How Do I Keep Our Relationship Platonic?

Dear Agatha,
May the Lord bless you for the impact you are making on the lives of youths of this nation.

I am an avid reader of your column. Following the advice you gave to a 16-year-old girl like me not to have a boyfriend, I also decided to avoid having one. 
There is this male friend of mine who I am close to. We met through a mutual friend of ours at a traditional wedding ceremony we both attended. It has been six months now. I discover him to be very caring and a very good friend. He treats me as the sister he doesn’t have. He is single and he has never mentioned anything concerning relationship until now.
According to him, he has never had a girlfriend but hoping to have one some day. Recently, we were chatting on line and he confessed his feelings for me. I have not given him an answer yet. I want to decline but not in anyway that will hurt him or jeopardise our friendship because he is too emotional. Though, I have feelings for him, I can control them.
Please Agatha, how do I tell and make him understand that I am not ready for a relationship yet? Please I need your candid advice.
Mellanie.

Dear Mellanie, 

If this man loves you, then he should wait for you to mature and ready to settle into a relationship. At 16, you have too much on your plates in terms of getting education as well as learning about the ways of life. 

At your age, any mistake can effectively derail you. Besides, this is the best time for you to devote to your studies. If you miss this time, it will be very difficult for you to combine other things with your academic activities especially if what goes wrong involves you having to drop out of school to have a baby. Relationships and men never go out of fashion unlike others things that happen in life. 

Provided you are not rude to him and his friendship with you is wholesome, unselfish as well as understanding, he won’t feel offended by your stance. On the contrary, he would give you all the support you need to be what you want to be.

It is only a man who has an ulterior motive for being a friend to a woman that gets offended when she turns down his request for a deeper relationship.

Be very frank about it and learn to have confidence in the friendship you have built in the last six months. Without trust and confidence in your friends, there is always the tendency to fall into the wrong conclusions about them. 

Despite your resolve not to go into a relationship, there is no harm in having platonic friends. It is a way of building your confidence as well as trust in members of the opposite sex.

What will hurt him most is not in your telling him you are not interested in taking the friendship to the next level but shutting him out of your life on account of his interest in you. Your handling of this situation is one of the things you have to learn in life because he is the one of many men who will come to ask for your heart.

You will do well in your life to be practical, bold, truthful and clear-minded about your vision for yourself. This way, at every point, you will know what to say and do. Also, don’t ever stray from the presence of God. Good luck. 

I’ve Problem Introducing My Fiancée To My Parents

Dear Agatha,

I am a lady of 24 years, a student of Lagos State University, studying Banking and Finance and in my 400 level. I am in a relationship with a 30-year-old man, also a graduate of the same university.

He is an economist who is into business. We have been dating for two years. There was nothing definite about the relationship when we started but he recently asked me to marry him. 

I haven’t given him an answer because I am currently confused. This has to do with what we have been through together. Severally, we got close to ending the relationship but he elected to stay on against all odds. 

Sincerely this relationship wasn’t meant by either of us to be serious because we were both into other relationships. It naturally stood as a distraction for us both. I made him think my other relationship was in a bad shape while he also told me he wasn’t really in love with the lady he was engaged to.  After some months, I lied I had broken up the other relationship and that he was now the only one in my life. But this backfired when I got pregnant for the other guy while he was abroad. He found out about it and was very disappointed in me.

I had to put a huge distance between the two of us to sort myself out. Surprisingly, he kept calling and checking on me. I eventually aborted the pregnancy since I couldn’t keep it.  Despite this, he still found his way back to me but I didn’t believe in his love. I doubted his intentions as well as what he wanted from me.  

I just didn’t bother to create the right kind of impression about him in my family. My family got away with the impression that he was only out to exploit as well as take advantage of me. 

Despite all I did to discourage him, he stayed on, never taking advantage of me. He kept offering me support. He even went to the extent of advising me to stay off sex until my wedding night. 

I see him almost every day in the week and most times we are always alone but he never once attempted to force me into an uncompromising situation.

Because of the impression I created of him within my family circle, I now have difficulties taking him to my parents for proper introduction and telling them of his intentions to marry me. I am scared of telling them for fear of being turned down by my parents. I really do love and appreciate him now and wouldn’t want to lose him. 

I am almost through with my education. It’s a part-time programme. I will be finishing next year. I receive lectures only at weekends. He understands and he is ready to support and see me through. My fears still rest on my parents’ reactions.  I don’t know how to relate it to them. Please, I need you to help me analyse this.

Worried Girl.

Dear Worried Girl, 

Your major concern now should be how to finish your education. In your final year, you need all the concentration to sail through. Once you are through, you can face the issue of who to marry. 

Given the delicate stage of your education, it would be more than you can handle if you have to battle your parents over accepting your boyfriend. Certain things are best left unsaid until there is enough time to properly tackle them. There is no way you can handle the reactions of your parents, as well as the attendant consequences of combining your disobeying them with your studies.

Besides, there are several ways of changing their minds without you saying anything. Even though you have made the mistake of colouring him in less than appealing shades before your parents, you still can do damage control by gradually exposing them to his character, his love for you as well as that special thing that has changed your opinion of him. 

Granted they may not be too willing to accept him whole-heartedly at the initial stage, if you prepare him properly, telling him what you previously told your parents about him and how that has since changed, he would develop the necessary patience to outwit your parents’ rejection of him. 

If you do your public relations well, things would eventually sort themselves out. To do this right, you need help from within the family. Enlist the support of your favorite sibling; tell him or her everything you have shared with me. This sibling will join you in marketing the qualities of your boyfriend to your family. 

Over time, with the support of this sibling as well as your own efforts, your parents would begin to see another side of him. By the time you are ready to introduce him officially, they will be more than ready to accept him. 

This has also taught you an important lesson in life: to be careful of what you say about people around you. Rushed impression about people you are just meeting, often turn out to be wrong. Until you are exposed to the character of a person over time, it is difficult to form a firm impression. If you hadn’t given your family a wrong impression about this man, you won’t be struggling to re-brand him now that you know he isn’t the kind of person you thought.

Furthermore, learn to pray to God as often as you can because at the end of the day, that is where your real help is. Learn to trust him implicitly.

Good luck. 

Pastor Predicts Disappointment

Dear Agatha, 

Thank God for your life on how he has been helping you to provide solution to people’s problem both physically and spiritually. God bless you.
There is this girl I met a year ago, who was then in the habit of coming to my place to do online registration as well as check her result. I have known her for a while but started developing interest in her about a year ago. I immediately made my intentions known to her. Initially she declined but later accepted when I helped her gain admission into a tertiary institution. We later agreed to marry each other.

Because she stays in the hostel, she comes to spend weekends or holidays at my place.
Problem started when I travelled to collect my SSCE original result. I showed my mother and sister the picture I took with her. They admired her but my mother told me she has to pray over it and I gave her the go ahead.
Last week, my mother called me and told me that her pastor told her that the girl would later disappoint me. I told my friends and they said I should try and ask the girl if she really loves me and will not later disappoint me. 

I took to my friends’ counsel and called her to question her on her feelings for me. She assured me nothing would ever come between us. It was as if she knew what I had in mind. 
Before she met me, someone had broken her heart and she made a vow never to trust any man again. 

Following the extent of her disappointment, she had actually made up her mind to become a nun. She later confessed not knowing what made her agree to a relationship with me. I promised never to break her heart and from her disposition to me, I have succeeded in restoring her faith in love and relationship.
Agatha, please what shall I do? I didn’t tell the poor girl what is going on. I love this girl and she loves me too.  

She told me she loves me with her whole heart. She confessed that she almost killed herself when the other guy disappointed her. I haven’t told my parents what my decision concerning my relationship with this girl is despite the fact that they have been flashing me. 

My two elder sisters were also told similar things when they brought their proposed partners home but they both went ahead to marry these men and are today living happily with these men. Their decision to ignore my parents led to a division within the family. I have been the one trying to unite the family to no avail. Now, the same thing is happening to me. I can’t leave this girl because I have promised not to disappoint her.
Agatha, what do I do? Should I stand by the prophecy? Left to me, I don’t believe in it. Please, I need your advice.
Stid.

Dear Stid, 

Be clear about one thing: do you love her? Are you sure what you both feel is real and can withstand the test of time? To make a promise is one thing; to be sure of the reason for which you are making the promise is another matter. 

Pastors and people with spiritual powers will always have something to say but the bottom line is what God has to say on the matter. Most times, when such predictions come, it is meant for us to seek the face of God personally on the issue for which we seek spiritual guidance. 

Many prophecies are warning signals for us to pray more and get God involved in our decisions especially on the issue of a life partner. Rather than get agitated over what the pastor said or didn’t say, you go to God in prayers. If you have never prayed or committed your ways to God, this is the time for you to do so. 

From experience, God never hides his ways and wishes from his own. If it is true that this girl and you aren’t meant to be an item, he will tell you so himself and if it is something he wants you to continue with, he will point out what you should do. 

It is important you both seek the face of God because life is laced in mysteries which we have no control over or understanding of. 

You may both agree to spend the rest of your lives together but there are situations in life that could work against one’s plans and desires. This is because everything in life revolves round humans and therefore subject to the imperfect nature of our beings. 

Even when a relationship has all the spiritual support to succeed, little bumps can still torpedo it if those involved are careless spiritually. Rather than fight your parents over this and further tear the family apart, go first to God in prayers and fasting. Once you have him on your side, he knows how to go about the situation without breaking the family up.

Good luck.