Dear Agatha,
I am in my mid 20s and have just finished my service year. In my final year at the university, I fell in love with a young and unmarried lecturer. To be candid he is the first man that has touched me that deeply. But one thing I noticed about him is that he is your everyday Casanova. There is no time I went into his office that I didn’t meet a woman. Even though he usually goes out of his way to explain to the girls my relationship with him, it has not stopped the girls from congregating in his office.
Even at his house the situation is not different from what happens in the office. Whenever I go to visit him, the girls are there. Despite the fact that none of them has been rude to me, it is however a situation I am not finding funny.
During my service year, I became involved with another man I met at the place of my assignment. Though a father of a child he had at secondary school, he is one of’ those dependable men every woman needs in her life. From the very day I met him, he told me about his former relationships and how he was winding own his current one. I discovered from my interactions with people in the office that the reason he gave for wanting to terminate the relation was not exaggerated at all. The lady in question happens to be more than a social drinker. She drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney. She is also a careless person, a woman who thinks if it is right for the man to do it, a woman too can do it.
Since I didn’t want any embarrassment and didn’t want to lie, I opened up to him about my own relationship. I didn’t tell him the problem I was having with my boyfriend.
We started out as friends, until I discovered, like him, I felt something deeper. Before long we went into a relationship despite the knowledge of our existing relationships. I discovered he is a caring man, sensitive to my moods and someone I could really talk to. With him, I don’t have to do any extra work on my looks. He is very matured in his way of thinking. When my elder sister came for a visit and met with him, she told me to go for him that he would make a wonderful husband.
Recently I met with the mother of his child, now married. She confided her regrets at not marrying him and pleaded with me not to allow him seep through my fingers.
He has proposed marriage, but told me to keep my reply until I sorted myself out with my other boyfriend. I have met his parents and his only sister; they are all good and happy that at last he is thinking of settling down.
Agatha, I don’t know what to do. My other boyfriend too is beginning to talk about marriage and has promised to stop the horde of women coming into his office and home.
I love both men in a different way. While my lecturer boyfriend is the breezy and impulsive type, this other man is a more staid person. He is not impulsive; rather he likes to consider his options before making a decision. He says he cannot take unnecessary risks because he has a responsibility to his son and now me to consider, making too risky ventures a no go area.
I am confused because a part of me is reckless while a greater part of me wants something very solid.
Without telling me, the second man bought me shares in one of the now leading banks and even encouraged me to invest my allowances on shares.
Please help me make the right decision and how to ease myself out of the other relationship without pains to the man I am leaving.
Lillian.
Dear Lillian,
It would be very difficult for me to make the decision for you, but I would point you to the qualities that would help you arrive at a decision.
There are so many things required to make a marriage work. Love is just a little bit of it. The most important is friendship. Whereas love remembers a slight and keeps record of wrong doings, friendship doesn’t. Your best friend is the one person that can tell you the truth, who can see all your worst doing and still considers you to be the best person on earth.
Whereas friendship understands that no one is perfect, love believes everything should be perfect. This is the inherent difference between love and friendship.
It is only a friend that would see you without teeth, falling hair, wrinkled skin, a protruded stomach, flat chest and still considers you to be the most beautiful person in the world.
It is only a friend that would love you when it is impossible for others to do. A good friend would know when you are happy, sad, look out for your interest and give you encouragement to succeed when others are unwilling to take such risks on you.
A good friend would do everything to protect you from hurt and desist from doing those things that would continue to cause you pains.
A true friend’s love is unconditional and freely given.
Which of these men fit the bill of a true friend; the one who has a stable character to shoulder your emotions, listen to your inner cries for help? Those kinds of cries you expect your loved one to detect without you framing the words. Which of these two men would stay with you when the first sign of wrinkle comes and that supple and shapely body of yours becomes sag?
Which one is most ready to forgive you a mistake; provide you with the most dependable shoulders to lean on physically and emotionally? There is no marriage without problems but which of them are likely to have the least problems with? Which one is more Godly, friendly, sincere, patient, stable, tolerant, responsible, respectful, supportive and caring?
You are the only one with the answers. If you were ever truthful with yourself, you would know which of these men would make the best husband for you.
Go to God in prayers for help in arriving at the best decision, one that you would be happy with for the rest of your life. Trust God to give you the best of the two men before you and if God Himself makes the decision for you, He would tell you how to go about the problem of leaving the other guy without bitterness.
Good luck.
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