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
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