My Girlfriend Is Pregnant For Another Man

Dear Agatha, 

I am facing the most difficult moment of my life. My girlfriend of two years got pregnant for her secret lover. All these happened while I was away for my national youth service. 

I discovered her duplicity when I recently came back home and was making love to her. While romancing her boobs, I noticed I was taking in a substance with soured taste in my mouth. I pretended not to notice it at first, being not exactly sure what was coming out of her boobs but when it kept coming, I stopped to investigate what precisely I was sucking only to discover that it was coming from her nipples. 

When I asked her what kind of liquid was coming from her breasts, she initially denied knowledge of it, but I pressured her to know what could have prompted the breast milk. I kept mounting pressure on her to confirm what my suspicions were. From my experience I know a woman lactates when she is pregnant and during breast-feeding.    

When she kept maintaining her stance, I asked her to leave my house that night; so, she started shedding tears and later confessed that a guy she started dating when I was away got her pregnant. Up till now, I am still in a state of shock as I find the whole episode still so confusing and disturbing. Please I need your candid advice please.

Iyk.

Dear Iyk, 

I understand the shock and sense of betrayal. It is normal, given the fact that as a woman she is expected to remain faithful to the relationship. 

Sincerely, how you handle this situation would depend on what you feel for this lady and how sorry she is about the whole incident. 

To help you understand where to start from, it is essential you X-ray thoroughly this relationship from where and how you both started. What was the arrangement between the two of you especially when you were leaving for the youth service? Was there a defined agreement between the two of you on where you were both taking the relationship to or was it an open ended thing? 

While I am not condoning her unfaithfulness to you, sometimes when issues like this come up, it helps a great deal to put everything in the right perspective. Sometimes, we assume too much in our relationship, presuming the other person should know what we feel or think. Unfortunately, this attitude more often than not brings along with it some avoidable problems into our lives. This is why some people misbehave or betray their partners because they innocently got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Not everybody understands the language of signs; for the majority, it is always better that feelings are spelt out in words to avoid misconception or ambiguity.

If both of you had the understanding that your relationship was meant to be permanent and that while you were away, there should be constant flow of communication between the two of you, with you assuring her of your love for her and encouraging her to come over for a visit, then her behaviour is completely out of place and uncalled for. 

But, if it was based more on assumption rather than concrete promises, believing she is always there and that you can come and go as you like, then you really can’t blame her for what happened because as a young woman nearing marriage age, there is always this morbid fear of being left too long on the shelf. The gamble to have someone solid in her life rather than the promises represented by you, may have forced her into the situation.

While not trying to make excuse for her, like I said earlier, it helps to give a robust outlook to issues in a relationship if more mistakes are to be avoided. 

Now that you know she has been unfaithful to you, to the extent of getting pregnant and terminating it, do you still consider yourself as having feelings for her? In the first place, what kind of feelings do you have for her? Are you reacting because she slept with another man or that you feel really betrayed and hurt by the one person you love? 

Be honest with yourself by properly defining what you feel for this lady. It is the only way you can untangle this knot before you. If you know you haven’t done the proper thing until this moment, telling her how important she is to you and how you would want both of you to start planning for the future, accept what happened as an emotional accident waiting to happen. Find it in your heart to forgive her and do what you should have done long ago, learning to put the right structure in place. Relationship building takes a lot of efforts, sacrifices, self-will and determination. It is more of an awareness of what works for you than what others think. If you are determined to make this relationship work despite her slip, it will work but if you lack a direction yourself, there is the tendency to be swayed by what others think. 

Most times it takes just a little amount of interest to turn a dry land into a fertile one. 

Just allow the grace of God to direct you on what is right. If she is sober and begs for forgiveness, it maybe just what she needs to be the best wife.

Good luck.

She Doesn’t Want Me To Meet Her Parents

Dear Agatha, 

May God bless you. Four years ago, I met this lady who later became my good friend. 

When I met her she was a sales girl while I was learning to trade. She is now a graduate and I have been settled by my master. During the course of our relationship she told me she was a virgin, and won’t submit herself to any man until her wedding night. 

Agatha, this is our fourth year together and she has agreed to marry me. My worry is that she demands for everything from me, telling me she doesn’t have anybody to go to. 

The most worrisome is that I don’t know her parents. She has refused every attempt by me to meet her parents even though she knows I am thinking of settling down with her very soon.  

Though her friends and elder sister are aware of our relationship, this isn’t enough for me. She insists if I must come to see her parents, I must come first as a friend. 

My question is, should I stop supporting her and end the relationship? Is her love for me being influenced by what she is getting from me?  I love her but don’t know if she loves me from her heart. I am already 30 years of age while she is 24. Please help me.
Worried Guy.

Dear Worried Guy, 

If you have both dated each other for four years, what do you know about her? If I were to make an honest comment about her feelings for you, would you say she is real or false?

Four years is a long time for you to have known if this woman is really interested in your money or your person especially as both of you are not engaged in sex. Abstinence from sex enables a dating couple to concentrate more on growing a relationship along the proper lines. 

You should by now be able to tell if she is deceiving you or not through the quality of attention, support, patience and understanding she displays whenever she is around you. It is natural for a woman to make demands on the man she is involved with but it’s the duty of the man to draw the line on what to give and what not to give.

If you have always attended to her every demand, then you are the one who appears to be desperate in buying her love because not even our heavenly father grants all our endless lists of wants and desire. Over indulgence can make the heart forget the right and important things that matter most. This is because the human heart, by design, is created to demand for more. It is you who just have to discipline yourself in this area, even if for nothing, at least, to remind her of the essence of your coming together. 

She is getting all the financial support from you because you are both involved. The dynamic nature of a relationship draws its strength from its symbiotic nature. There is no way it would grow healthily if you are both not contributing your quota to it or sure of where its rudder is pointed.

If you have dated for four years, it is natural for you to demand to meet with her parents. You are certainly within limits but, if she is still declining, then you should make it your business to know why. Is it that her parents are very strict, have somehow cowed her that she just doesn’t know how to begin your introduction to them? If that is the case, her elder sister whom you are familiar with can help. Go to her and explain your feelings for her sister as well as desire to marry her. Having met you before, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to her. Let her also know your wish to see their parents and how her sister has consistently refused your request. 

Her sister’s response to you as well as the outcome of this discussion would tell you if your girl is only after your money or serious with you. Unlike your girlfriend, she will not be able to lie convincingly to you. If you are observant, you will know from her where you stand with your girlfriend without her making any categorical statement.

For the sake of posterity, you have to be careful what you say or think now to avoid you coming up with the wrong decision. At 24, she may not be too much in a hurry to settle down as you appear to be. 

There is also the need for you to sit her down and try to do her thinking for her. Ask her probing questions you think maybe agitating her mind. For instance, be bold enough to ask her if she feels awkward dating you considering she is now a graduate and you, a trader. This is one issue she may not want to bring up on her own but by helping her to bring it into the open, you give her the rare opportunity of talking about something which has been agitating her mind but lacks the guts all the while to discuss. 

Don’t ever rule out peer pressure in all these as well as her own vanity as a human being. One thing is to have a cupboard kind of relationship with you, it is another for her to have the guts to go public with it which introducing you to her parents would be. And unless she is sure about what she wants there is nothing you or anybody can do about it. It is a bitter possibility but one you must be man enough to face and confront with all the seriousness it requires if you have to get anything meaningful out of this relationship.

It is for you to help her confirm her feelings for you. The truth is that both of you appear not to have graduated your relationship from the level you started it four years ago. As a sales girl, her reasons for dating you way back then may have changed, but has continued with the relationship out of habit. 

Sitting her down to ask probing questions may unravel her real reasons she doesn’t want you to meet with her parents now.

Be fair to her but don’t shy away from the truth that stirs at you. It is the only way you can move together or alone. Often times, we deliberately ignore tell tale signs because they don’t fit into our mental picture. This is what brings on disappointments and not from what the other person did or didn’t do. 

Also learn to trust God. Don’t ever forget that he sees the end from the beginning and has a way of planning and ordering our footsteps to the right path. Stay close to him to get it right.

Good luck. 

Why Didn’t I Bleed During My First Intercourse?

Dear Agatha,

I have been bothered by the fact that I did not bleed during my first intercourse. Was it that I was born without hymen or may be I lost my virginity as a baby? Although am now a mother of four. I can’t help but think about it at times.

Worried Mother.

Dear Worried Mother, 

Yes, bleeding signifies a woman’s broken seal, the passage of the girl status into womanhood. But not all women bleed the first time. This is due to a wide range of possible reasons. 

If you were not abused as a child, then it could be that you were into rigorous exercises or sports before you slept with a man. Some strenuous sports like running, horse riding can break the hymen which as a matter of fact is a very delicate seal. It doesn’t take much energy to have it broken; so, it could be broken without a woman sleeping with a man. For the experienced man, only the tightness of the passage would tell him the condition of the woman; whereas, some need the physical evidence of blood to be convinced they are meeting her intact. 

And in some cases, some women have been deflowered by tampons or the questing fingers of their lovers. Tampons can break the seal easily because it is inserted into the woman’s body to absorb her flow unlike the conventional pad that is placed at the entrance of her body to absorb her flow. There is no way she would know that her hymen has been broken because it will come out with her flow as blood. 

Like the tampon, the fingers too can easily break the fine film covering of a woman’s body.

What is important is the level of trust the woman is able to command from her man. If you have had four children and not once given your husband reason to doubt you, he will always cherish and take pride in your honour as a woman any day. 

That is what is most important at the end of the day. It doesn’t matter whether you knew how you were deflowered or not. 

Good luck.