I Want To Leave My Sick Husband

Dear Agatha,

I thank God for creating a person like you. God will continue to increase your wisdom as you are using it to help people. 

The problem I am about to share with you has persisted for a long time. I am in my late 20s. I married very early to a man I did not like at the time I married him. Over the years, I have, however, grown to love him very much. This is because he is everything that every lady desires in a man. Our marriage is 10 years old and we are still awaiting the fruits of the womb. 

But the worst happened in December 2006 when he went down with stoke, leading to the breakdown of mobility over his right hand side. It also affected his voice. 

I have done everything within my power to put him on his feet again but to no avail. To cap it all, he is also diabetic. The doctors say the stroke affected his brain and that only the grace of God can heal him. 

Though, I promised to be with him no matter what, as a human being, I now feel everything is getting too long. Agatha, I’m thinking of leaving him because I have my needs as a woman and I don’t want to be sleeping around while still married to him. My parents think I should leave him just as I am thinking, but I feel I am too young to handle this problem alone. No one has bothered to ask me how I have been coping with his medical bills and house rent for almost four years now. Please, I need your advice on how to leave him without me causing his death as he is depending on me for now.

Again, there is this guy that I was dating before I got married. Everybody around had assumed he would be my husband. But I disappointed him by getting married to my present husband and now we have met again. We met when I travelled home. He is still single. Agatha is it right for us to be together again?  

Worried Woman.

Dear Worried Woman, 

Sincerely, I appreciate your dilemma and the longing inside you. What you feel is normal given the fact that you have been used to intimacy with your husband. 

To have that suddenly taken away from you must have taken a lot from you especially as you see him but can’t have him touch you as he used to. It can be a very trying period for any woman bound by obligations to be faithful and helper to her husband  in his trying moments. 

You are only human to want to quit the marriage and look for emotional solace in the arms of another man. Unfortunately, marriage is for better for worse, in sickness and health, in riches and in poverty until death does you both apart. 

Were it possible for many of us to take a peep into the crystal ball before going on with our plans to marry a particular person, many of us would have backed out of our marriage plans. This is because marriage is like a wrapped gift whose contents become only visible after going into it and which also, like a budding flower, opens up its content bit by bit.

Heartless as this may sound, this man has been more than a husband to you for 10 years, so much so you rated him the best of everything a woman would want in a man. He didn’t ask to be sick or desire to be in the condition he currently is now. Nobody wants to be bed-ridden, completely dependent on another person to perform the most basic of nature’s call. 

He isn’t finding the situation funny too. Do you know what it feels like to him? Simply because he can’t talk doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel the longing anymore but he is restricted by his bad health to be the man he used to be to you. Whereas you have the good health to contemplate walking away from it all, he doesn’t have such liberty hence his complete dependence on you.  

If you were in his shoes, how would you feel if the person who shared your best years is unwilling to give the same length of time to share your worst moments? How would you feel if he is the one contemplating replacing you simply because the doctors have ruled your case as being very bad?

Were he the one who met his old friend while you are in that condition and given the same reasons you are now giving to abdicate his responsibilities to you, would you be able to ever forgive him for leaving you when you need him the most?

Nobody ever said life is easy, particularly marriage. Were you contemplating leaving on the grounds of cruelty and abandonment, it would have been a different matter, but to leave a man who has been so good to you on grounds of his health state, falls short of what is expected of a married woman. No matter how and what you feel, you owe this man your presence and support, even if not as a husband and lover but as a friend who shared his bed and life for 10 years or more with you.

Something must have made you stay with him all these while even if you claim you didn’t love him at first. The point is, when you finally got to know him, he became your Mr. Right. 

There is nothing that happens to any person or thing in heaven and on earth that God isn’t aware of; but because our lives are sectioned into seasons and time, he deliberately allows us go through some situations to judge our resilience as well as our ability to stay within our vows to him. Before God and man, you promised to stay faithful to this man and be with him until one of you dies. 

Granted there are some unpalatable situations we find ourselves which sometimes necessitate us to pack it all up. However, to leave this man now is to hasten his death. You have a right to be happy but he has a right over you as his wife.

The essence of a good marriage is the ability for it to endure crisis like yours. What happens if something happens to this other man? Would you leave him on account of it too? Life is always a very funny mix. There are always challenges in any choice we make. 

The difference always lies in our approach to life and issues. He remains your husband because you made the choice to be with him; your marriage vows stressed on sickness and in health. 

Your parents are also being human in asking you to leave because they feel the burden is too much for you to bear all alone. But ask them this question: how would your father feel if his wife abandons him to sickness or your mother if she would leave her husband simply because he is ill? Also, ask them if the case was in the reverse, how they would have felt if he is the one whose parents are pressurising him to leave you?

He remains your husband - whether bed-ridden or not. Much as I appreciate your other concerns to be happy with another man and have children of your own, marriage isn’t a fair-weather commitment. It is an embodiment of the good, the bad and the ugly. Until God says it is over, it isn’t over for either of you. 

Rather than devote your time to thinking or quitting, why not handover the issue to God for his will to be done? There is nothing you can do on your own without the support of God, else you risk another heartache. 

Had you committed your decision to marry to God from the beginning, perhaps things wouldn’t have turned out this way. Trust me, the burden will be a lot easier on if you hand it over to God entirely. Yes, the frustration of caring for him may be taking its toll on you but there is nothing entrusted to God that ever fails. 

He has all the situations we are in, in total control. Always remember this man needs you now more than ever before. Would you abandon a friend in need? It would make the task easier if you see him as a friend and not a husband. 

Good luck.

Can I Marry My Late Fiancée’s Sister?

Dear Agatha, 

I dated my late fiancée for four years before she died. Two years after, her younger sister not only persuaded me to be her boyfriend but she is now asking that we get married. Please advise me.

JFY.

Dear JFY, 

What do you want? The truth is that when it comes to whom to marry, it is a very personal decision. Irrespective of whatever anyone tells you now, the choice remains solely yours. 

The thing is for you to be comfortable with your choice and the situation you find yourself. If you and this lady are comfortable with the choice you are now making, can confront your families with your relationship, persuade  those around you that while your late fiancée was alive, you and her sister didn’t engage in any illicit affair, nothing stops you both from going ahead.

But it is imperative you subject your feelings for her to a powerful microscope to determine what precisely your feelings for her are about. One thing is to be pressured into a relationship; another is to be persuaded into marriage. Your desire to spend the rest of your life with someone must come from the depth of your heart. This is important if you and your partner hope to survive the turbulent waters that marriage is. 

Without a concomitant desire for her from your side, the marriage may not be able to withstand the attendant storm that comes with every marriage. A marriage is as good as the commitment, tolerance, friendship, patience and trust invested in it. If you marry this girl, do you have the kind of feelings that made you stay with her sister for four years? Do you have the determination to overcome unforeseen disappointments in her behaviour and person? This is usually the tricky, cowardly and slippery side of marriage. Many marriages have been known to collapse due to these things. The agreement to combat these vices come from a heart that is sure of what it wants, feels and desires from the other person. 

Would you have the same kind of commitment towards her? Will you be able to tolerate her excesses? Is she your friend? Do you have the same outlook towards life? Marriage goes through all the processes in life - the high, low, slippery, tough, straight and bent turns. All these need more than a passing interest to overcome. 

Therefore, the essence of your self-examination is to ensure you have what it takes to build the determination to constantly take your marriage to the next level.

These are more frightening than what others feel. People may tell you it isn’t right or right for you to date your late girlfriend’s sister. These aren’t always as important as the reasons I have stated. 

After examining the quality of your feelings for her, sit her down and tell her what you feel for her. If you don’t feel like doing her demands, then be truthful to her. You are not under any obligations to date her at all. What you and your late girlfriend shared had nothing to do with her. So, don’t allow yourself be pressured into doing anything you don’t want to.

If, however, you know she would make you a good companion, sit her down to re-evaluate your relationship since it started. You must take control of the relationship from her. Even though she initiated it, once your mind is made up, let her know how you feel and jointly set an agenda for the relationship. 

The danger of allowing her to continue to dominate the relationship is that of losing her after a while. No matter how much she desires you now, a time will come when she would question her sanity at pursuing a man who seems not interested in her. Therefore, to avoid doubts in her mind about your feelings towards her, good wisdom demands you tell her your feelings for her.

When couples leave their feelings to chance, pretend they know what the other person is thinking, it usually destroys what could have been a beautiful relationship. If you have made up your mind to go ahead, go out of your way to woo her, making it clear that you see what she sees in you. Make her happy and not constantly worried if she is doing the right thing going out with the man who dated her late sister. 

However, to be sure you are on the right track, it is best to go before God in prayers to forestall any spiritual corruption that might accompany your decision to go ahead with the relationship especially if the death of your late girlfriend is shrouded in some mystery. 

Good luck.