She isn’t fair enough…

Dear Agatha,

I am an ardent reader of your columns. There is a saying that says it is better to do what’s right than to insist on being right.

I am 30-year-old, the eldest of my siblings. My immediate younger brother is married and already has a child. My people are pressurising me to marry irrespective of the fact that I am still in school. I’m demure and resilient. I used to have a girl friend always pestering me for money. 

Now, I have met another girl through her mother. 

It happened at a place I frequent to meet my friends. Because it is a place I must go to meet my friends, the lady’s mother is pressurising me to befriend her but I have refused. She’s into foodstuff business and always pestering me to buy on credit, though sometimes I oblige her. I can’t avoid her because she’s at the exit of the house. She always says she loves me because I am quiet. She’s from my hometown but married from another town. To get out of her pressure, I told her I prefer one of her daughters. Since the younger sister is the only one I have met besides the fact that the second daughter is always sharper than the first sister. So, I settled for the second. 

Agatha, I want to know if I should go ahead with this relationship.  She’s through with her secondary education. But the snag is that I like women who are very fair like me. She isn’t as fair as the ladies I have previous dated. Please help me.                            

Bernete.

Dear Bernete, 

The question is: what do you want from this relationship? Whether she is fair or not isn’t as important as the person who resides inside of her. Many a time, in the process of making a choice of who we want to spend the rest of our lives with we market issues that are not as important as those that we would contend with in the union. 

If just being fair is the only criterion for you, how come those other fair ladies you dated are no longer around you?

With the amount of pressure coming from your family, ensure the woman you are going to date now is the kind of woman you can live with for the rest of your life. At this stage of your life, anything can happen that would warrant your family and hers insisting you marry the woman. 

To avoid a situation where you would end up regretting your decision or blaming people around you for forcing you into a situation you don’t want, pause to think of what you understand by relationship in the first place. Is it for you just a physical thing one premised on outward qualities or the more lasting ones of who the person really is?

In addition, this relationship you are about going into calls for tremendous caution. If the conduct of the mother is anything to go by, there is the need for you to be of extreme care. To avoid you ending up with a wife, who like her mother would throw morals to the winds to run after younger men, take time out to study this lady before making any commitment to her. 

You must devote appreciable time to uncover the mask behind her personality. Issues like her moral values, her temper, attitude towards life as well as her place in your own plans in life are most important than the colour of her skin. 

There is also the need for you to ask yourself what kind of woman you really want beside you, putting into consideration your dreams in life. Your woman must have the drive and belief in your dreams to help you get to where you hope to be in future. Without the right kind of woman by your side, achieving your dreams would either be a struggle to achieve or die completely as other factors she would throw up at home could frustrate you sufficiently to make you give up on your own plans. For instance, if your dream can only accommodate two children and you end up with a woman whose dream in life is to have as many as 10 children, the difference of eight children is enough to sink your dream forever. So ensure you first offer her friendship, it is the only platform to discover if you and her can make it beyond the point you both are now. 

In addition, you must also factor in the attitude of her mother? Beyond trusting the daughter, do you think you can trust the motive of her mother? Can you trust her to behave like a mother-in-law should when the daughter isn’t around? A woman who has cravings for a particular man doesn’t just give up. Honestly, this to me is the major worry in all these! Can you contain the unbridle desire of a morally bankrupt mother? 

Please talk to God to avoid you going into a relationship that could cripple you spiritually.

Good luck.