Won’t leaving him now label me ingrate?

Dear Agatha,

 

 

I need urgent reply to this issue which has been confronting me all these while. There is this man who has supported me in my career for four years. He sponsored my study as well as did other things for me, and my family members as well. 

But something came up. My pastor and my stepmother have been telling me to leave this man just because he refused to come to my house. I have been telling him to come but he told me he is broke, a fact I am aware of. 

There is also the issue of his age. I lied to my parents about his age. While I clocked 26 years of age in November last year, he will be 24 this month.  My parents have been on my neck to bring home the man I intend to marry. I have communicated this desire of my parents to him but he says it is not yet time for him to meet them. He says he won’t be ready until about two years time.

My parents want me to dump him for another man. Some of my friends too I told about him are supportive of my parents stance on the matter. They are of the opinion that I should dump him but I don’t want to hurt him because he made me all I am today despite the fact I am older than him and better than him educationally.

These days, he doesn’t bother about me having told him about the desire of my parents and pastor. I have this deep feeling inside of me that my pastor and parents want to ruin my future. I happen to know what this man is passing through now he isn’t as financially buoyant as before. This is the time he really needs me the most. My family wants me to marry this year unfailingly.

I am so confused. Please help me before it’s too late. 

Betty.

Dear Betty, 

Aren’t your parents aware of the positive role this man has played in your life? Are they ignorant of the fact that he paid your school fees and has kept giving you every kind of support you need to succeed in life? Did they ever ask you at the time he was rendering this support to you and them who he is and what he wanted from you? Why didn’t they insist at the time that they must see him or leave him because they didn’t know him? Asking you to leave him now that he has given you support to make it in life isn’t right at all.

Furthermore, didn’t you know that you were older than him by two years when you allowed him all these years to pay your fees and give you all the support he gave you? Frankly, the age thing isn’t an excuse or issue in this matter. Don’t even think about it because it would only paint you as an opportunist. A lot of marriages between older women and men are working well. A lot depends on how you as the woman adjust to your role as a wife to someone you are older than. If he isn’t perturbed by it, don’t bother yourself about it. Besides, who is going to tell your parents about his age? This is something between the two of you. Unless you want it advertised, they don’t have to know anything about the age gap between the two of you.

How would they feel if this boy were their son and a girl he has invested so much on disappoints him the way they want you to ditch him now? To be able to pay your school fees and provide other support must have entailed a lot of sacrifices from him. If he isn’t as financially buoyant as he was when he was paying your fees, it doesn’t mean he loves you less. As a matter of fact, taking care of your financial needs must have contributed to the present financial situation he is in. 

If he isn’t bothered about you anymore, because at 26 he expects you to know what you want. You are no longer a baby or ignorant of what you want in a man. For him at that age to shoulder the responsibility of sponsoring your education shows a man who is deep and very caring. His friends and family members would have at various times warned him against investing in the education of a woman who isn’t his wife. You can therefore imagine his pains and embarrassment at this point in time and how his friends would gloat over this whole development? 

Sincerely, your parents owe this man a lot. You are not his child but he took on a responsibility that rightly belongs to your parents to execute in your life. The least is to show appreciation and not make him appear like a fool. 

He did what he did out of love. The question now is how much do you love him? Can you make the same sacrifice for him? Are two years too much for this man to ask you given the fact that he also gave you four years of his life; giving you the kind of support you need to make the difference in life?

Honestly the reason being advanced by your parents and pastor as excuse to dump him isn’t tenable at all. After what he has done for you, he has no reason not to come. His action in itself is enough reason for them to entrust you to him. Perhaps he is that kind of man who thinks it wrong to be meeting his would be in-laws without a form of gift for them. Sincerely, you should understand and try to convince your parents as to his sincerity and reason he doesn’t want to come now. 

At this important juncture in your life, the onus is on you to take the path you know would benefit you at the end of the day. Not only are you above the age of consent, you are in the best position to judge the intentions of this man as well as that of your family. Ideally your pastor should provide spiritual guidance and not supporting your parents to disqualify him on account of his personal constraints. 

What you should do now is to sit him down for a very frank talk. Where does he hope to be in two years time? Ask him very probing questions concerning his plans as well as the kind of support he would need in the realisation of his dreams. He has to know that you care sufficiently about him at this critical period of his life. 

If at the end of the day, things don’t work out between the two of you, it won’t be because you were only interested in what you can get from him but it would be obvious to him that you and him weren’t meant to be. This way you free yourself from any spiritual consequences of biting the fingers that fed you. But it is in your own interest to be very honest with yourself, view things from the angle only you can understand as well as would work for you.

Have this at the back of your mind: your marriage is personal to you and it isn’t made perfect by the number of years spent in it but by the commitment, sacrifices, dedication, and determination put into it. Often than not, the beginning of anything that would be good is often laced with hardship and selfless sacrifices. The next person too won’t come with guarantees. 

You must begin the process of knowing and examining your lives together before marriage. Two years aren’t forever. To meet and marry a man this year is treating the issue of marriage with levity and your parents ought to know better, marriage isn’t shopping where you go and buy what you want. It takes more than ultimatum for someone to meet the right partner and plan marriage with such a person. 

However, to please your parents, prevail on your boyfriend to honour their invitation to see them. They cannot force him to do what he isn’t prepared for. He should be bold enough to tell them that he isn’t ready as well as when he would be.

Open up your heart to the wishes of God. Go to Him in prayers yourself and do what He tells you to do. A good man like this young man is very difficult to come by. 

Good luck. 

Dad wants grandson; pastor pleads caution…

Dear Agatha,                                                                                

I have followed your column closely all these days and it has now become imperative for me to table my problem. I am a woman of 38 years of age and have had bad relationships from time to time. I dated a guy, who seems to be Mr. Right but who was unwilling to settle down quickly. After four years of indecision I called it quit. 

Later I met another guy but the problem is that he is too stingy, and he is far more comfortable than me but he prefers me spending my own money on everything. He wants to settle down but cannot commit himself to taking any responsibility. Rather he prefers to spend his finances on looking good and using the best car in town. I foresee a marriage that would be filled with quarrels and argument. We have talked but he did not change. 

My daddy is of the opinion that I should just overlook it and give him grandson but my pastor is warning me. I am at crossroad. Age is not on my side. 

Worried lady.

Dear Worried Lady,

This isn’t your daddy’s life or anyone for that matter, it is about you and your happiness and comfort. Only a fool sees a burning fire and plunges into it. You can always tell the quality of a material from its look. Marriage is more than producing grandchildren for your daddy. If marriage is just a simple mathematics of producing children only, a lot of people won’t bother at all. Besides, you don’t have to marry to give your father his heart desire if it were that simple. There are a lot of both young and unmarried mothers. Have your father also considered the salient fact of your inability to produce a child in the marriage? Would he tell you to quit and marry another man as long as his desire to have a grandson is realised? What if you end up having all girls since his specification is a grandson?

Sorry to say this but your father isn’t putting your feelings and well-being into considerations at all. His reasons for wanting you to marry this man would end up destroying you at the end of the day. No good marriage can come from such a condition.

Like you have noticed, this man doesn’t have the kind of character that would make a woman happy. Marriage is about joint responsibility. The man must be alive to his responsibilities just as the woman too is expected to play her role effectively. Issues and things have to be prioritised for every couple to find joy in their union. For this simple reason don’t mortgage your happiness for anything. 

Let your father know that much as you love him, you aren’t ready to make the mistake of entrusting your future to a man you know you lacks the essentials to make you a good husband.

However, you also have to help yourself come out of the situation you are now. There is no point continuing with this man when it is obvious that you are not happy with him. Be bold enough in your interest to tell this man precisely what you think of his person and character. By staying in the relationship, you are giving the impression that you are satisfied and also denying yourself the chance of allowing someone with your outlook enter into your life. 

Your father may have insisted on your marrying him because you lack the courage to quit a relationship you say isn’t working for you. There is no way he or anybody would take your observations of him serious.

Granted, age appears not to be on your side but marriage isn’t something one goes into with the wrong person irrespective of how old one is. This is a journey of a lifetime; to make mistake in your choice of a partner is to live a life of regrets and emotional torture. The worst kind of sentence for any human being is to get married to the wrong person. With you feeling the way you are doing about your boyfriend, thread with caution.

At this crucial stage, it is imperative you listen more to your pastor whose duty it is to give spiritual direction. 

Good luck. 

She changed on New Year’s Day

Dear Agatha,

I really love your response to people’s issue concerning their love life and any issue that bothers them. It’s such a great thing God created you in our society and may Almighty God continue to replenish your strength and grant you more wisdom, knowledge and understanding.

Please Agatha, I have this girl I am dating. We have been together for three months now. I approached her in the first place because of her unique character. She is well educated, obedient, beautiful, well behaved and secretive in relationship. She calls every day, before going to bed and early in the morning just to know my feelings. I really, really love this girl but one day something happened.

On New Year day, she changed suddenly, stopped all the calls and whenever I call her and ask why she didn’t call to wish me Happy New Year, she only says there is nothing.

Sometimes if I call her, she won’t pick my call and at times terminate it by herself.  

I had no choice but to stop calling her. She became unhappy with my decision and called to ask why I wasn’t calling her again. I also told her what she told me when I asked her the same question.
It seems the love I have for her is fading in my heart. And now, it appears she needs me more than before.

Please, what can I do to let her know she isn’t the same lady I fell in love with; she has changed. Being from a Christian home, I don’t like dating more than one lady at a time. I need your suggestion.

Worried Boy.

Dear Worried Boy,

Three months is too short a time to worry about and determine the workability or not of a relationship. Every relationship has its gestation period; one that would help give it character and texture. It is your ability to survive and manage this period that gives a relationship its equilibrium.

For now, take each day as it comes because your character traits are just unfolding. Just like you have noticed one or two changes in her, she too may have one or two things to complain about in you too.

There is no perfect situation or people but only a strong determination to make a circumstance work.

As two people from different families, upbringing, values, you should expect disappointments here and there. To give up on her simply because she has behaved differently from the image of her you have is admitting to failure. The question you should ask, if she were an ordinary friend, would you be quick to judge her? Chances are you would show more understanding for her behaviour.

Apply the same level of tolerance you would show your friend to this relationship. It will go a long in helping both of you navigate the new path of self discovery you have both embarked on. 

Also have you considered she might be trying to gauge your true feelings for her by her refusal to call you as before? Something deep inside her must have cautioned her; told her if she doesn’t stop, you may begin to take it for granted that it is her duty to do all the callings. Being a woman, she has to know that she isn’t the one pushing for the relationship; that it is something you also want as much as she does. 

From your reactions, you may have failed that test considering that she has always been the one calling you. Every woman, no matter how young or old needs care and affection from the man in her life to give her the best. All she wanted to achieve is to show you how to care for her and how not to take her for granted.

Calling you back to ask you why you stopped calling her underlines her real reason for acting the way she did.

The truth is, she may not have changed from who she has always been but because she has stopped calling you as was the case in the beginning you think she has.

Learn to be thorough by looking beyond the surface of issues if you want to go far in your relationship with any woman. Women have a lot of ways, sometimes outrageous and incomprehensible to the average man to communicate their desires and needs.

If you love her, play it cool. Forget the incident of these past weeks and act your role as the man by being the one rushing her with calls.  

You don’t have to lose her at all or develop double minds about her simply because she stopped calling you. The issue here is very simple. Refuse to be disappointed by her attitude by considering it as one of the many acts women put up in the process of getting the man to work a little bit for love. Every woman worth her salt has done one or two things similar to what she is doing now to get noticed by her man and or clear doubts she may have about the feelings of the man.

These are the little things that she stores up in her sentimental memory bank that comes to the rescue of the man when he steps out of line. Make her feel like the woman she is. 

Calling her first won’t compromise your Christian faith. The world is governed by love and care. 

Good luck.                  

You can also visit www.auntieagatha.blogspot.com or write agatha.edo@gmail.com

I am lonely without a wife

Dear Agatha, 

You are a shinning star and symbol of love and hope to many especially those of us that read your column. May God continue to bless and protect you and your family. 

Agatha, I really need your help to solve this problem which has refused to go away. I left the shores of Nigeria 16 years ago, after writing my West Africa School Certificate Examination for Switzerland.

I got married to a white woman few years after I came into this country to enable me secure my resident permit. 

I was married to her for 13 years. The marriage produced two children. As the children where growing up, I decided to take them to visit my parents in Nigeria. But my wife opposed it and refused to accompany me on the visit. She cited a documentary she watched on TV which claimed that children taken from Europe to African die from mosquito bites. 

Even though I assured her that the children were sufficiently vaccinated and that we would take any other vaccination necessary before travelling to Nigeria, she still refused. It was at that point she told me of an uncle of hers that died during a missionary trip to Nigeria.  

I promised to protect her and the children against mosquito but she refused. Before I knew what was happening, she had gone to file a divorce case against me. She claimed in the affidavit she filed that I intended relocating to Nigeria with the children permanently. 

At that point, my interest in the marriage completely died. For the 13 years we were married, I was more of a slave to her. She was in total control of my accounts and salary. Severally, my friends in Zurich have tried to pressure me into filing a case against her domination of me but because I hated confrontation, I declined, thinking that over time things would work out between us. But I was completely wrong. Things got worse. The only thing she did for me was the encouragement she gave me during my university studies. But most of my friends thought she paid for me because of the huge money I was sending home.

We got divorced in December 2006 and despite everything, I still missed not having her around me.  My father travelled from Nigeria to Zurich to plead with her but she was afraid that I might take the children to Nigeria. But for God I would have developed a mental problem at that time.

Following the support and advice of my parents, I have tried putting that ugly incident behind me. My parents have since mandated me to look for a good Nigerian woman to marry. 

Dear Agatha, you would recall I called you on phone last November requesting you to pray with me. As an expert on relationships, is there any real woman?

I need a woman who will love me again. Loneliness is a sickness that comes with death if not checked. I need a true love from any part of Nigeria. 

Agatha, I don’t know how you are going to do it, but you have to do it. I need someone with good family background. She must not be temperamental. She must be caring and understanding. She must also combine beauty with brains and either a career or a business woman. 

Agatha, please tell me, am I asking for too much by setting a standard which may not be easy to meet? 

Life experiences have taught me to ask for an independent woman for a relationship. I want a self sufficient woman with a good job, who can provide for 40 percent of her needs while I provide the remaining 60 percent as the head of the house. 

Agatha, will God liberate me from the agony of staying alone without a woman? Can I find true love in Nigeria?

I intend coming back to Nigeria to settle after I must have established my relationship with my missing rib. Nothing destroys a man more than a bad marriage.

Agatha, I believe that there are a lot of wife materials in Nigeria but where are they? 

I need someone who is truly responsible in all ramifications. I want someone I can trust, who is caring, supportive and also independent enough to run the home when I am away. I don’t need a woman just for the pleasure of her body but for us to share in our dreams.

I want a woman who would be ready to share her inner most mind with me. I am a very peaceful and humble man. I don’t want the consequences of marrying a lady who has little or no respect for my feelings. 

Agatha, do something for me now. I need your help and advice. 

I am 38 years old from Anambra State and I am 1.78m tall.

Worried Man

Dear Worried Man,

To be very frank, in a way, you contributed to your predicament by the choices you made 13 years ago. From your own admission, you didn’t marry this woman out of love rather you married her to circumvent immigration problems. In her shoes, would you ever be able to trust such a person with something as precious as children?

Trust starts from the processes that lead to marriage. Even if you didn’t tell her in plain English why you married her, her reactions to your taking the children to Nigeria and her treatment of you show that she knows you married her out of selfish reason, to protect your stay in her country. 

She didn’t believe you because from the very beginning you never gave her any reason to trust or believe in the bond you both share. As far as this woman is concerned, those children are her only reason for putting up with being used by you to secure a permanent stay.

Bringing your father over to beg only helped to reinforce her mistrust of the whole situation. To her, it shows desperation by you and your family to trick her into submitting the children to you especially as you seem to have the means of paying your parents’ way to Zurich. Your father’s coming actually nullified your claim that the reason you were contemplating taking the children to Nigeria was to get them introduced to your parents. 

Your decision to come for a visit to Nigeria with the children wasn’t the real reason she left you. She did because there was never any trust between the two of you. It was simply a marriage of convenience and in such marriages, bitterness and disappointments are mandatory accomplishments. It is also a matter that transcends the colour of her skin, creed and nationality rather it has to do with her entire being, her feelings and self-worth as a human being. 

If you marry another woman today under the same situation, chances are things would still end up the same way between the two of you. Trust is very vital in any relationship. 

That you are lonely isn’t enough. You must have a clear idea of what sort of woman would make you extremely happy. You went into the first one for selfish reasons; make sure your reasons for this new one is premised on respect, absolute trust and joint vision. 

Your first marriage crashed because you both lacked common interest, dreams and visions. In your 13 years as a couple, you both didn’t have the common focus to work on. Had both of you made the sacrifice after the wedding to factor into your marriage selflessness and sacrifices, when the issue of taking the children to Nigeria to know their paternal grandparents, both of you would have been able to manage it without it breaking up your marriage. 

To avoid using your children as pawns or dividing their loyalty to either of you, strive to do the right thing by maintaining a friendly relationship with this woman. It is irrelevant whether or not both of you are still functioning as a couple, what is irrevocable is that you both share a life legacy through these children. 

It is never too late to establish trust. Granted, it might not be possible for both of you to come back together, but a lot can be done to ensure you both keep being friends for the sake of those children. However, it won’t hurt if you explore the possibility of reconciliation with her. This is because there is no marriage without challenges. Having spent 13 years with her, to a reasonable extent, you can predict her. Marrying another woman would involve you starting all over again and it would take quite a while to be able to study the woman as you already do your ex. 

Marriage is something you have to involve God. Ensure you first ask God for His permission and direction before going into another marriage. It is absolutely important you involve God in this one if you want to end up being happy with your choice. Also insist on the woman who finally agrees to marry you meeting with the children first. There has to be openness between all concerned if you want to have a happy home. Those children and their mother must be given every assurance that this woman and her children would not come between you and your first set of children. You must also be seen to be fair to all concerned. 

No matter how lonely life gets, don’t make the mistake of accepting the first woman that comes. When a mistake recurs twice in one’s life it becomes a familiar pattern. Take the extra time to study the woman by making out time to be with her. Also make up your mind to stick with her, no matter what you find out about her once you have signed the dotted lines. Enduring marriages come with more patches than smooth edges.

Good luck

What will end my marriage to Osu girl?

Dear Agatha,

 I have been in this relationship for four years now. Currently, I am undergoing my masters’ degree programme.

My girlfriend and I are very much in love and plan to marry soon but my parents say I can’t marry her because she is an Osu, a child born by the slaves and culturally considered an outcast in Igbo land.

Agatha, the truth is that I can’t love another woman. And I am determined to go ahead with this wedding since I have exhausted every avenue to make my parents change their minds. I have pleaded with them, done everything to make them support me, but all to no avail. But despite my determination, I am still confused. Am I doing the right thing since I am going into a marriage without my parents’ blessings? Please what should I do? 

Roland.

Dear Roland, 

In the very first instance God created everyone freeborn. Nobody has the right to label any person an outcast. Besides, the tradition that gave birth to such a social rating draws strength from ancient traditional practices that have since died with better knowledge of God, His ways and will for everyone of us.

The culture that gave birth to this unfair social tag mostly came from ignorance and wrong interpretations of powers beyond our understanding. If your parents are true Christians, they should have crystal understanding of what God says about the things He created especially man whom in His infinite wisdom He made in His image. If a being, made in the image of God, is cast as an outcast it means a part of God is being branded an outcast. God is whole, loving, caring, and free which makes man absolutely free to associate. 

If you love this lady, stand by her. If God has not created her to be an outcast- a subhuman- nobody or culture has the right to put in bondage that whose God has set free. 

More than ever before, this is the time for you to showcase your feelings for this woman. Knowing how deeply entrenched the cultural beliefs of your people are, regarding the so called Osu, it might not be easy right now to get your parents to support your decision. Such acceptance would only come after several years of seeing how ideal a couple both of you are, come when their grandchildren make it impossible for them to continue to ignore you, when they discover that all their fears of repercussions are baseless, and when they discover the huge success you are making out of your lives. 

For these reasons, you must be sure that God paired you both to be an item, must never allow the distraction presented by the social classification of her status distract you both from the real issues of finding your rhythm as a couple.

Because of this challenge, both of you must make a vow to become best of friends, be each other’s confidant, have the determination to subdue all challenges that come with two persons from different backgrounds living together. You must learn this early to forgive, care, tolerate, and understand each other in such a way that would make outside influences disrupt your union. In addition to providing support for each other, you both must learn to embrace God always.  Doubtless it isn’t going to be easy initially but if you are both sure God made you both an item, it would work in spite of the current challenges you are both facing. 

To know if you are doing the right thing, listen to the rhythm of your heart, that tiny still voice that whispers what is right to you. What do your four years of being with her tell you about her? Looking at her being, her person and not her social status, would give you the assurances you need to move on with her. 

By the way, have you tried getting the pastor or priest of your parents’ church to talk to them on this matter?

Just learn to pray. 

Good luck.

 

She showcases no love for me…

Dear Agatha,

I like my girlfriend a lot and she likes me too. She is in her 200 level at the university while I am still trying getting admission into a university. I am always calling and sending her text messages. But she doesn’t call or send me text message. The only time she did was when I sent her credit and it was just to thank me.  When I call to ask why she hasn’t gotten in touch with me, she tells me she stressed up from lectures and her phone has problem, which I am aware of.

My very good friend thinks I am giving her too much attention that I should give her a break for a while, to enable me observe how she would react. This I did. This is one month. She hasn’t bothered to get in touch with me. 

I really don’t know what is wrong because I love her so much. It was a tough struggle not to call her for that month. I also heard that her boyfriend broke up with her as a result of my many text messages to her. I just don’t want to lose her now. I really want to be with her for as long as our friendship would last because I really have deep and true feelings for her. I am not ready to deceive her in any way.

I have never felt like this about any other girl. We started out as friend. When I noticed my very strong feelings for her, I told her about it. She is the only girl in my life. I feel so lonely when she is far away in school that at times I wish I could go and visit her. I miss her so much.
I believe in every friendship, there should be accurate communication between the partners involved before other things can follow.
Agatha, do you think she still feels anything for me even as she hardly gets in touch? Do you think I should hope she would start calling me soon because it really disturbs me a lot.
Please help me out.  Sam.

Dear Sam,  

Unless there is a corresponding interest on her part, there is little or nothing you can do. Feelings must be properly reciprocated to be worthwhile. 

Sincerely, the major disadvantage against your chances with her is the difference in your academic years. Already she is midway in hers while you are still struggling to make it into the university.

By the time she graduates and finishes her service year, you will only be in your mid year at school. 

And by the time she is ready to settle down, you would still be struggling to serve with no prospect of getting a good job on time. When the job eventually comes, you will need time to settle down, think out your priorities.  Would she have the patience to wait for you to be ready? Even if she has, what guarantees does she have that you would still be passionate about her in view of her age at that time? These could be part of her cold shoulders to you. For the majority of women it gets to an age when love isn’t just enough, when idealism gives way to reality.  Once a woman gets to the age of reality, when she realises her time clock is ticking away and the chances of her ever becoming fulfilled as a woman is diminishing as each day goes by, availability and not love becomes the issue. Although, another time would come in later life when the passion of her time gives way to sound reason, but she has to go through this process of wanting to be a mother first. By the time she would wished she had waited or listened to you, the wrinkle days would have come. Although life goes in circles, its different seasons and their demands can never be altered hence must be respected to the fullest. Although you could be of the same age, her years in the university, her dreams and goals in life have all made her more matured and deep thinking than you. While you seem only focused on your current feelings for her, her attitude shows she has gone deeper and may have come to the conclusions that it is better not to get involved with you at all. This is why she doesn’t feel any need to call or send you text message. She only responds to your calls out of politeness, not because she agrees with your feelings for her. The fact that she has a boyfriend, you are aware of is instructive. Give her space to be happy with her choice else she may never be able to forgive you for destroying her happiness with your obsessions with her. Sincerely, I think you should concentrate efforts on getting into the university. From experience, you will survive this feeling, no matter how intense. Hearts, at your age, are meant to be broken and mended. It is the way of life as well as gathering the required experiences in life. You will need experiences and stories like this to help a lot of young ones coming after you to heal from their emotional wounds.If it’s of any help, every adult person has had his or heart broken at one time or the other. The beauty of life is that time helps to make fun of moments like this later in life. 

A time would come in your life when you would look at this moment and laugh at your feelings and actions.

However, what is critical in your life now is to prove to yourself especially that you have dreams beyond securing the heart of a woman. And until you gain admission into the university, this girl or any serious minded girl you may develop interest in later may not appreciate the uniqueness in you. Until you market and package yourself as a focused young man, nobody will ever take you serious. 

Given the mentality of some people, staying at home, though due to no fault of yours could make them come to wrong conclusions about your person. For those who worship paper qualifications, you will never be good enough to be associated with unless you join the league of people with higher qualifications. Therefore, gaining admission into the university would change a lot of things about you.  The best way you can continue to be relevant in her life is to be the friend she desires whenever she appears in need of a person to talk to. 

Don’t worry too much. God would compensate you with a girl who would love you as much as you love her.Good luck

Should I marry her without my parents blessing?

Dear Agatha,

 

I’m a graduate and have a good job as well. I met a girl six years ago and fell in love wit her. I proposed to her and she accepted. I told my parents last year but they bluntly refused. It even got to the stage of me choosing between my family and the girl. I’m the only son of my parents and won’t give me their blessings if I eventually marry her. 

What do you think I should do because I’ve tried working on my parents but it seems to be a fruitless effort? Should I marry her and discard the blessings of my parents, a choice I am unwilling to make, just as I cannot make the choice of leaving her as well.

Charlz.

Dear Charlz,

In this kind of situation, you just have to make a choice. It is either you accept to go with your parents or submit to the desires of your heart. To say you can’t do either is to admit to your own failure as a man. As one old enough to marry, you should know what makes you happy. For you to contemplate marriage shows that you have reached the age of definition. You must be able to characterise your life to suit your dreams as a person, more so as a man who would one day lead his own family.

However, it behooves you to give some thoughts to the objections of your parents for the simple reason that they have more experience in these matters than you do. At the end you still reserve the right to your own decision since the issue has to do with your life and happiness especially if such reasons bother on pure sentiments rather than substantiated reasons.

What precisely has your parents got against your would be wife? Why are they insisting you can’t marry her? Is it that you are both not from the same state hence the fear of effective communication and appreciation of each other’s customs and values? Has it to do with the fact that as the only son you should marry someone they know, someone familiar with your culture? If this is the case, then it isn’t good enough a reason because even if you end up marrying someone they personally groomed for you, if both of you lack the essential commitment to make a marriage work, not only will your parents be disappointed at the end but would also have created a generation of problems for you as a man.

If this is their only reason, sit them down and explain the need for them to open their hearts to her because with love, everything can be achieved in life. Assure them that while you understand all their fears concerning her, given time, she could be the kind of daughter-in-Law they want for you.

However, if their complaints have to do with her character, attitude and values, take time out to listen to them even if you are not pleased with whatever it is they are saying. 

Sometime the things we take for granted are the same things that wait to cause problems for us in the future. 

Pay attention and make efforts to find out if they are telling the truth or not because at times our parents too have a habit of exaggerating things to suit their plans for us. If you want to get it right with this marriage, divorce sentiments from your investigations of her behaviour, this is important because you would be the one to live with the outcome of whatever decisions you take today.

At the end of the day, weigh your own happiness vis-à-vis the choice your parents are presenting before you. Being the one that would wear the shoes, be firm where you have to be.

Honestly if you are determined to marry this lady, there are ways you can get your parents to listen to you. You can go through their religious leader or someone they esteem, that person they cannot afford to say no to. 

Take the girl to that person; give the person a day or two to digest his or her impression of the girl before going back to discuss the problems you are having with your parents concerning the lady and how you would appreciate the person’s intervention in getting your parents to support your choice. Underline the salient fact that this is a woman you have dated for six years and with whom you have been able to build a strong bond of understanding and friendship. 

That asking you to do away with her is asking you to throw away six years of your life. Once you are able to convince the person of your dreams, it would be easy for that person to talk to your parents.

Whatever happens at the end, ensure you are in line with God’s plans for you. Set some days aside to seek the face of God in this matter. Specifically tell God to speak to you on this issue in the language you will understand. 

The issue of marriage is more serious than a lot of us think.  Good luck.

Though carrying his baby, he still eyes my friend…

Dear Agatha,

I am always inspired by the way you give good answers to people’s questions. I have been having problems in every relationship I go into. Recently, I met this guy in my church, we are not friends, and I know he was interested in dating my friend who happens to be the daughter of a pastor in the church. 

To get my friend to notice him and become jealous, he begged me to pretend that we were dating. To cut the long story short, he however asked me out because his interest in this friend of mine is making her head to swell and that he was tired of the whole thing. 

This month made it one year that we started dating. One day, he came to my house and one thing led to another and he forcefully deflowered me. Since then it has become a regular thing between us. 

Initially, he was nice to me but began to change along the way. He beats and abuses me. He also does all sort of things to me, to the extent I have become afraid of him. 

When I missed my period and informed him about it, he told me it wasn’t his problem that he isn’t interested in me but simply hanging around. 

In the church every body knows us as friends but I am scared it is a plan work to ruin me because my daddy is the district pastor of the church. 

Even after claiming his disinterest in my friend, I always see him around her and notice how nicely he treats her. For instance, there was a day I told him I was hungry. He told me he didn’t have any money, but right there in my presence, he brought money out to buy food for my friend when she told him she was hungry too. I didn’t find it funny and protested that fact. He told me it was only N100 food he bought her.

One Sunday, I took his phone and I saw a message he sent her begging her to come back to him. I asked him if it was she he sent the message to but he said no that it was another person bearing the same name with her. I believed him but later that day, I collected my friend’s phone to listen to music then checked her inbox.  I did and saw the same message on her phone. I was hurt by the discovery and decided to end the relationship. Perhaps what was more painful is the fact that he saved her number with sweetheart while my number wasn’t even stored. He didn’t want people in the church to know that we are dating. He later begged me and I agreed because I loved him and he told me that the reason he lied to me was because he knows I was going to be jealous. He treats her family like jewels and mine with levity. I don’t know what to do, either to break up or continue with him. If I break up with him how would I cope because we are in the same church? Please I need your advice urgently.

Confused Girl.

Dear Confused Girl, 

In the first place the issue here has gone beyond you breaking up with him to that of managing the many by products this relationship has brought with it. Whether you break up with him or not won’t resolve the issue of your pregnancy. Both of you have to sit down and talk about it irrespective of what he feels or thinks about you. The pregnancy is a fact you both have to come to terms with. At this point whosoever he adores or you are jealous of is not as important as what becomes of the innocent child that is incubating inside of you. The decision of both of you to taste sex outside marriage has resulted into the conception of an innocent life, which you both must have to contend with. That decision to end it has been decided by the presence of the pregnancy. So it is too late to contemplate that option. 

Ending it won’t also erase the fact that you sold yourself cheaply to this man or the fact that he lacks respect for you.  You have made too many costly mistakes, the consequences will for a long time live with you.

For instance, you knew his feelings for your friend, yet agreed to his offer of friendship just as you were well aware of his real interest in you. He wanted you in his life to make your friend sufficiently jealous to accept him into her life. He didn’t lie to you or pretend his interest in you was deeper than it is. He told you from the beginning what he wanted from you. He gave you the opportunity of turning him down but you made the choice of going through with him. In all honesty, he doesn’t share in the blame of what you are feeling in this relationship. If anyone is to be blamed, that person must be you.

As the woman, you mortgaged your integrity because you didn’t think deeply about your options. You took advantage of your friend’s attitude to motor your interest in this man. 

In the first place, you had no business going out with a man who has expressed interest in your friend. If you were truly a friend to this other girl, you won’t agree to such a proposal from her boyfriend. The best you would have done is to mediate in the matter, getting your friend to listen to the man and not to date him.

If there is anyone who should feel bad, it is your friend and not you. He treats her with respect because she has conducted herself with respect. Hence he has no choice but to have a high regard for her. Men value women who have learnt the secret of self-respect and principle. If nothing, this lady has demonstrated to this boy that she doesn’t come cheap and that she is conscious of the delicate position of her father in the church. 

You on the other hand didn’t think of the implication on your father or his ministry in your conduct. If there is anyone out to destroy your father, it is you. How do you think he would feel when he finds out that his daughter is pregnant for a man who doesn’t love her and obviously not in the least interested in sharing a minute part of his life with her?

You claimed that he forced himself on you, how? If you didn’t create the chance of intimacy between the two of you, there is no way he would have forced himself on you in the open place. And why didn’t you after that first time discontinue to have anything to do with him if truly he violated you? The fact that you kept sleeping with him shows that your claims of violation aren’t true; that you slept with him of your own volition.

To get back some of your credibility, learn to be truthful to yourself always. There is no way anyone can be truthful to you if you don’t show such considerations to yourself. 

As for the issue of the pregnancy, it is something you both have to discuss with the reality it deserves. Sooner or later, it would begin to show and tongues would waggle as to who is responsible. It is unfortunate that you are all members of the same church and children of men of God. There is no way your father’s image would not be affected by your actions; what should concern you now is how to manage it so it doesn’t completely cripple his ministry. 

And one of the ways you can help your father survive this scandal is to inform them now of your condition as well as the boy’s attitude towards it. Arrangements can be made for you to go away for a while to enable you have your baby and continue with whatever it is that you are doing.

Although not a perfect solution, but it would be better than exposing yourself, family and the church to the ridicule of members as well as the society in general.

The disappointment won’t be too much if your parents get to hear details of the pregnancy from you. Though it would grieve them to know that your conduct goes against their teaching and position in the society, but it is best they hear it from you than from others outside.

For the sake of the baby you just have to learn to control your emotions and give attention to the reality on the ground. Both of you must discuss and agree on the welfare of the child growing inside of you.

Above all be contented with any situation you find yourself to avoid making this kind of mistake again. Also learn to be close to your God, it matters so much to be.

Good luck.