At Last, He Left With His Sheer Trickery…

Dear Agatha,

I have a question, which has been agitating my mind for some time. There is this boy I dated for about six months. He was 23 while I was 18 then. We had great fun together. But we never agree on the issue of sex. Although we are both Christians, I however belief sex before marriage is wrong, but he seems to think it is ok. He lost his virginity when he was 16, but of the opinion if I did the same thing at the age he did it, he would have labelled me a girl of low moral. 

It is disgusting how he could have sex with a girl he was dating and whom he has no feelings for. He said he understood and respects the fact that I am waiting, but sometimes he would still ask questions like “what if I gave you a ring would we have sex?” Or what if I find another girl for sex, would you be ok with that? We would be physical, but not to the point of sex, which in retrospect I really regret now. So sometime in September last year, he signified his intentions to end the relationship. We stopped talking after a while, but began to speak to each other after a while. 

After a while, he wanted to know if I had gone into another relationship. I wondered why he wanted to know, but decided to ignore the question. In October we attended one of the events put together for the country independence anniversary. He was acting very cold and distant towards me, hiding to talk to other girls. We finally stopped talking for a month. I sometimes e-mail him to ask him for pictures I had left at his place. 

In November, he said he wanted to “reconnect with me” and that he missed me, so we began talking and we even talked about getting back together. 

Sometime in December we began to have problems until we stopped talking again in January. I stopped when he told me he was intimate with another girl.

At that point I told him I lost respect for him and I told him that he had no self-control. The thing about him is the fact that he would do something to upset me while he would act like nothing happened. Before then we talked about him coming for Valentine’s Day. 

At 24 he is, he still does things to please his friends, which to me is very unfortunate. We sometimes talk about marriage, but I would be a fool to think a wedding ring would automatically give him self-control. I have not talked to him since, and I don’t want to. I’m completely done with him and I’m grateful that I didn’t have sex with him. 

But I am worried if ignoring him completely is the best thing to do? Where do I look to for a Godly young man? I don’t want a repeat of that relationship. This time I want to make sure the guy is a growing Christian as I am and not a pretentious one. Please guide me towards something better, because I don’t want to settle for less.

Uwa.

Dear Uwa, 

If you have decided to end the relationship with this man, stop bothering yourself about his conduct with other women. He is no longer your business except of course you are still very interested in him. If you are, be honest enough to admit it to yourself at least.

Granted, you may not like his ways, but the fact that he was able to exercise self-control where you are concerned, didn’t pressured you into having sex with him even when you both got physically close, shows that in more ways than you know he has some measure of respect for you. It may not be enough for you, but given the fact that both of you were locked in some levels of intimacy where he could have used his strength to over-power you into submission shows the kind of respect he has for you.

You may not think him a good person because of his admission to having sex at 16 as well as his other relationships, but if you care to look deeper you would see a man who isn’t pretentious about what he beliefs in. The issue is how honest are you about your beliefs?
If you are really serious about keeping your virginity till marriage as a practising Christian, you would not allow yourself to be in a closed place with a man to the extent of allowing him get physically close to you. 

The simple truth about human nature is not in what we profess to be or how determined we are, but the application of wisdom, of knowing the pitfalls to avoid when it comes to the issue of sex. The human flesh is known to be treacherous, sometimes blind to our beliefs and the nature of our relationship to each other. It is for this reason you must at all times look at this boy who must have denied himself a great deal during the moments he held you close to his body with some level of respect. That you didn’t have sex with him isn’t because you wanted it that way, no! You didn’t because he also exercised some level control with you. When a woman allows herself to be touched in some places by a man behind closed doors, it takes the grace of God, for something not to happen. 

To avoid regrets later in life, be sure you know what you are looking for in a man and relationship before going into another one. I say this because you may not be so lucky as to meet a woman who has this self-control. It is either you make up your mind to hold on jealously to your religious beliefs by avoiding whatever form of intimacy with any man in a closed place, restricting all your relationship to an open place or face the reality about yourself. Be clear about this to help you in your next relationship.

Besides, you have to have a mental image of the kind of man for you. What kind of man, irrespective of religion would make you a happy woman?

Faithfulness to our partners is not about keeping our bodies just for our partners alone, it is being truthful in what we say and do. But for one to get to the point of knowing what faithfulness is all about, one must first imbibe it as a way of life. There are millions of men out there, but for you to know who among them is yours would make you happy, you have to begin the search from your heart. 

What are those things real about you as well as those things that are fake? It is important you are very honest with yourself. Without you first asking God what is His purpose for you on earth, you might not recognise what and who you need to help you go through the storms of life with less injury as possible. 

Our situations in life are patterned by the almighty to make us triumph over changing life situations. 

Your solution is to key into God’s plans for you and to be sincere about whom you are. 

Good luck.