My Boyfriend Complains About My Tribe, Height

Dear Agatha,

I thank God Almighty for your life and pray he continues to increase your wisdom. May you be watered as you water God’s people. 

I have been in a relationship with a Christian brother for almost a year now. He asked me to marry him from the onset and I conceded after a few months. The relationship, to a great extent, has not really been fun-filled and fulfilling as I expected.

Along the line, he told me his parent and siblings have expressed reservations for his choice of a life partner. I am an Igbo, while he is an Edo man. When we went to visit his people, they actually acted out their disapproval.

This isn’t the only challenge the relationship is facing. He is also having issues with my height. I am of an average height and he is not really on the tall side. One of his complaints is that he doesn’t want to have children who are would not be tall. 

Right now the whole thing is hanging but he doesn’t appear to want to break up the relationship. I’ve not walked out because most things about him seem like prayers answered to me. 

What do I do? Do I tell him off or just watch him do what he wants to do? I have just two weeks, starting from today, to take a decision.

Please, I really count on your advice. 

Mabella.

Dear Mabella, 

This is something you and your boyfriend must sit to discuss as frankly as possible. There is nothing anybody can do for both of you if either of you lacks the conviction that you both have to invest a great deal in making the relationship work. 

Sincerely, the issues he is playing up are really nothing in a relationship in which love reigns supreme. Your tribe and height are becoming issues because he isn’t certain about his feelings for you or what he wants from life. 

And if you intend to have a quality relationship with him, you have to help him face himself and the choices before him. If you insist on staying in this relationship out of sentiments, chances are you may never have the peace and happiness you crave for in life. Therefore, you must encourage him to take an introspective look at himself, his dreams in life as well as the kind of woman he thinks would help him to achieve them. Also, make him face the truth about his feelings for you. 

Ignore whatever you wish should happen now between the two of you and concentrate instead on what kind of life you would both have in future if you fail to take a decisive step now.

From experience, I know the fear, the pains already gathering inside you - the fear of losing someone you think you cannot do without. Again from that page of experience, I tell you that you cannot force something you don’t really have to be yours. If God meant this guy to be yours, it would not matter what his family says. 

But you have to learn to depend more on God and the signs he uses in communicating his wishes and ways to you. If this boyfriend of yours cannot convince his family that there is more to you than the place you come from or your height, then something is fundamentally wrong somewhere.  If he too is of average height and he is complaining about your height, do you think such a man would ever have the peace of mind to make you happy? Something has to come from deep within him to offer you a shoulder to depend on at all times. 

If he is unable to reconcile with your tribe and height now that you are dating, it portends an ominous sign that your relationship lacks the right kind of foundation it needs to be reliable and dependable in future. 

Let him be bold enough to specify his needs and desires. For instance, he should be able to tell you specifically what kind of woman he is looking for and whether you fit into his mental picture of such a woman. If you don’t fit into his image, let him tell you your areas of deficiency, and how you can both help each other refine those areas of objection. As long as true love exists between the two of you, everything that looks like a problem can be sorted out amicably. 

Whether you can stay with him or not, would depend largely on the conclusions you both arrive at as well as the honesty and understanding of the issues involved in your relationship. If you both agree to have the patience for the problem to expire, you can stay because every relationship has its challenges; but if he is adamant, then there is little you can do; you can then move on with your life. And by God’s grace, someone who will take pride in your height and tribe would come your way. 

Your present boyfriend may be your Mr. Right, but if he doesn’t consider you to be his, there is nothing you can do about it.

Good luck.