the image of the woman before you. The real person died the day she went into peddling her body to satisfy the greed and tricky nature of those who lured her abroad and the trade she was forced into.
Don’t forget she lost her dignity as a woman as well as respect for herself in the process of doing this.
It will take the grace of God as well as your unreserved attention to make her come completely bury the painful memories of that time of her life.
Even in making love to her, you have to show some decency and sensitivity to her mood. One of the worst mistakes you can make is to assume that having been a prostitute she must know what you want in the bedroom. No! Pretend, if you have to do that, she is coming to you with fresh credentials. Pamper her with every attention as well as making sure you don’t appear to be too desperate to go to bed with her, if you haven’t committed the mistake already. Give her time to get used to you, show her what true courtship is, before bringing up the issue of sex if you must. And when with her, make it appear as if it’s the first time for her by showing her consideration every step of the way. This you can achieve by asking her questions about her preferences, whether you are hurting her or not even when you know you are not as well as allowing her a say in the way things go between the two of you.
There is also the need for you at every point to remind her of the quality of your love. With her you must say and do it together to help her overcome the psychological and emotional problems she has harboured for long.
Because all these emotions took some time to build up, it would also take time for it to vanish. Don’t expect instant transformation, because this isn’t a movie, but a real life situation. Expect her to, from time to time, fall into depression and self-loathing, but with you by her side she would eventually heal as long as you are honest enough on this issue.
Sincerely, if you have made up your mind to marry this woman, do so and stop worrying about what anybody would say, and please don’t discuss the issue of her past life with anybody again. The most important thing is for you to be sure she is the right woman for you.
If you have doubts, please don’t hesitate to go to God in prayers and total supplications. He is the only one able to direct you appropriately.
Good luck.
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