Dear Agatha,
I am 22 years of old while my girlfriend is 17. I am in my second year at the university while she is has just finished her secondary school education. Our relationship is just five months old. I really like her but wasn’t planning anything serious with her.
However, she came back recently to inform me that she is pregnant by me. Unfortunately for me, it was her mother that discovered the pregnancy hence we couldn’t hide or do anything about it.
Now my parents are forcing me to marry her; have gone to pacify her parents by paying the bride price to give them access to the child. Besides, being their first son, they won’t support me to throw away my first child in life. They have even agreed to sponsor her education once she gives birth. As far as I’m concerned the girl is a gold-digger.
All pleas to them that I may not be responsible or that I am too young to marry fell on deaf ears.
All my friends are making fun of me and I am beginning to hate her for trying to make me take responsibility for something I am not prepared to.
Besides this, there is this girl I am really interested in, in my class. She has all the sophistication that this other girl doesn’t have. To me this is very important.
Please, how do I convince my parents that I am too young to become a father and get this girl to agree to terminate the pregnancy?
I urgently need your help.
Worried Boy.
Dear Worried Boy,
Gold-digger or not, she didn’t force you to sleep with her; you did! You didn’t know you were too young when you decided to sleep with her? You didn’t consider the fact that she lacks the sophistication of your kind when you impregnated her? If you didn’t want to be a father, how come you didn’t protect yourself against this kind of incident by wearing a condom?
Your parents are right to insist you do the right thing by marrying her. If you are old enough to look at a woman’s backside and going the mile of sleeping with her, you should be old enough to live with the consequences of doing so. In your case, be prepared not just for the challenges of being married, but of being a father as well.
Whether you like it or not, you have a wife who is expecting your child so the issue of going after your sophisticated girlfriend doesn’t arise any more. You will only be complicating things for yourself by getting involved with another woman because she too could get pregnant and would make you husband to two women.
So be careful of the excitements your desires are inciting in you to prevent a fate worse than the one you are complaining of.
As a matter of fact, you should consider yourself lucky to have such understanding parents who are willing to take responsibility for your acts. Other parents would have allowed you suffer the challenge of providing for the mother and child.
You should count yourself lucky because your parents weren’t there when you decided to sleep with this girl and could easily have denied you and this girl. Reciprocate this gesture by learning to be responsible.
If this girl were your sister, would you allow any man to treat her, the way you are doing to her? Would you support she terminates a baby at her age? What if something happens to her or her womb? At whose cost would that be? Your parents that agreed to accept her and the child are no fools. They see so many things you are limited by your wisdom and age to see. What if this child happens to be the only one in your life and it is terminated?
Doubtless, it is coming as a shock to you but at least you are five years older than this girl who at 17 is already going to be a mother. Do you know what it is like for her? You are not the one with the bulge, announcing the evidence of her lost innocence, of an act the two of you did; she is the one who has to carry the shame of your premature act, endure the condemnation and has to put her life on hold at least until she gives birth to your child.
She is the one who has to permanently carry the emblem of motherhood in and on her body. This is the time she needs you, even if for the sake of that moment, you were intimate with her. What do you think would be going on inside her head when her mates are resuming into universities and polytechnics when a new academic sessions starts? How do you think when her mates are discussing boyfriends, parties and she is talking about baby food and nappies?
You have a right to be disappointed at what life is presenting, but even in your disappointment, learn to be objective and mature about it. Learn to be considerate for the woman who is at the receiving end of it all. Also learn to be alive to your responsibility to your unborn child. Always bear in mind that one day, that child would become your pride as a man. These same friends who are today laughing at you would one day envy the circumstances that gave you this child so early in life
God gave you this child for a purpose. What today may appear as an embarrassment would tomorrow become a thing of joy. At any rate, once the child is born, every one would forget how it came about and move on to taking care of it.
Just relax and allow the days help you get over the shock as well as prepare you for the challenges of being a father and husband.
Good luck.
has brought her way?
Do you think your family would support you to help her appreciate the beauty in your own religion by not opposing her on account of her religion?
Unless you are determined on what you want, know the challenges ahead and prepared to tackle them with as much openness as the problems demand, what starts out as being good may end up being not too good.
In addition to what you want, you should also go to God to ask what His intentions are for you through prayers.
Good luck.
Posts
