I’m in a fix, my Philippine lover pregnant

Dear Agatha,  

This issue has been disturbing me and making me weary of the future. I’m a Nigerian living in China, I met a Philippine lady who also resides in China through the Internet and we were always charting till one day she decided to visit me in the city I stay. We were happy to see for the first time and ended up making love.

Two days after, she went back to her city, a month later she informed me she was pregnant by me. I asked if she was sure the pregnancy was mine. She picked offence at my question. Thereafter, she refused to discuss the matter again even though we were always communicating.

Six months after, she told me she would be travelling to her country. With pains and tears, I asked her why, she told me that there was a secret she had been keeping away from me. However, she opened up to me that she was six months pregnant.

Seriously I was shocked and didn’t know what to do. I am not financially capable of discharging my responsibility as a father to a child in a foreign land. Besides, she is also a foreigner. I don’t know what to do.

Confused Man.

Dear Confused Man, 

What is the confusion about? The issues you are raising now should have been put into consideration by you before having unprotected sex with her. When a man sleeps with a woman without protection or ensuring she is protected, he should expect to be a father anytime whether he is ready or not for the responsibilities that go with fatherhood. 

At the time you slept with her, didn’t you know she was a foreigner? Didn’t that factor in your consideration of her as your girlfriend? You saw in her a woman you liked and valued hence your willingness to have her in your life. If her nationality mattered to you at that point, you would have insisted on some form of protection before being intimate with her. 

What you should do is a simple matter of going to her side of the city to personally and discuss the matter with her. First, you must apologise to her for asking who the father of the unborn child is when she first told you about the pregnancy five months earlier. 

Responsibility isn’t just about having the money to execute your role as the father of the child, but acknowledging as well as accepting your own contributions to the situation. A woman doesn’t get pregnant by herself, but with the help of a man.  

Frankly, you didn’t act like a responsible man. No matter what you thought at that time, you erred by not insisting you both discussed the issue again. When a woman tells a man she is pregnant and refuses to discuss the matter again, the man should ask questions. Because you were running away from accepting responsibilities, you deliberately didn’t encourage her to talk about it. 

Rather than bemoan the fact that you aren’t ready for the challenges of being a father, why not begin to think of how you can make it easier on both of you by discussing your fears, limitations as well as plans for the future with her. From all indices, this woman isn’t expecting anything from you. Having kept the pregnancy for six months without telling you about it despite the fact that you communicate everyday, shows she is more than ready and able to function as the father and mother in the life of the child; an indication she isn’t expecting anything from your end.

If you allow this happen, you not only deny yourself the opportunity of being involved in the life of your child but might lose any right to claim the baby as yours either now or in the future.

Seeing her would enable you both come to a conclusion on the baby’s welfare. The secret about fatherhood is that no man ever has enough to kick-start a family, but when he begins with the little he has, God always steps in to provide the rest. All you have to do is to offer her what you have. What matters to women most time isn’t just the money but the presence of the man who has put them in the family way. 

During pregnancy, the woman is most vulnerable; feels bloated and unattractive even though she may actually be prettier than before. It is a psychological feeling which only the husband or the man who puts her in the condition can dispel. Whatever your situation is financially or otherwise, it behooves you to contribute in anyway to the welfare and progress of the pregnancy as well as the baby when it arrives. 

This is also not the right time to discuss the issue of her nationality with her. Don’t forget that you both found pleasure in each other’s company and that when it comes to love, what matters is the amount of happiness you are both getting from each other’s company. Besides, your current environment would certainly dictate the kinds of women you fall in love with.  Life is about making do with the choice we are presented with. For now, she is the choice of mother to your child. This is a fact you must accept and do everything you have to do to make it work. You not only owe it to the child but to yourself as a man. This is your first fruit, that child that tells the world that you are man in enough to father a child. 

Even if you have doubts about the paternity of the baby the responsible thing is to first accept it and do a DNA after birth if still convinced the child isn’t yours.

Good luck. 

I’m torn between my mum, pregnant love

Dear Agatha,

First, I have to thank you for the ways you have been helping people solve their emotional problems. 

I am a man of 30, the last of my mother’s six children. Being her last I was closest to her and her favourite. Back then I promised my mother I’d do anything to make her happy. Once she made me promise to marry a woman from our village, saying it would be the only thing that would keep her happy. 

I made her the promise. It was at the point I was travelling out of the village. I was 20 then. 

I later travelled out of the country to where I currently reside now. To keep the promise I made to my mother, I have been trying since then not to be in a serious relationship with any woman in this country. This is until I met this lady who is my age mate and the kind of woman I have always prayed to have in my life. One thing led to the other and now she is four months pregnant for me. 

Her family is fighting her for getting involved with a foreigner while I don’t want to betray the promise I made to my mother. On the other hand, I don’t want to betray the love of this lady who has sacrificed a lot for me. 

I am so confused. 

Nwa Chukwu.

Dear Nwa Chukwu, 

At 30, you are in the best of position to know what works for you. Besides, we are all subject to the intrigues and control of the environment we live in. while promises are meant to be kept, there are times God’s ways and desires overshadow what we think is best for us. 

And when it comes to the issue of relationships and marriages, only God has the right answers to the choices before us. More often than not, the person we think is wrong for us turns out to be the best. This is because God’s ways are never ours. Being our creator He has answers our earthly parents don’t have about us. 

I am sure your mother’s desire is to see you happy and live long to enjoy the fruits of your labour. 

The worst thing that can happen to any adult man or woman is to go into marriage with the wrong partner. Apart from torpedoing the dreams of many people, some have been known to die as a result of marrying the wrong person. 

God is forever in the business of re-arranging the things we think we want to suit His own order for us. 

You are one of the lucky men to have a woman who is ready to do anything to make her man happy. Most women these days are on the look out for what they can get from a man and not what they can give him. Your mother made you promise to marry someone from your village because it is what she is familiar with. In making you make that promise, she considered the familiarity of your culture, language and restrictions. Because the choice she made with your father worked, she can be forgiven to think that marrying a girl from your village would give you the same measure of happiness. But you and I know that just as she has a success story to tell, there are people too in your village who though married to locals are either divorced or living in constant regrets of the decision to marry the person they married.

Marriage is often not about where one is from but what one wants from life and the marriage. At this point, what do you both want from being with each other and from life generally? This is what should count now and not the fact that you are caught between the promise you made to your mother and your love for this girl.

At any rate, the issue has moved away from what your mother wants to the fact that she is four months pregnant with your child and your mother’s grandchild. Being her favourite child, she would be happy to see your grandchild, know that you are man enough to get a woman pregnant. 

I am sure she wouldn’t want you to throw away the first confirmation of your manhood. At any rate, a lot would depend on how you are able to package your girlfriend before your mother. Just like your mother is most likely to react, her family is already up in arms against her for the same reasons your mother made you promise to marry someone close to you. 

In both cases, fear is the underlining reason for the opposition. 

Thank goodness you are both old enough to make your decisions. At this point, there is the need for you to brave the storm and go with some of your friends to see her family to explain your mission to them. Let them know that despite coming from different cultures, you know what is expected of you as a man. By letting them know that not only do you plan to marry her, your love for her is genuine and that you plan to inform your people too of your desire to take her for a wife.

Whatever their reservations are, at least let them know you are responsible.

As for your mother, this kind of news is best delivered in person. So if you can afford it, come down to the country to personally inform your mother.  Being your mother, you know how best to break the news to her as well as soften her up sufficiently to listen first and debate it later. 

Do not break the news to her in person only if it is impossible for you to travel out of your host country immediately. Let your mother know that apart from the difference in culture, she has all the qualities she would wish in the woman who becomes your wife. The news about the pending baby should be thrown in when she becomes too stubborn to listen. 

However, ultimately, the choice is yours to make. You are the one who is going live with your eventual choice so be bold enough to take a firm stand on the matter putting into consideration that marriage is a complex venture which requires wisdom and understanding to go into. Nobody feels the discomfort of a shoe like the one putting it on. 

Just as you have obligations to your mother so do you have to this girl and the baby she is carrying. On a scale of 1-10, they come before your mother because they are your family, your eternity. I agree this is hard to accept but it is the naked reality. You can’t marry your mother, the things you can do with this girl, you can’t do with your mother despite being the one who gave birth to you. Your mother is married to the person of her choice and so should you. Irrespective of what civilisation brews, the family unit is still as relevant to the well-being of the child as it was in the dark ages. 

You have an obligation to this woman and child she is carrying. She needs you now more than ever before. This is the time she needs evidence of your love, especially as she is suffering rejection from her family. It isn’t what a man says to a woman before taking her to bed that matters, it is what he says and does after the deed is done that underscores a man’s true feelings for that woman. 

When issues get this complicated, develop the habit of going to God in prayers for His presence and direction in your life. He remains the source of your completeness and happiness as a human being as well as master of your own game in life. For a man who wants to succeed in marriage, never allow this slip through your fingers.

Good luck.  

Her abroad lover only posts passion without any gift…

Dear Agatha, 

I am a regular reader of your column and must commend your good work here. Do keep it going. I am actually writing on behalf of my friend who needs advice. But first I need to know this: must a guy be presenting a girl with gifts before he can be said to truly love the girl? Also, do you think that two people having a distant relationship may end up getting together in life some day? 

Well, my friend has this guy abroad whom she has not met before but has only seen through a picture. They have been talking on phone for over a year now. The guy says he loves her and she also feels she loves him too; obviously she misses him terribly and thinks of him all the time.  But what she doesn’t understand is why the guy has not bothered sending her anything at all since they started this distant date of theirs. She, however, says that the guy tells her he doesn’t have a well-paying job over there, is trying to survive and see a way to come back to the country so they would get married. But personally I feel that irrespective of how hard things are for a guy, he can just try to present the girlfriend with some gifts to show he cares really. 

Honestly, I do not know what advice to give to my friend as she visualises having a future together with this guy yet she complains that the guy has not sent her anything. On certain occasions, she pretended to the guy that she had no money and the guy told her that she should rather stop working so he would know that he is working for two of them now and would then start sending her money. Agatha, please how can you interpret this? Fine, the guy might be stingy but does that depict love in any sense?  And he goes on all day telling my friend that he loves her dearly and can’t wait to get back to be with her. 

My friend says the guy tells her that since they started talking, about 13 months now he has not met any other woman sexually because he loves and respects her. And he also asked God to give him the grace not to mess with any other woman whenever he finds one he wants to marry. Please, could you say that the guy is being honest here as a man?  Please, help me advise my friend as I want her to move on with her life rather than wait for this guy whom she feels she obviously loves. And she is worried as to whether the guy would be able to take care of her needs irrespective of the fact that she is able to take care of herself financially. 

Concerned Friend. 

Dear Concerned Friend, 

Three is always a crowd in any relationship. No matter how noble your intentions are continued interference in this relationship isn’t healthy at all. If care weren’t taken you would be ruining this relationship between your friend and this man. 

Step aside and allow both of them to make their mistakes. Also you must avoid a situation where you and your friend would quarrel over this matter. Yes, you have every right to be concerned but there are limits. Your friend is in love and from experience; it is the wrong time to try to convince anyone to be careful. Don’t discourage them. Allow them be. 

The danger of you insisting she leaves him may boomerang on your friendship. Overtime, she could begin to wonder and rightly too what your interest really is. You have told her your fears; allow her make her mistakes because it is through those mistakes she can learn to cope with life’s challenges. Your role as a friend is to be there for her always, not discouraging her from feeling love because irrespective of what you think, love happens in unexpected places and situations.

If both of them are able to manage the relationship and build the confidence to make it work it could. 

Doubtless distant relationship has its drawbacks but a lot depend on the couple involved. First they must have an understanding of each other as well as the risk of living apart especially for the man. Problems come when the couple lives on idealism, pretending that nothing can go wrong. The truth is couples that live apart face a lot of temptations in their relationships. Although those that live together too face the same challenges but the risk of extra marital affair is higher in distant relationships because there are days when the body chemical is too strong to resist. This is where commitment and sense of responsibility to one’s spouse comes in. This is also the point where trust plays a vital role. 

Both of them need to talk openly about this vital issue and she must have the trust to believe what he says. If he says he hasn’t slept with a woman since meeting her, until confronted with evidences, it is in her interest to trust him and give him all the encouragement he needs to be on the right track. When a woman refuses to have confidence in the words, she creates crisis for herself; sometimes as serious as the man forsaking whatever good intentions he has to make the woman happy. Until your friend is confronted with evidences of this man’s irresponsibility, it would be wrong to say he is telling lie. She has to learn to trust him on little things first. To distrust him is to call to questions the sanity of her feelings. 

At any rate, she knew this man lives abroad, must have put into consideration this salient fact before agreeing to a relationship with him. No matter how smart the man is, if she is able to get him whenever she calls, picks her calls no matter the time, she must learn to trust him a little bit. She can only worry when he is unable to pick her calls at a particular time, gives excuses for not picking her calls at odd hours, insists he does all the calling that she can suspect him of any thing. 

As for being stingy, it is a simple matter of what is important to your friend. In the first place, what is her motive for going into the relationship? If she is comfortable financially why is she lying about needing funds for something when she really doesn’t need it? Is her choice of this man based on the fact that he lives abroad? Before you can accuse this man of being miserly, there must be enough proof that he indeed has the money and is not ready to give her. 

Chances are that she may actually be better off financially than this man. The fact that he lives abroad doesn’t mean he automatically controls the vault of that nation. Relationship is also about understanding where the other person is coming from. That a man lavishes gift on his woman doesn’t mean he is in love with her. It could just be infatuation, lust or other emotion that isn’t love.  He could also be refusing to send money to find out if she indeed is in love with him or only interested in his money. Like it is difficult for you to trust him, he could also be suspicious of what your friend feels for him. 

Your friend has to decide what is important to her, his money or his trust and friendship? They are not talking about relationship here; they are thinking of a lifetime journey together. Hence the need for her to be careful about the values she plays up. If he is a struggling young man, honest enough to say he doesn’t have excess cash to throw around, she has to make up her mind whether this is good enough for her or not. If money is her motivation for this relationship, she shouldn’t pretend about it. From all indices, this man may not be her man but if her intention is to marry him out of love, she must learn from this early stage to make the required sacrifices to solidify the foundation they are both planning to put up. 

It is also imperative you step aside for this couple to fuse, make their mistakes and learn from these mistakes.

Good luck.

Linked on phone… stopped picking calls after my first visit

Dear Agatha,

I am a young girl of 23 years and a student of one of the Polytechnics in the East. There is this guy I met few months ago. I got his number from your column in the September 12 edition. He talked about being a virgin.  I became interested in him because I didn’t know a guy could be a virgin at the age of 25 and also a graduate. So I sent him an SMS and from there we started communicating. I love this guy so much that I call him almost everyday despite the fact that we were yet to meet physically. My love for him grew the more when I realised he resides in the East very close to where I live. We agreed on the need to meet and how. I promised to be the one to visit, he accepted. 

After the visit which I thought went successfully well, he hasn’t called me again.  Even when I call to know what the problem is, he won’t pick my calls. Even when I used another number to call him, he told me there is no problem that he is just busy. I know he is always busy, but not to the extent of not picking my calls. Did I make a mistake being the one to visit him first or are my calls disturbing him? Or does his attitude show that what he saw that day was not the kind of person he was expecting. Please help me, because I love this guy and do not want to lose him.

Shevchenko.

Dear Shevchenko,

You have gotten to that stage where you cannot afford to push harder than you have done already. You have shown your interest and willingness to begin something with him. Until he makes up his mind about you and what he wants, there is little or nothing you can do. 

Until then, manage your hurt and desires to be with him to prevent you from being hurt than you already are. To continue to push yourself into something he is apparently yet to make up his mind on is to set yourself up for a major disappointment as the days go by. 

Besides, you must allow him to get used to you, sort out his feelings for you as well make up his mind about what he wants from you. While you appear to be ahead of him in terms of your feelings towards him, he still wondering if he is doing the right thing. He could be confused about what to do especially if he hasn’t been intimate with a woman since he was born. Your coming though successful to you, may cause him some fright and cause him to think about his inexperience. Sincerely, for someone who dreadful of this lack of experience; you need to cool down a little bit in order not to suffocate him with attention or love. For now, he needs you more as a friend than anything you may have in mind. 

Friendship would help both of you define your relationship as well as give it the right foundation to stand firm. It will also enable him lose some of his inhibitions as well as relax where you are. He has to first learn to trust you and your motive in all these.

So allow him be, and be contented with playing the supportive role of a friend when he shows signs of wanting to talk to you. For now, it is his game not yours so allow him to dictate the tempo. You have given him all the encouragement for him to know you care. 

Good luck.

As we set for altar her old man emerges…

Dear Agatha, 

I am an ardent reader of your column and I want to say thank you for the good work you are doing. God will bless and give you more wisdom to take care of your own problems too. 

I need your candid thought and advise on this issue I want to share with you.

I met this lady for the first time in my church. She actually came for counselling.  We got acquainted and since then we have kept in touch on telephone. 

She was always telling me how her mother desired her to get married. I was happy myself because I also wanted to get married. Subsequently, I didn’t waste time to propose to her. She was happy and we actually talked about the day we’d travel.

However, she later called me to inform me that her boyfriend whom she had lost contact with was around. She deleted her mother’s number from my phone, carried her picture from my house and she avoided taking my calls. We had a heated argument in her salon where she denied me. 

She later called me when she got to say if she didn’t love me she wouldn’t have taken me to see her mother and friends. 

But she is still not picking my calls and says she is testing me to know my level of commitment to her as well as temperament.

Please I need your help here. What do you think I should do? I love this lady with all my heart.

Lover Boy.

Dear Lover Boy, 

Step aside and allow her to make up her mind on what she wants from life. Obviously, she hasn’t made up her mind whether to quit the former relationship or not. 

If you pressure her to do it your way, you will end up regretting it because there is the danger that she might want to go back to her former boyfriend. By then you would have gotten used to having her in your life multiplying the gravity of your heartache as well as disappointments, unless she comes of her own volition, she will constantly compare you to the other man as well as wonder what life would have been had she decided on the other man. 

Deleting her mother’s number and denying knowing you in public are enough indications that she hasn’t really made up her mind about you. You may want her but until she wants you sufficiently enough to declare you in public, no amount of pressures from you would make her have a convincing change of mind about you. 

The bit about testing you to know what your temperament is like or your level of commitment to her isn’t true. These are simply excuses to mask what her true feelings for you and the other man are. Because you are constantly around her, she may not fully appreciate the qualities you have. 

Marriage is a complex journey that requires absolute trust, confidence, and plenty of sacrifices to make it work. For all these to function well, the couple involved must first experience and develop the confidence in each other to make them work as a team. In a situation where either of the parties is having doubts about the quality of feelings involved in the partnership, moving that relationship forward would definitely become a huge problem. 

You know deep down that you love her sufficiently enough to overlook her shortcomings, but does she love you enough to forgive you same offence? Has she the kind of feelings for you that would make her make sacrifices for you, the relationship and the family when you both get to that crossroad in life?

Sincerely, unless she has enough respect and love for you that come from the depth of a woman’s heart, you may not have the kind of life you envisage with her. If something isn’t wrong with her feelings for you, there is no need for her to avoid taking your calls.

For the sake of posterity however, just don’t walk away. Go to her and tell her what your conclusions are on the matter. This is to avoid her blaming you for anything. 

If she were meant to be yours, things would work out, but if not God would bring someone else to make you happy. Always remember that when things don’t work according to our plans in life, God is preparing a banquet. Yes, you are hurting but it is best you hurt today than tomorrow when you may not have the emotional stamina and time to make a quick recovery. Hearts are meant to be broken and also to be mended when the right time comes.

Good luck. 

Before she’s off with another man too…

Dear Agatha,

I have a problem bothering me. I have been in and out of relationships with girls who at first profess to love me as much as I love them. But strangely all these girls end up leaving me to marry other men. They all end up inviting me to come for their wedding ceremony. Each time this happens, it is like celebrating my own failures as a man.  

I am currently in my final year at the university. Recently, I lost another close friend to another man through marriage. For real, if I have the right financial standing, I would have made the proposal before this other guy did.  

Considering my age factor and other things, I have never regretted my decisions. Currently there are two girls in my life I really care about especially as they appreciate me for who I am. 

One is in her final year. Though engaged, we talk and flow well, share quiet moments and feel what the other feels. Considering the fact that she is engaged, I am willing to let her go.

The other one is currently serving the nation. I have known her for a long time. In fact she meets my requirements in a woman. I would give her 90 percent. Considering finance, the compulsory one year service to the nation, settling down as a man, time constraints on the girl and fear of losing a girl I love to another man, I don’t know what to do. Do I propose to this girl or let her be? I am confused.

Confused Man. 

Dear Confused Man, 

There is always time and season for everything. In your final year at the university, your preoccupation now should be making good grades and insuring your future. If you concentrate too much on this woman now, it may act as distraction to you. There is no point you get to in life that you can’t marry. 

Besides, this lady you are interested in is already a graduate and serving the nation. She has an edge over you, because you are just in your final year. This is the first disadvantage for you. By the time you are out, she would have since moved on to other things. Like you rightly observed the woman’s shelf-span is limited. Even if she loves you sufficiently to accept your proposal, would the reality on ground give her the needed patience to wait for you considering the fact that there are no guarantees of when you are likely to get a job to get the process of marriage started? Even if we all pretend that money isn’t essential to marriage, the truth is that for a man to take on a wife, he has to have money to rent a house as well as attend to the responsibilities that come with the marriage. Not all babies are deterred by family planning techniques. So many babies have been known to come when their parents least expect them. This is why you must have something to fall back on before contemplating marriage.  All these women failed you because they were way beyond you. Love isn’t the only perquisite for a successful marriage. No matter how much love a couple has for each other, when confronted with the harsh economic situation, it requires understanding, tolerance, commitment, selflessness as well as wisdom to sustain it. 

It would require an extraordinary commitment on the part of this lady in question to accept your offer knowing that you may not be ready in the next five years to settle down. Considering the mystery of the future, it would require more than declaration of love on your part to make her bury the fear everywoman who makes such sacrifices have of waiting endlessly for a man. 

On your part, do you think she is the kind of woman you will never tire of? The one who has that something extra to keep you happy? Does she meet the status of your dream woman? You have to derive happiness from your relationship with her to make you want her for life.  This is important if you have been experiencing disappointments in your relationships. Until you have a very clear picture of the kind of life you want and the kind of woman that would help you achieve it. Don’t make an offer to this woman, to avoid regrets or avoidable situations later in life. It would be so unfair to tie her down to commitment unless you are absolutely sure you have the strength, guts and vision to make the difference in your life as well as hers.

Good luck.

Help me to bid gay life bye forever…

Dear Agatha,
It is not in me to disturb the good people of Nigeria again. But as it stands now I don’t know what to do or how to go about solving my problems about to swallow me.
I wrote to you about two years ago on my sexual orientation, which you advised me and I listened to your advice. But one problem is still left unsolved. I have one more year to go in the university. I actually found myself gay just to meet up with financing my study. I explained everything to you, how I managed to see myself through the secondary school and get admission into the university.
When you published my case, I got many well-meaning calls. One man, Mohammed from Bauchi but resides in Lagos, picked my burden. He took up my academic bills from my 200 level, insisting that I should not go back to that ugly lifestyle. Well, I never went back, but things changed when a guy I don’t know whether to call a friend or not, but went by the name Desmond, picked his number from my phone. I didn’t know what they discussed but I later got to know that Desmond went to Lagos to see Him and many other things happened without my knowledge. I am not aware of this.
Mohammed started keeping his distance from me. I started having difficulties with meeting up with my academic demands. I am presently on my Industrial Training hoping to go back to school by October to finish up and get my B.sc so as to be useful to my country and the world.
I don’t want to go back to being a gay in order to meet up with huge commitment required of me by next semester. What should I do?  I wanted to keep some savings but the company (NNPC) where I am currently doing my Industrial Training does not pay much. From the little they pay, I feed myself and take care of other minor things I need. Each time I look at the calendar, I am discouraged because there appears to be no hope of going back to school simply because I had made up my mind that I will never do that again even if it will fetch me the whole money in this world.
I need books and other necessary thing to be able to do my final year exam in Geological Sciences and probably graduate with a First Class.
What do I do? I really need help.
Stevo.

Dear Steveo, 

Where there is a will, there is always a way. If you are determined to make it work for yourself, you will without going back on your resolve to succeed. It appears from your mail that you are simply trying to make an excuse to go back to your former life.

The difference between success and failure is the amount of determination an individual put into making a situation work. Sincerely, you aren’t putting in any effort beyond making excuses for your behaviour. There are some very determined young persons who would make savings from nothing, no matter how little, to pay their way through school. It is simply a matter of you cutting your clothes according to the material you have. 

Your problem is not the money you make but the kind of lifestyle you have been used to. You have built your taste and lifestyle to reflect the quantity of money you were getting from being a gay. 

Even if you get someone who will sponsor you, without you making a personal resolve to change your lifestyle, you will continue to swim in troubled water. 

Whatever your friend told your benefactor is immaterial. Besides, the person knew what you were into before electing to help you. So there is nothing your friend will tell him that would shock him. The truth is that his season in your life has expired. God brought him into your life to help stabilise you, wean you from the path you were treading. You cannot continue to depend on people in life to live your life. 

The time has come for you to define your life and there is no moment like the one you are currently in to make that choice. For once in your life, elect for the harder side of life. Hard work doesn’t kill. It instead gives character and dignity to one. 

Granted you have the right to be apprehensive about your tomorrow, set something aside from the little you are currently earning to begin a small business like going into second hand clothing to pay your way through your remaining year in school. Your orientation is what you have to change. It isn’t a crime to be poor. That you are struggling to pay your way through school doesn’t make you inferior. Inferiority is a function of the mind. One is only poor if you choose to be. 

Your help is from God. You need Him to help put your life in proper perspective as well strengthen you to face life with dignity.

Good luck. 

Re: Men superiority - a myth

Dear Agatha,

I had wanted to ignore this topic but I have just realised that the more I try to move away from it the more I tend to return to it! I am a man, a married one at that but I’m surely not an apologist for men to take delight in abusing women – though it is true that God Himself will help some women! However, when a woman (like the author of the mail you published under this heading) wants to cause confusion for other focused women, I find it difficult to stand by awatcah.

 It is true that before God all (men and women, all humans) are equal but that same God arrogated roles and responsibilities to each with an expectation of complimentary functionality for both. I don’t know whether that woman is a Christian in the first instance, if the answer is yes, does she read and understand the Bible (the word of God)? I would like her to answer a couple of questions for me like what is her understanding or the true meaning of the word “helpmate” as opposed to “alternate.” She should also help us to interpret the God’s pronouncements at the latter state of man (after the fall of man) as contained in Genesis 3 and that of Ephesians 5? God is not the author of confusion! 

Agatha, I do not harbour any gloated grin of satisfaction neither do I bask under these verses above to rub in on God’s provision, but have been very wary (and worried) of events that have befallen us all through the madness-blinded quest for equality with men by some undiscerning women! In their quest, they have led many astray, or what do you think is the source of the upsurge in divorces, separations and murders among couples which has taken the place of patience, endurance, prayers and faith in God in our women of today? Our women now go around town in the nude in the name of expressing their equality to men, baring their chest and barely covering their nudity forgetting that a man’s chest and body hardly any special attraction (ormotivator) points! 

 Lastly Agatha, God will continue to bless you for teaching our women and men values that are deep seated in God’s principles for life. On no account should you allow the likes of Letitia Akinyemi to intimidate you or make you colour your counsel to those in need. She should measure her popularity and that of her views on the a column like you have done and see how many will write back to thank her as thanks and praises keep flooding into your box daily. 

Thank you and remain blessed. 

 Essien 

Dear Agatha,

I read with amusement Letitia Akinyemi’s letter on the above subject. Her piece was dripping with anger, sarcasm, scorn and unbridled feminism. She is angry with men for claiming to own the world; she is sarcastic at the differences between the two sexes; she scoffs at men who cannot ‘measure up’ to women’s attainments in life and she is utterly embittered that men tend to take leadership roles.

There are today millions of women who think and act like Letitia. By their self-imposed jaundiced views, they make themselves misfits. They find it difficult to work with men, because by their predisposition, they misconstrue even the most innocent action of a man. They are rebellious in marriage and are generally suspicious of the intention of every man. It is such women who would not let a man take a space ahead of them in traffic, even if it was the man’s right to be allowed such space. They look down with disrespect at their male subordinates and superiors at work, because they just have to prove that the subordinate is not their match or their bosses are not better than them. If they are more intellectually endowed and excel in academics, they are obnoxious in displaying their brilliance, just to make the point that they have excelled above men. Such is the tormented world of these women.

While they are at this battle with themselves, nature is busy running its course and not paying any heed to their bitterness. For try as much as they will, these women who are jealous of men, cannot change the fact that a man and a woman are not the same biologically, emotionally, and spiritually. Basic knowledge of human anatomy shows that there is a world of difference between the two sexes. A mere look at the body structures will reveal that the man is coarsely built and the woman is more supple. The former is so built to be able to handle the rougher things of life and provide physical protection to the woman, while the latter is made receptive to the finer things of life. In this way, the two sexes are actually complementary. There are women who are as rough in their physical features as the average man and there are men who are effeminate in their appearance. These changes occur through careless cultivation of the exclusive attributes of the opposite sexes over time, in each instance.

The differences between the sexes are so abundant that it would take deliberate mischief to deny them. Even the strongest women wrestlers would be circumspect in challenging a male wrestler to the canvass. So it is in boxing, athletics, etc.

The real myth is in the claim by ‘women liberators’ like Letitia that they are the same as every man. That is not the way nature intended it to be. Letitia’s piece had many examples of how ‘powerful’ a woman really is over men. She struck the right note when she pointed out that the strongest of male rulers, despite their outward display of strength go back to the woman at home for guidance in decision making. And this is how God intended it to be; that the woman should be the real power behind the brute physical strength. Feminine intuition is therefore not an empty expression. 

The woman is not meant to be beneath the man, she is to be beside the man. So, the sexes are different and complementary. 

Letitia alluded to male physical brutality, but did not talk about female verbal brutality. She talked about the woman procreating, but fallaciously kept quiet about the vital role of the male to provide the sperm to fertilise the egg. The truth is that the roles assigned to each sex can be abdicated. And they have been largely abdicated, by millions who are seeking excuses to envy the other sex. They have simply failed to be good specimen of their own gender. Badness is not exclusive to men. Members of both sexes are steeped distorting their attributes and sink into debauchery and licentiousness. That is why the world is decadent and our values eroded, no less by arguments like the ones she advanced in that acidic piece. My alarm is that a diet of this thwarted philosophy is daily being fed our daughters by such enraged ‘evangelising’ women.

Let Letitia (no pun intended) learn to be a true woman and stop envying men’s wrong ways. A woman who abandons her role as a mother and wife, can only do so at a great cost; a female body coarsened by physical exertion would have difficulties in childbearing. And if such a woman must return to childbearing, she must allow the body to regain its suppleness over time (it may take some years!). A woman who envies men’s public office roles, will do so at the cost of her innate delicateness and refinement, not to talk of the well-being of her children; the hallmarks of a true woman and mother.

It is a matter of choice, but let these women know the price they should be willing to pay before they make their choice. Letitia wants women to be respected, but she needs to encourage her female folks to know that respect is earned not given where it is not merited. Most men believe they can ‘drill’ gracefulness and humility by brute force into women. They end up being mere violent men and batterers. What a proper man seeks to do is to withhold respect from a woman who is not fit enough to be given the queenly title of ‘woman’. Women that believe they can trample over men by vile methods of blackmail and scheming would not earn the respect of men, no matter how forceful they argue their case. Love begets love, respect begets respect and scorn only begets loathsomeness. Woman, play your God-given role in life and help lift your men out of their wrong paths; don’t seek to replace them or envy their wrong ways. Such thoughts are the fountain of the competitive spirit that drives some women to want to excel men in their vices. ‘Does the man think it is his exclusive right to be promiscuous?’ they ask. ‘He wants to be loose, I will be loose too,’ such women think and in the process throw away their dignity. As if at the end of the day, their Creator would judge them by the actions of their partners.

Joseph

Our sex life died when my husband got born again

Dear Agatha, 

Thanks for the advice you usually dole out to people, may God continue to grant you wisdom. Please help me before it is too late.
I am in my mid 30s and got married seven years ago to a wonderful friend of mine. We actually dated for two and a half years before getting married. We have a son. At the time we got married, none of us was born again as we had very active pre-marital sex life which we both claimed we cannot get elsewhere since we both had relationships before providence brought us together. 

About two years into our marital life, my husband became born again, months later I had no choice but to follow suit. We both became active in the church, serving on different committees. We became a reference point in the church as we became the epitome of what the ideal couple should be.
Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said of us in our private life. Since becoming a born again Christian, my husband refuses to perform his duties to me as before. Initially we made love everyday and only went on break when I am having my period. We also experimented with different positions it was good and nice. After his new found faith, my husband does not care about me any longer, he believes there are better things to do than sleep with me.

 I am lucky if he agrees to make love to me once a month even at that I would have to cajole and cry before this and during the act he would say I should not hold him and he prefers a particular position where I can never achieve orgasm.

Agatha, of what use is sex if I cannot enjoy it? I believe in the sanctity of marriage and the faithfulness of the parties concerned. But I am dying in silence, I am not a nymphomaniac but I believe I should derive maximum satisfaction from my husband. St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in I Corinthians 7:3-5 concerns intimacy between couples and how it should not be denied but this has not changed my husband’s attitude. 

Right now he has not made love to me in six months! He believes he has a calling and that sex will be a huge distraction to him. He is becoming so selfish and doesn’t care about my feelings. I am scared of reporting this to the pastor because I believe this is personal and then how will people look at us in church again? I had to re-establish communication with an ex-boyfriend but I am scared of doing this because of the repercussions. Please Agatha, help me before I do something bad to myself.

Lizzy.

Dear Lizzy, 

This is a very serious matter that requires utmost wisdom and caution to save your marriage from collapse. There is no way you can on your own resolve this problem without getting help from the people who are experienced in marriage and the ministry. 

You need the help of your pastor to get through to him, to remind him of the importance of his marriage to his ministry. Don’t be ashamed to seek for the help from those in the best position to educate him because it is your right to enjoy your husband and marriage. 

If you continue to depend on your wisdom, with the extent he has gone, you may not be able to get him to listen to your reason or get him to appreciate the loneliness crowding you. For this reason, you must act quickly before you are tempted to do something you cannot tell the pastor or his wife. Begin with the wife because as a woman, she may be in the best position to appreciate what you are going through. One-on-one, express your fears and the challenges you are going through, including the fact that you are on the verge of having an extramarital affair with your ex. At this junction, don’t be shy to own up to the challenges you are facing in your home. We all need help from time to time to make things work in our homes and lives. 

Once the pastor and his wife are involved, it would be their duty to use the appropriate words of God to remind your husband of his duties to you and point him to the danger both to his image and ministry of having a broken home. Sincerely, it is not your voice or those of his family members he now considers spiritually inferior to his newfound faith that he needs. 

He needs the voice of those he has now formed confraternity with to educate him on the danger of leaving a full-bodied woman used to constant sex fallow.  

You also need the help of the marriage counsellor in the church to tutor on the place of sex in marriage, as well as the naked fact that God gave it as a special gift to married couples not just to procreate but to help them relax, bond, communicate and appreciate the values of being together. 

He has to stop seeing sex as being dirty but something God gave to mankind to enjoy within the bonds of marriage; that having sex in a marriage isn’t a sin hence he should not feel guilty at expressing himself in intimacy with his wife.

However, if the orientation of the church is such that sees sex as functional only for the purpose of procreation and not for recreation between a couple, in addition to prayers, you can also get books written by renowned religious leaders on the place of sex in the marriage. 

Spiritually, you need to resist this moment because a lot of times, the devil uses the things we are weak at to prevent the designs of God in our lives. There is no contesting the fact that your problem started even before your husband joined the church. 

From your letter, it is also obvious both of you didn’t cultivate the culture of discussing your desires before taking the decision to execute. He changed church without seeking your opinion while you followed to please him. 

By right, it is an issue both of you should have agreed on because the tenets of marriage demand that a couple must be in agreement on everything. You should have demanded at that point for his reason as well as his focus. Marriage isn’t just about having good sex, it is a combination of everything. You made the costly mistake of premising everything about you marriage on sex so much so you didn’t even give yourself a chance to study the behaviour and mindset of the man you were married to. 

As long as he was ready to satisfy your sexual urges you were happy to allow him the freedom to fly. In a way you unwittingly nurtured him not to consult you on anything, take decisions on your behalf and implement without recourse to your person. His attitude really has nothing to do with him changing church but simply a demonstration of who he really is, the person you previously ignored. You two didn’t grow friendship because you were too involved in the sexual aspect of your union. The consequence is that you both don’t have anything to fall back on, to pull you out of this abyss your relationship is going into.

Because his habit is formed and beyond what you can do on your own, there is also the need to commit this side of him to God in prayers. By not blaming the church and instead focusing on your own contributions to the problem you have on hand, your prayer point would be easier to define. 

Don’t for the sake of your children and essentially for your own peace of mind, do anything to compromise your marriage. There is hardly any marriage that is free of challenges; if nothing, be grateful that you are not losing him to another woman. It could have been worse if he is rejecting you for another woman in his life. 

No matter how frustrating for you, you shouldn’t have re-established contact with your ex. You didn’t act right; besides, it makes you appear too desperate to have sex without caring about the consequences. 

While your husband is wrong to have abandoned his responsibilities to you, it is also wrong for you to be overtly desperate for sex. If your husband were away for a year on a course abroad, won’t you cope? If you were caught the focus would remove from what pushed you into it but to you betraying your husband. Hard as it is for you, good judgment demands you put a strong restrain on yourself.

Frankly, this is when you need God the most, as well as learn to train yourself for the challenges of marriage. It isn’t every time we get what we want from our spouses. Marriage is learning about sacrifices, as well as adjusting to the demands of the moment. You have to be ready to key into his vision for him to understand what you are going through as a woman. Don’t worry, God will help make it right for you provided you are ready to rely on Him completely. 

Good luck.

My foreign wife laments I married her to facilitate my papers…

Dear Agatha,

I feel comfortable with the way you help people solve their problems. I have been reading your wise advice through the internet.

I am from Anambra State but work and live in Europe. I am married to a white woman and we have a son. Our marriage is nearly three years old now. 

My problem is that sometimes this woman feels I married her because of documents. Deep down I married her because I love her, and I know she loves me too. But she often says I married her because of document and this makes me feel very bad each time she mentions this. I don’t know if to continue with her? I am worried because I really love her

Chibuzor.

Dear Chibuzor,

The onus is on you to prove your love for her and dispel any doubts she may have regarding your reasons for marrying her. Something in your past or from the experiences of people around her could have given birth to this feeling. It could also come from the company you keep. If your friends are touting the fact that they married their wives to facilitate their documents, nothing you say to the contrary would assure her of your true love for her. 

Sincerely you cannot blame her since it is becoming the norm for black men to marry white women for the reasons of easing their stay abroad. 

However that is not to say you shouldn’t go out of your way to prove your love for her. 

The first thing is to sit her down to explain your pains and disappointments at her line of thoughts. At this junction an honest approach is all that you need. Go back to your roots, the reasons you came and if you ever harboured the idea of using a white woman to make things easy for you out there, be brave enough to tell her. This is to help her understand where you are coming from as well as to make her appreciate what you really feel for her.

It would also make things clearer to her to share your childhood fantasies of the kind of woman you have always wanted in your life. Draw attention to the essentials, the qualities you have always desired in the woman of your choice.

Follow this with a thorough explanation of what you felt when you met her and how deep she affects you in different and unique ways. Boast about her virtues, the kinds you recognise in the woman of your dreams, and the kind no other woman you have met has gives her the edge. 

Be bold enough to tell her that she reserves the right to believe you or not, but what you are telling her is the truth and that if she doesn’t trust you after being together for almost three years, it is very unfortunate. 

To underscore your disappointment, inform her of your intentions to end the marriage on account of lack of trust on her part. 

Again, lay bare to her what your thoughts are on an ideal marriage and how you cherish that above every other thing. 

Hearing and seeing you talk about it as frankly as you can, will help her to be conscious of the dangers ahead to her marriage to you if she continues to harbour such feelings against you. 

In addition you also have to ask where the thoughts are coming from to enable you block it effectively. 

Ending the marriage isn’t a solution rather it is a complication because rather than erase the impression of you she has it will further fuel her suspicions of you. The fact that you both have a child between the two of you should make you in particular tread carefully. 

Circumstances and situation have put on you the onus to verify your claims of being in love with her. Rather than feeling that you are let down by her doubts, try to understand where she is coming from. Everybody wants to be loved for themselves not what you have to offer. She loves you enough to want you to love her for who she is not because she is providing security for you to stay in her country. Her feelings though irritating to you are very real for her. To dismiss them would be to destroy the one thing that makes her happy as a woman. 

She wants to be able to look at her son and say he came out of a deep love and respect not from a selfishly motivated union by the father. For a woman, such sentiments are what give her and her child the sense of security she needs to be happy with her husband. That she is voicing it out shows that she cares about you in more ways than you know. 

Woo her with everything you have as a man including showering her with affections even in public places. Send her romantic text messages, flowers, chocolates, romantic nights out for just the two of you, perfumes, compliments on her looks and when you can afford it bring her to the country to know your people and culture. It takes very little effort to get most women to trust in their husbands and fall in love with them all over again. 

Everywoman wants to know she is very important to her husband and that when not with her he is thinking of her. There is no way she would ever doubt your reasons for marrying her if you let her know through words and actions that she is constantly in your mind. 

Finally, learn to pray by not relegating the God that brought both of you together to the background in your home. 

Good luck.