His Pay Can’t Run Decent Home

Dear Agatha,
May God continue to bless you as you solve people’s problem.  I thank God for the wisdom He gave to you.  Keep it up.
I have these problems worrying my life.  Since I got married, I have been the one bearing the financial burden of the family.  Before I married my husband, I asked him all the necessary questions about his finances as well as his social life.  He gave me the necessary assurances about his ability to take care of a family. Satisfied, I accepted him for who he is.
I married him thinking that by the time both of us combined our financial resources together, we would be able to move ahead. Unfortunately, things aren’t turning out as envisaged.
Immediately after the wedding ceremony, he started complaining of not having money. To be frank, I was a little bit disappointed with what I saw when I moved into his house, but I took it all in my stride trusting God that things would become better. But it is so disappointing that as I write things haven’t moved beyond the point I met him.
I advised him to change his job since it is not fetching him any money but he wouldn’t listen until recently he decided to do so.
There are so many important as well as essential things to be done but there is no money to do them. The little I am earning will not solve half of the problem.  I am so worried and I do not know what to do to uplift my family financially. I am a graduate while he is not. I am working in a one-man business. Please I need your sincere advice on how to solve this problem.
Worried Wife.

Dear Worried Wife,
For how long have you been married and how much faith do you have in your man as well as the marriage?
Life isn’t always the way we envisage. Many a time, we come across challenges meant to align us with the real plans of God for us. A marriage has to have history and character to excel. Whatever it is you are going through is meant to give you and this man the right kind of foundation to give peculiarity to your union.
Everything in life has a stage and to get to the next stage one requires a focus fuelled by determination to achieve. You cannot have everything in one day. If this man had everything in life, he won’t need so much in his life making it difficult for you to stamp your personality into his life.
You are meant to start on this scale with him to give him hope in himself and the union. Your presence isn’t by accident, but by the divine design of God to help both of you come to that special area God planned for your lives while living together.
As his woman, you are to encourage him, not nag him or remind him of his limitations. Everybody is entitled to his or her day in court; therefore this man is entitled to you hearing him out; his reason for the seemingly inactive life you think he lives.
You knew he isn’t a graduate before marrying him so that shouldn’t come to play now. You married him of your own accord and with the belief that it would work. That he isn’t a graduate or doesn’t have money now isn’t the same thing that he would never have. There are many families today where the woman is the one providing the most financial support. Such families are still happy and well put together because the woman despite her privilege position knows her limitations as well.
If you want this marriage to work, bury those disappointments you feel at the quality of life he is able to give you now and begin to make plans on how you can help. Accept the fact that it is what he can afford for now and limit your plans to what you have at hand and not what you wish to have.
Bear in mind that you are at the river of reality; where dreams are put on hold and the actuality given the freedom to exist. From what you have now, what changes can you bring about in your home? Look around you, what tangible thing can you improve on in your home? To help you, look for that object you feel most uncomfortable with and make plans to change it. If it is the only thing you do this year, it will at least give you some measure of happiness as well as the comfort to stay in your home.
Nobody gives happiness; it is something you have to get by yourself through the help of God.
Determination is what you need most in this marriage to make the difference. This is what would fuel you to pray and overlook the immediate to look into the future. If you believe in your marriage, it would be easier for your husband to succeed. All he needs is your support, which would also be an encouragement to you.
Good luck.

She Fails To Visit Me

Dear Agatha

I am 31 years of age dating a lady who is 27 years of age. Our relationship is about five years of age. However, there is one thorny issue in our relationship, one that has continued to give me headache. For the five years we have been together, she finds it difficult to visit me. Some of the excuses she gives for not coming to my place are considered flimsy. She has also done other things. I am hurt. 

Do I forget about this girl because this had been causing me sleepless night and look for another girl? 

NDD.

Dear NDD,

Sincerely, if this is all there is to your challenge, there is really nothing to it at all. And unless you both haven’t been honest to yourselves, this is a matter you should have long ago tackled with the maturity it deserves.

The first thing is why is she refusing to come to your house? Have you at any point in time asked why? What happened on those rare occasions she came? Did you try to force her to do something against her will? What is the premise of your relationship? What are her views about life? How have you both conducted the relationship all these years? What makes you think her excuses are flimsy?

Thinking her excuses are not substantial could be one of the reasons she isn’t comfortable with coming to your house. It is always dangerous to assume that you know better than the other person; to dismiss whatever the other person feels or has to say on an issue. Her excuses represent her personal fears, her feelings, thoughts and beliefs. To therefore dismiss as irrelevant whatever summation that comes out of all these is akin to saying the person doesn’t have a right to self opinion. 

If she is giving a reason to why she can’t come to your house listen not just with your ears but with your heart. If in doubt or suspects her of being insincere, ask further questions concerning the reasons she is giving. 

You must therefore take time out of whatever kind of jacket you have both put the relationship to break new grounds, talk about the last five years with a view of redefining the essence of the relationship. Perhaps there are things you both neglected to say at the beginning and have been shying away from discussing all these years, which have been affecting the growth of your relationship these five years. 

Unless you both have the boldness to bring these issues to the open burner, preferably the front ones, you will continue to experience disappointments in yourselves. 

She must have a reason for not trusting you enough to come to visit you at home. This couldn’t have started yesterday. It must have been a build-up of some past issues of wariness from what you have said or done. Look back and see where you have gone wrong because if a woman you have dated for five years is still doubtful about the nature of your person, it shows that something isn’t right about the way you have both conducted your relationship in the last five years.

Like I said earlier, your relationship ought to have progressed beyond this point but for some strange reasons; you both appear incapable of dragging it from where you started off five years ago. 

If you really love and want her in your life, sit her down to discuss as sincerely as possible. Ask what her fears are about you? Why she doesn’t trust you enough? What mistakes you have made with her as well as her general opinion about you. These would enable you know precisely what the challenges are as well as how to give her all the assurances she needs to trust you implicitly.

Again, she might also need that important assurance that you wouldn’t try to compromise her when she comes to visit you at all. Perhaps both of you didn’t agree on the kind of relationship this was going to be. At this point before you both take the decision to quit, have this talk. You may discover eventually that the fault is yours and take the steps to make the necessary amends. 

Good luck. 

Lonely Heart

I Need Igbo Man

Dear Agatha,

I thank God for what he is using you to do in our generation. I am a girl of 24 looking for a responsible man that is ready for marriage. The man should be God fearing as well as ready to settle down. I can be contacted through this email address. chikebaby81@yahoo.com. Importantly, the man should be Igbo by tribe. A non-Igbo man need not apply.

Re:

Dear Agatha, 

I read the story of Da Capone and his marriage to an older woman. Well, I want to encourage him with my own life story. Marriage is essentially about what works for one and not what works for the majority.

I am 27 years old while my wife is 38 years old. We got married last year December and she is expecting our baby now. 

When we met and made my intentions known; there were protests everywhere from friends and family members who didn’t know what I saw in an older woman. They refused to see what I saw.

Unable to sleep from the pressure of the society and my own feelings for this woman, I asked myself this important question, would the society come to live with me and my wife? Are they the ones who will live in my marriage or face the consequences of marrying the wrong woman? It was that night I made up my mind to carry on with my plans no matter what others thought of it. And you know what? I have never stopped celebrating God for the kind of woman He gave me for a wife. Despite what people said then, I am the happiest man on earth. All those people are now coming back to apologise for what they all said then.  I have a happy marriage; is like heaven on earth. You are doing great in your work. I encourage you to follow your heart and not be discouraged by people who have no inkling about your feelings for this woman.

Onwuchekwa