Must he jilt me over mum’s messy past?

Dear Agatha,

Thank you so much for the sacrifices made towards solving problem in relationship.

I am in my early 20s and completed my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) few months ago. I am into a relationship that has matured for marriage. Though we intended settling down, but on the course of our courtship I told my fiancé everything about my life. 

I told him that my siblings and I were born outside wedlock for different fathers. He was taken aback and confused. He told me to ask my mother who my father is and where he comes from. When I did, my mother told me that he lives in the north and married with children.

This is the bone of contention now in their family on the grounds that I will take after my mother. The fact that my elder sister is married appears not to mean anything to them. I am the second child. Agatha, does it mean I was wrong to have told him everything about me? Should I be held responsible for my mother’s choices? Is it right for me to be denied marriage to my ideal man because of these choices she made? What do I do about the whole thing?

Worried Girl.

Dear Worried Girl,

Give it up to God. You haven’t done anything wrong in telling him the truth because honesty remains the best policy, and such a priceless commodity. At any rate, he still would have found out one way or the other, nothing is hidden under the sun. By then, he would have accused you of deliberately withholding the information from him while deceiving him into marrying you.

Chances are that you might end up not enjoying the marriage, as he would always hold it as excuse to misbehave. At least if nothing else now, you have the freedom to make another choice, the chance to be happy with a man who would accept you for who you really are and not one who isn’t ready to look beyond the substance to the chemical composition of what they see.

His attitude towards the information you gave him concerning your mother shows that he doesn’t have the kind of trust for you and the fact that he doesn’t know you well enough to know what you are capable of doing and what you can’t do. Any relationship that lacks the basic trust as its energiser cannot run for long. He must have a certain amount of trust for you and you also in him to weather successfully the storms associated with relationships and marriage. Often that not, it is not enough to recite the “I love you” slogan alone. It takes more than that to get a relationship on the road successfully. Its foundation must be concretised with plenty of trust, belief in each other’s integrity, respect as well as appreciation of the other’s person’s history to fuel it to full activation. If he wants to settle down with you, he must learn to deal with your past. Your past makes you complete and part of the person he claims to be in love with. No matter how dirty this past could be; it is what has made you the unique person you are now. Besides that, you cannot be held accountable for your mother’s experiences or decisions. You had nothing with the choice of her as your mother. God did all that and to condemn you for your relationship to your mother is to query the decision of the Almighty. 

What should have been of concern to him be whether you are like your mother? Since knowing you, have you ever given him any reason to suspect you of any kind of moral duplicity? The kind that would make you break his heart along the line, make you wander from man to man?  These are questions you should ask him: If he is breaking up with you over your mother’s past lifestyle or because he finds in you some unquestionable traits. His answers would be if nothing helps you know areas of your own limitations as well. It could just be the reason for this relationship as not all relationships are meant to end in marriage. At every point in our lives, God always sends a helper to show us the right path to go. It is a matter of recognising the role everyone we meet along life’s journey has been assigned to play by our creator. 

What you did by telling him was to give him the choice to either stay or let you be. Don’t feel bad at all. The onus is on him to prove his love for you, to show you that he is more than matured enough to know that you and your mother aren’t the same. 

If he appreciates truth in life, he would come back. But if he leaves you, don’t worry because he is only making way for your right man, the one whose bone you are to come into your life. Just lean more on God to do His work in your life.

Good luck.