Mother Can’t Pick Education Bill, Indian Boss Wants Mistress…

ear Agatha,

I am a good reader of your column. To be sincere with you, you are doing a very nice job. May the good God bless you as well as give solutions to your own problems.

I am a 33-year-old lady born without the presence of a father to take good care of me. I don’t know how it all happened. 

I would have asked my mother what transpired between her and my father but she isn’t too disposed to answering questions about her relationship with my father. From what I gathered, she took up the responsibilities to care for me by herself. Unfortunately, she couldn’t afford to send me to school. She ignored the fact that I needed to have good education in life. Left with no choice, I had to go and stay with her sister at a tender age all because I desired to have a good education. I was brought to Lagos by this woman who cared so much for me, but something happened and she changed dramatically towards me. I still don’t know what changed her to become so dramatically hostile to me. It got so bad she asked me to leave her house. 

Left with no choice, I went home to see my mother to demand for explanation to all that is happening to me. It was while at home she told me that someone in the church told her, a curse was placed on me. The voodoo is to make people hate me so much that I would be forced to return to the village. I was told to fast, I did. According to them, only the presence of my father can break the curse, which is why I was told to fast for my mother to have a change of heart and take me to my father. 

To worsen matters my stepfather passed on leaving responsibilities too much for my mother to handle. Much as I would have loved to help, it is so painful that I am limited by my problems. Through self-help I sat for the General Certificate Examination (GCE) last year but my result has not been released till date. Please tell me what to do? 

The Bible says we should call upon God night and day for help. I know He is not in the habit of failing anyone who trusts in Him. Now there is this Indian man who wants me to come and work for him but he has placed some very difficult condition that I am uncomfortable with.  

He wants me to come and live with him in his house as his mistress. I don’t want to do that but I have no choice but to accept the offer. I may not have money but I don’t want to exchange my body for money because to me this is fornication? Please tell me what to do before I go into this relationship. Sincerely speaking, I am not happy with the situation and wouldn’t want to offend God. My mother is refusing to introduce me to my father or his family. Till date, I don’t have any information concerning my father or his family, not even his name or that of his family. 

I have suffered so much and would not want to compromise my situation with God. I am of the belief he would make a way for me. I am so confused.

Victoria.

Dear Victoria, 

Let’s give the credit of this page to God because am not flawless. Your mother is the major architect of your problem. Why is she refusing to introduce you to your father or his family? Why is she allowing you go through this difficulty in life? Why did she stop your father from having access to you when she knows she is incapable of taking care of you or help you with information on how to better your life? What does she expect you to do in your current situation; sell your body to make ends meet?

It is your right to know who your father is. At 33, you are more than old enough to be told who you father is. To continue to keep silent about his identity is to call to question her knowledge of who your father really is. This is the point you must emphasis when demanding from her to see your father. She must understand the emotional and spiritual trauma of you growing up without knowing the man whose sperm fathered you. Make her understand that whatever the issue was between them should not be allowed to mar your identity especially as you risk marrying any of your father’s relations or even your father for that matter out of ignorance.

Let her also know that if she truly cares about you, she should be worried at the prophecy given in the church about the curse placed on you. If need be, go to her people or the leadership of the church to plead your case with her.

She has to be made to appreciate that you are no longer a child but a full grown woman who ought to by now have settled and raising a family of her own. They should tell her there is no way you can move forward in life without her help in mending the crack she created in your foundation. Let them assure her that you won’t be offended or deny her as a mother if she tells you the truth concerning her past. Chances are that her refusal to tell you has to do with fear of being rejected by you. Assure her that you understand that human beings are prone to mistakes, especially a young girl whose hormones are more than active or out of desperation for a better life, do certain things contrary to moral standards. Being a mother now, the fear of losing the respect you have for her by opening a chapter she considers closed for life. To get her to open up, you have to show a remarkable understanding and healthy respect for the decisions she took dating your father and for asking to keep you.

To totally condemn her for her conduct would be totally wrong, as you don’t have the experience of what motivated her decisions then. Besides, your condemnation may leave her a permanent prisoner of her conscience and guilt.

Honestly at this stage, you won’t achieve much by fighting her. Granted you have every reason to be angry, bitter but without you applying the much-needed wisdom, it might be impossible for you to break her 33-year of silence. 

If she still refuses to tell you, there must be someone in her family who knows what happened in the past. Ask her siblings or relations. She must have someone who remembers her past, that can give you a clue into her past. The information may not be sufficient but it would be more than enough for you to go by.

There is also the need for you to learn from her mistakes. Already, you are about to make the same mistake your mother made by going to live with a man whose intentions and desires for your body is obvious to you. What if he decides to force himself on you since you live all alone with him in his house? Would you blame him for doing what he has expressly told you he wanted? Do you think he would accept any responsibility for any child that comes from both of you sleeping together?

To be candid with you, whether you like it or not, you are already in a relationship with him because it is only a matter of time before he gets what he wants from you as long as you live under his roof. No matter the hardship or confusion generated by your situation, accepting to live with him has compromised whatever moral standards you claim to have. In a way what you are facing should give you a little bit of understanding into the reasons for the choice your mother made back then even though it still doesn’t excuse her reasons for not telling you who your father is.

Sincerely, living in your boss’ house isn’t an option at all. Instead appeal to him to help you look for a job elsewhere to take the pressure off you. Also learn to be focused and determined to succeed in life. If it would help, there are countless of women and men who have walked along this part before and are today huge success because they made the choice to rise above their situation in life. Every situation we find ourselves in life is intended to teach us how to be strong and in control of our situation. At 33, you should have overcome this situation had you determined to.

Nobody can do it for you, not even your mother. Whatever the curse may be, it can be broken once you summon the will to help yourself. Are you saying if your mother had died before this revelation came up, you would have gone to her grave to give you the information about your father. Though it hurts not to know who you fully are, the fact remains that you have a father who is above all fathers, one who cannot change and always ready to help you anytime you ask for His assistance. 

Begin your journey towards self-actualisation by going for deliverance. Pray and ask God for direction on how to go about it. You need Him to lead you to a pastor He has equipped to deliver you. 

Honesty and complete trust in God are what you need to overcome your situation. As you have found out, even parents are capable of failing one. So give yourself up completely to God because that is where your ultimate help comes from. 

Help yourself by checking on your own ways too because most times we are our very own enemies. If you haven’t done it already, don’t cheapen yourself by sleeping with this man. It isn’t worth it.

Good luck.

Should I Tell My Sister About Her Husband’s Covert Wife?

Dear Agatha,

What I’m about to tell you has been giving me sleepless nights for close to a year now. I must say it has been giving me even high blood pressure as well.

I live with my sister and her husband. They have been married for quite sometime now without any child. Both of them look happy together even without a child.

However, early last year, I stumbled on a piece of information that started my emotional upset. I got to know that my sister’s husband has impregnated a lady in another state different from where we’re leaving. I couldn’t tell my sister, couldn’t tell anybody either. I was confused and decided to put it off as mere rumour.

A month ago, I confirmed this to be true, even with names. The lady has given birth. Every two weeks, my brother-in-law gives official reasons for travelling. My sister does not know this and I’m not sure whether to tell her. This is why I am worried and stressful. What can I do?

Worried Sister.

Dear Worried Sister, 

It isn’t your place to tell your sister. The decision is that of her husband. No matter how painful all these are for you, you must keep away from your sister’s marital challenges. Irrespective of whatever her husband has done, he remains her partner and soul mate. Whereas they can forgive each other and make up to each other because of what they shared, the same cannot be said for you. Her husband will forever remember how you tried to break his home by telling his wife something he was trying to hide and your sister will one day query your reason for telling her. Besides, your name will always be mentioned as the one who told her about the other woman and the child. 

Marriage is a sacred and very delicate institution. It is also a mystery only very few people understand. When two people decide to spend the rest of their lives together, they are not only making the physical vow but going into a very strong covenant which only the two of them understand. Some couples are too deep into each other to be understood. Their unity is beyond understanding and only those who understand what the ideals of marriage appreciate the power of love and friendship in a marriage.

Marriage involves just two people, anytime there is a third party intervention, the foundation experiences a crack capable of destroying the foundation completely. No matter how deep an injury is in a marriage, true love is elastic enough to snap it back together. If your sister is truly in love with her husband, they will always overcome this problem. Besides you don’t know what the arrangement is between your sister and husband especially if the fault is from her. Strange things have been known to happen between couple.

There is no hidden thing under the sun. Your brother-in-law cannot conceal the existence of this child from his wife forever. Eventually she will get to know of her husband’s betrayal of her, but do everything to make sure she doesn’t get to hear it from you. Trust me you lack the maturity and wisdom to break this delicate news to her.

To assuage your guilt at keeping this information from her, confide in your mother, if you still have one. As a matured mind, she will know how to manage the situation without breaking your sister’s marriage. You could also confront your brother-in-law with the information you have. In doing this, don’t be overtly hostile to him, just demand to know why he did what he did considering the pains it would cause your sister.

Hear him out, express your disappointment at his conduct, but don’t ever insult him because whatever he may have done wrong, he remains the husband of your elder sister and until she decides otherwise, continue to accord him his respect. The best you can do is to pray for God’s intervention for your sister because it is the only way she can get over her problems and become fulfilled as a woman. If you have never been close to her, taking things happening to her for granted, it is time you do. Listen to her inner yearnings as a woman by encouraging her to talk about the challenges she is facing in her marriage. Being her pillar would give her the much needed succour to face the task of adjusting to the knowledge of being a stepmother when the husband eventually decides to tell her. 

Furthermore, you need to position yourself as a friend too, to be able to know how and where to come in with help when is needed. There is the need to be very close to her emotionally. 

Good luck.

Help, I Can’t Woo Girl!

Dear Agatha,

Where in the world did you learn this talent of overcoming people’s problems?

I am a 20-year-old boy who since secondary school has had no relationship with a woman. I often ask my friends how they manage to talk women into having relationships with them. Some of my friends think my question funny. They ask if I am impotent. Agatha, it has nothing to do with impotency but my inability to chat up a girl who responds to my overtures. It is also confusing to me. I don’t know why it happens like that. Please help me if you can.

Lonely Boy.

Dear Lonely Boy,

All the glory for whatever I am doing here rightly belongs to God. He is the problem solver not me. I am only doing His bidding. You are having this problem because deep down you have this morbid fear that you don’t have what it takes to keep this girls. Unless you overcome your sense of limitations, inadequacy and fear of embarrassing yourself in the presence of a woman, you would never be able to chat up a woman.

One of the ways to challenge this restriction in your life is to accept the fact that we are all prone one time or the other to mistakes and making fools of ourselves. Ask a lot of men. They would tell you that the first time they talked to a woman was very difficult and frightening because it was an entirely new terrain.

The guts to withstand the cold stare of the woman: her arrogance, and sometime outright rudeness is what you need. Brave it because underneath the façade of indifference and toughness most women put up the first time a man approaches them, is a soft and friendly side.

The worst, a woman can do is to tell you off. She is only exercising her prerogative. Move on to one who would receive your interest with happiness.

Being honest, simple and factual would work better magic for you than any word. Don’t worry too much about it. Chatting a woman up is one of the initiations you have to confront in your journey towards manhood.

Next time on seeing a girl you like, start by limiting your interest to general topics like the weather, political and social development in the country before talking about her person and your interest. Your interest should only be tabled when you are both sufficiently accommodating.

Good luck.

Before Her Anger Over My Marriage Abroad Ruins Our Dream…

Dear Agatha,

 I live overseas and really enjoy reading the advice you offer to your various writers. I’ve advised myself severally simply by reading your comments on various issues. I really want to thank you for everything.

 I have an issue of my own I would like to get some advice on. I met Chinyere back in 2004 in Nigeria while on a trip home. We spoke frequently over the phone during the next few months and really came to like each other. The relationship flourished for the next two years during which time I came home several times to visit her and her family. I loved them so much. 

Being overseas the past 25 years, and being 43 years old have not changed me much from my values, but I kept a secret from Chinyere. During my years overseas, I got married to a foreigner and we had two boys, now 16 and 13 years of age. My kids and I are very close. I was already divorced two years before I met Chinyere but I failed to inform her when I first met her of my situation. I even became wearier of telling her after we fell in love. I was scared she might leave me. But I knew I was making a mistake. I was listening to family members and friends, who also loved her so much that she might leave me if she found out I was married and had kids. 

 I was going to proceed with the traditional wedding in 2006, but I knew it would go against every fair principle that I knew and practiced. So I called to inform some friends and advise them to accompany me to her parents’ house so I can disclose this last information to them in front of my girl before the wedding. Well, as it turned out, one of my so-called friends carelessly or intentionally told her about my situation before I returned home. Chinyere didn’t even bother to call and find out what had happened. She stopped taking my calls. 

When I visited home that summer, she said our wedding was off and still refused to tell me what happened. I later learnt from her parents how someone had called and informed her that I was married to a certain white woman and had children. I don’t know what else they told her. Until today, Agatha, she never told me what really happened. She refused to marry me, and has not married herself. I’m 43 yrs of age, unmarried, while she is 31. 

I need some closure, Agatha, and I need your help because it’s really been long but I still think about her all the time. I need help moving on with my life. It’s been awhile we talked. I don’t really know what else to say to her after pleas from my family and I and even some members of hers have fallen on her deaf ears. How do I move on?

Tobechukwu.

Dear Tobechukwu, 

Doubtless you were wrong not to have told her about your former marital status and the children. Irrespective of what you feared, you should have been man enough to confront her with the ghost of your past by telling her about the children she supposed to inherit as hers.

She trusted you with her heart and life by agreeing to marry you. The shock of finding out that the man she is supposed to settle down with is hiding something as important as children and a history of a broken home, destroyed the trust she has started to build around you and the relationship. Sincerely, you cannot blame her for refusing to listen to you at the time you came. You had all the opportunities of telling her about these children. 

The news of knowing you have children must have been very traumatic for her especially as she didn’t know much about you even when she agreed to marry you. Leaving far from her also didn’t help matters especially with the stories of the desperation most African men display to stay in their host country. She could have come to so many conclusions, wrong in your perspective, but right in hers. One thing is clear, whatever trust she had in you or the possibility of having a happy union nose-dived from the point your friend told her crashed. By now she is probably wondering what other unpleasant surprises you have in stock for her. Her reason for canceling your wedding plans may be her inability to reconcile with your present image as a father. She may not have envisaged life with someone who has tried matrimony and have children. 

Unless she is ready to come out of whatever shell she has built around, there is little or nothing you can do. She has to learn to forgive you before you can talk of a future together. Try putting yourself in her shoes to appreciate what she is going through. 

However be that as it may, relationship heals on the wheel of forgiveness and trust. Granted you were very wrong not to have told her from the beginning about your collapsed marriage, truth is, she should have given you the chance to explain why you kept such vital information from her. 

Although you made the greater mistake of not telling her but in retrospect, it has given you a chance to assess the kind of person she is. True love and friendship make it easy for couple to let go of some painful memories. If she has the same kind of love you have for her, irrespective of her initial shock and pains, she should have long forgiven you of the offence because that is what time does, heal our pains as well as disappointments.

Having pleaded with her as well as have her family members intercede for you, make the last attempt to see her by sending her a text message asking for an appointment with her. If she fails to respond or listen to what you have to say, accept the fact that it wasn’t meant to be and move on with your life. If this is what God wants there is no questioning His authority. 

He sees the end from the beginning and knows what is best for us. Submitting to His supremacy is the only way you can be happy because certain things we think are best for us end up not being in our interest. The key to happiness is to completely trust God and submit to His will for you at all times. That is the only way to wipe away all your tears. 

Good luck.

Choosing My Wife From The Duo Nags Me…

Dear Agatha,             

I must commend your efforts in handling issues pertaining to relationships. I’m in my late 20s and a student. There is this girl I fell in love with in my first year. She didn’t give in to my request till my third year. Before she came, someone else has crept into my life. This new girl loves and cares for me as if I were a baby even when she’s aware we can’t marry due to tribal differences. According to my parents I can only marry a woman from my tribe. She wants to enjoy every moment we have together while we’re together.

The first girl is still on my mind especially now that she is in love with me. Besides, she is from my tribe.   

Agatha, I don’t know what to do. I love both girls though the one from my tribe is hot-tempered and stubborn I don’t want to lose both.

Ken.

Dear Ken, 

There is no way you can have both women in your life. You simply have to make the choice of the one who meets your requirement of the kind of woman you have always wanted in your life. 

Marriage isn’t a tribal thing rather it is motivated by both parties having the same kind of ideas and temperament to live together as one. 

Even if a couple comes from the same kindred, if they lack those basic qualities to live under the same roof as man and wife, cannot communicate without having an unresolved disagreement, shout at each other, insensitive to the position of the other within the union, then there is no marriage. The language of marriage revolves around friendship, respect and responsibility. Without any of these, no matter how much love is professed, it won’t work. 

There is also the issue of you loving both of them. What do you understand by love? What shade of love are you talking about here? Between interest and love, there are different kinds of feelings many of us mistakenly call love. There is no way you can love these two girls. You may be in love with one and infatuated by the other but to say you are in love with both of them shows you also have to tutor yourself on what you want and understand by the feelings you feel for these ladies. 

Therefore, there is the need for you to take a retreat to fathom what you really want from life. If you don’t have a personal plan and the blueprint, it would be almost impossible for you to recognise the kind of woman you need to help you achieve it. 

It is only after you have done this that you will be able to determine the kind of girl who will make you happy. In your interest, be sure you know what you want to avoid making the choice of a woman you will later regret. 

Good luck. 

Re: My Premium Partner Too Scary To Have Sex

Dear Agatha, 

You are simply wired to do what you are doing through your column. Your response to Mr. Worried Man is apt. Let him discover the power of the touch. He and his wife will have a new perspective to lovemaking. Let him discover her vulnerable spots and she is bound to explode with pleasure. Welcome to the club! My wife is a Xerox-copy of this man’s wife but when I discovered the importance of feel, she lost her reserve in the bedroom. Imagine we both got married as virgins. But I keep reading. I read your regularly and have learnt so much. I never stop reading and learning. I never desire to remain in my comfort-zone psychologically; I break out of my cocoon. I think out of the normal, out of the box and desiring to do the unusual. Your wife is your song; you are her dance. Make her read the Songs Of Solomon. Make her sing your song. Oh yes you can! You are her leader. Remember once you’ve passed your doctrine of sexual necessity, she will have no option than to flow along with your rhythm. 

Good luck.

Adayi.

Lonely Hearts

Dear Agatha,

Please I need your help I am a young man of 35 years of age, 5.7 inches tall, fair, romantic, gentle, honest, God fearing and above all hard working. Please I need a good-looking, kindhearted working class woman who will love me not because of what I have but for whom I am. Because I really want to get married soon, I need to date her for seven months before that. She should be between 28 to 35 years old. 

Agatha, please help me. My email is emekanwachukwu13@yahoo.com

Kenny.

My name is Fred. I’m tall, dark and 29 years old. I’m from the eastern part of the country.

I’m a graduate. I work and reside in Lagos. I’m looking for a lady: a good listener, humble, educated, goal-getter and a focused mind. She can come from any part of the country, but must be resident in Lagos. Must be within the ages of 22-30 years. I am for a serious relationship.

Interested ladies could reach me on 08062415199 or judenex@yahoo.com. I can also be reached on Facebook via my e-mail add.

Fred,, Lagos.