He doesn’t call or visit me…

Dear Agatha,

I want to thank you so much for using your wonderful God given talent to help numerous people out of their troubles. I pray God will bless you the more. Amen.

I am a young working class lady.  I have been in a relationship for three years now.  The young man I am into a relationship with is not residing in the same state with me, but this has not been a problem because I try as much as I can to adhere to rules of a viable relationship. 

However, my friend doesn’t seem to think certain things are essential to success or otherwise of a viable relationship. He doesn’t recognise his leadership role in the relationship. For instance, he sees nothing wrong in his not calling me for months on end or paying me a visit. And whenever I complain of this attitude, he is always quick to blame it on his workload. 

And when I visit, he prevents me from meeting his family members, almost like hiding me and the knowledge of the relationship from them. 

Severally, I have called his attention to these issues but he is forever giving excuses.

 Agatha, I am writing you because I have taken a decision to date another man secretly and have made up my mind to settle finally with this present man.   I just want to know if these decisions are right. 

Nnenne.

Dear Nnenne, 

Having exhausted all means to make this man change, the decision is the right one to take because your present relationship seems to lack the basic ingredients to make it work. 

But I totally disagree with the methods you have employed in the process. Why a secret relationship? 

The decent thing is to tell him of your decision and give him reason on why you had to take the path. To conduct a secret relationship without his knowledge is to make yourself liable to blame. There is no way he would ever claim his nonchalant attitude is the reason you decided on the relationship, rather, he can confidently accuse you of not ever being faithful and that he decided to keep the knowledge of his relationship with you away from his family because he knew you couldn’t be trusted.

To be frank, it would be very difficult to convince anyone that you weren’t two, timing him all along. 

There is also the danger of the other man, if he finds out that there is still some sort of relationship between you and your first boyfriend, walking out on you because he would think you dishonest.

For this reason, you should be bold and very honest enough to confront him with the reason you have decided to move on with your life. 

It is always better to end a relationship properly before going into another to avert needless and avoidable problems. It would take you more time trying to sway your new man to trust again than it would ordinarily take you to terminate the previous one. 

At times, talking over a problem may point a couple at other possible ways of resolving a thorny issue. Dialogue has the power of diffusing tension and making clearer the reasons for the seemingly difficult positions of others.

Telling him of the decision you have taken may make him open up on why he has been behaving objectionably.

For balanced decisions, it is best a person gets over a bad relationship properly before jumping into another one to avoid a situation where the pains of the previous relationship would be imported into the new one.

And to avoid the same mistake, allow this new relationship enough time to find its natural path. The decision to marry him isn’t yours to make rather, allow situations and circumstances lead both of you into it. 

This is in view of the fact that like human beings, every relationship comes with its own challenges. These challenges are defined and determined by the attitudes and values of the persons involved. 

Also, the beginning of a relationship is not a very good time to make promises because the novelty of its newness makes good judgement very difficult. Give yourselves and relationship time to form its path, get strengthened by challenges and experiences before you can begin to think of marriage. 

In addition, both of you have to strive towards integrating friendship into the relationship. This is to help give your love the firm root on which to expand. Many a time, when we get disappointed in previous relationship, we are too much in a hurry to get everything we didn’t from our new relationship to bother about the essentials. 

For this reason, you have to resist the temptation of loading your relationship with too much expectation to prevent later disappointments. 

Also endeavour to hand over your new relationship to God for His assistance. 

Good luck.