Wednesday, June 29, 2011

People call me bastard now; my mum tricked my dad

Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626


Dear Agatha,

I appreciate your honesty and thoroughness in handling of issues.

I am 35 years of age, married with two children.

Recently, I discovered by accident that my mother lied to me about my paternity. According to her, her husband, my supposed father, unknown to him suffered from low sperm, which meant he could not father a child.

She got to know when in her search for the fruit of the womb, ten years after marriage, she went to see a doctor who insisted she came with her husband.

Although the husband didn’t go back for the results since he assumed like most men that his wife was the reason for their inability to have children, the doctor told her who has the problem in the union.

My mother said she didn’t tell her husband but decided to go back to her former lover.

But she also had an affair with her boss at about the time she was sleeping with her former lover. It was during that time she conceived me.

At any rate, she passed my pregnancy to her husband as she did the two others that came after me.

I really don’t know if the husband knew anything about it but recent developments show that he must have known because he by passed our mother and us to will the remaining of his two houses to his brothers.

In his will, he said much as he loved us as his own, he couldn’t forgive his adulterous wife. The property he bought for her in her name and those he gave to us before he died he left for us. According to him, even if he had a medical problem, it was not the place of his wife to take a crucial decision as she took without consulting him.

For that, he cannot forgive her.

He ended by apologising to all of us and demanded we find it in our hearts to forgive him, but pleaded we must never change our surnames because we remain his children till eternity.

He left our mother to explain what she had done.

His family members are now calling us bastards. Before he died, he had willed the family houses both in the village and in Lagos to me. He transferred his major account to me a month before he died. He also bequeathed houses to my brothers. On account of my mother’s revelation and the names his family members are calling us, do you think it wise for me to hold on to the property? Am I a bastard given the fact that she slept with two men at the time she got pregnant with me?

Should I change my surname and even if I do that whose name should I adopt as mine?

I am so destabilised by everything, I haven’t told anyone except you about what is happening to me. My wife has kept asking me what the problem is with me. It is too shameful a thing to tell her. How do I tell her that I am a bastard without bringing to ridicule the image of my mother who despite everything she has done remains very precious to me? Is my mother hiding anything? How do I make her talk? Why did the man I called and loved as father reject me in death?

Agatha, please help me because I am going insane with this problem.

B.O.





Dear B.O.

In the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the word bastard is alien. As far as the government of this country is concerned, you are a free citizen with equal rights as any other person.

So, be rest assured that you are not a bastard. Granted, you may never have met the man who fathered you, but that doesn’t make you one, because your mother couldn’t have gotten herself pregnant. A man was responsible for donating the sperm that conceived you. No matter how close the dates are, a mother can always tell who the father of her child really is. If she weren’t sure at the time she got pregnant, something about your look and mannerism would point at the man who fathered you.

Your mother isn’t really ready to face her past, which is probably the reason she doesn’t want to tell you who your father is. Telling you would naturally move you into wanting to see him or know more about his family.

In his shoes, how would you feel if a 35-year-old man walks through your door to announce that the affair you had with his mother almost four decades ago resulted into him?

How would you handle the situation particularly if such revelation is made right in the presence of your whole family who in addition to the man had no prior knowledge of your existence?

Much as you have a right to know who your paternal family is there are certain situations in life, which no matter how clear the signage is still needs a lot of cautions and wisdom to handle.

Think of what use is finding your family now to you? Do you have the capacity to deal with the attendant rivalry, manipulations, spiritual consequences and rejections that go with this package? What precisely are you missing out on now that meeting your family would give you?

Is it the name? Would knowing the name be enough for you? The danger and problems would not come from you answering to the name but your place and existence in the family. That you exist at all is enough reason on its own for some people in the family to declare a very bitter war on you.

And who tells you the bastard label you are currently running away from now would not become a more popular word with this family who would rightly wonder where you have come after all these years?

I, more than anybody else, know the inner joy of going back to one’s roots but that root must have a very open knowledge of you from the first moments you were conceived to make your home coming beautiful. Your presence in your father’s family isn’t going to be a transient thing. It is something very permanent and life changing.

These could be your mother’s fears, the reason she may be shielding your father’s real identity from you. Deep down she isn’t too sure how those people would react and isn’t sure about your ability to deal with another round of rejections.

Her concern may be for you. She may be hiding you from being hurt and embarrassed by more people. And unless you make the effort to discuss with her as honestly and lovingly as possible, you may never understand her reasons for keeping quiet about certain decisions she took back then.

Don’t forget, right now she is feeling bad, less than a mother to you all. Even though the choice she made at that time to source children for her husband for other men to save her marriage and husband from ridicule seemed right then, later events are not only making her regretful of that decision but also casting her in very bad light.

What she thought she did to protect her husband and self from public ridicule is now turning solely to be her ridicule and shame. Nobody wants to understand the reason for her adultery. The issue then is different from what is on ground, which has made her guilty of the capital crime of adultery against the husband.

She is now left to defend her integrity to a very hostile society as well as to her children.

Putting undue pressures on her to reveal the identity of your father may lead to her death. Show her love and support to overcome this huge disgrace because no matter what, she remains the only visible family you have now.

As for your wife, tell her the truth. It would hurt her very much if she gets to find out from a secondary source, because it would appear you don’t trust her to support you or understand the situation you are going through. This is the time you need her the most to soothe the pains of rejection enveloping you.

Don’t fret over her attitude towards your mother. Only a woman can best understand the sentimental reasons women attach to very important decisions in life.

Being a woman she would understand more than you understand the sentiment behind your mother’s decision because the heart and reasoning of a woman determined to protect her home is very complex and hard to understand.

If you look at things objectively you would realise the man you knew, as father didn’t reject you at all. Yes, he was angry with his wife for not telling his the truth about his medical condition but he still made provisions for you all as his children. If it were his intention to reject all of you, he would have recovered everything he gave you all before he died. That he didn’t shows he must have loved you all dearly and his insistence you keep his name is evidence of that.

That he didn’t use his knowledge of your paternity to disinherit you all is further proof that this man loved you and your siblings as his own. If he didn’t, he would have retrieved everything he gave you before his death.

Forget whatever his family is saying. Even if you were his biological children, they would still have fought and called you names given the advantage you all enjoy in his will.

Besides, under the law, those property has been willed to you so you have exclusive rights over them.

And having been given birth to and grew up in his house, he is more of your father than any other man can ever be. He was there from your very first moments in life. He not only invested his money but also his emotions and time in making you the person you are today.

Forget what any other person is saying and look at the evidence of love this man showed you and your siblings to know who your father really is. Consider his investment of love, support, care and friendship on you all when next you feel bad. Apart from asking your mother to tell you the truth, did he ever give you the impression that he isn’t your father? Gratefulness comes from a heart of grace. He left you all very comfortable. Those two houses he gave to his brothers, he did to protect you all from evil manipulations and not from any malice on his part.

At times like this, you need to look for strength in the house and presence of God who sees and knows our conclusions from the beginning.

Good luck.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Her flirtation with men wanes my trust for her

Agatha Edo, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com; Tel: 08054500626

Dear Agatha,

I am a regular reader of your column. I am so impressed at the way you solve people’s problems. I pray God should fill anywhere that looks like vacuum in your life with joy and happiness.
I am a guy of 21 years of age. My girlfriend is of the same age as I am. We have been dating each other for the past six or eight years, but unfortunately the relationship is presently causing me emotional pains and trauma.
It started like this, some months ago I chanced on a romantic SMS on her phone. It came from surprisingly the man she introduced to me as her uncle. I was not only hurt but also felt highly betrayed by this. So I decided to give her the space to execute her romance with the other man. However, we settled our differences some days later.

In August last year, she celebrated her birthday with her grandfather. I went in company of my friends but these friends and I were thoroughly ignored by her, making people around us to wonder if we gate crashed into the party.

On the other hand, she was all over the man who sent her the SMS.

Really embarrassed my friends and I left without bothering to inform her that we were leaving.

The next day, she came to my house. Still smarting from the embarrassing way she treated my friends and I, I told her it was over between us. She cried and begged me to forgive her. Some of my friends joined in persuading me to have a change of mind.

Based on this intervention from friends, I forgave her. Besides I thought she was really repentant.

But I was wrong. On Christmas day, she came to visit me. After some few minutes, she requested to take her leave and I saw her off. About four hours after she left, I in company of my friends went out to see another friend of ours. On our way, not far from a popular fast food restaurant, I saw my girlfriend in company of another man. From the look of things, they were just leaving the fast food joint.

I was very disappointed and depressed. When I confronted her the following day, she told me the man was a family member.

The issue is, I don’t trust her at all. I don’t know if I should continue with her or simply pack up the relationship.

Please, help me before I do something stupid.
Confused Boyfriend.


Dear Confused Boyfriend,

Trust is very fundamental in a relationship. Once trust is violated, it becomes extremely difficult to sustain a relationship.

There is no contesting the fact that your girlfriend has repeatedly given you so much reason not to trust her. Having lying to you previously about the actual relationship between her and a supposed uncle and giving you the cold water treatment during her party, you do have reasons to be apprehensive and doubtful about her claims to be related to this other man.

But you didn’t handle the situation very well. Had you approached her when you saw both of them, you would have been able to read from her reactions if she is telling the truth of not.

Because you allowed the opportunity slip away, unless you have not really forgiven her of her past mistakes, there is no way you can categorically label her claims as lies. That man could actually be a relative of hers.

What both of you should do is to sit down and have an honest discussion given the length of time you have both dated. If you have been together for close to eight years, it follows that both of you must have attained some measures of understanding to warrant both of you being very honest to each other about your feelings.

Unless you have spent the last eight years exploring your sexual desires instead of values that help sustain relationship through turbulences like you are now experiencing, both of you should be able to pull yourselves through this despite all the odds challenging your relationship.

If you are both 21 and have been dating for eight years, it means you both started dating when you were both 13. At that age, you were both too young and unknowledgeable about the values and attributes to look out for in your mates. At that age, you both were purely under the influence of adolescence hormones. Your values and expectations at that time you met and agreed to date were different. As emerging teenagers, your sense of excitement ruled supremely over your sense of values.

Excitement for you was instigated by the power to attract the opposite sex. Then, enduring qualities, like honesty, truthfulness, understanding, perseverance, support and absolute faithfulness meant nothing. What mattered then were the chemical reactions going on inside of your bodies. Your mind and bodies were permanently tuned to discovery channel.

But if you both had allowed your dreams to grow with your bodies, your mind to shift from discovery to reality button, you have both attained the understanding and maturity to tackle this inevitable period of your relationship.

Because of the stagnancy you have both allowed to build into your relationship, boredom and the need for excitement may have necessitated her going into another relationship. Even though this is no excuse and not an attempt to justify her treatment of you, fact remains that both of you need to sit down and work at getting rid of the web that gathered over the years.

It means starting afresh. Forgetting whatever it is that is causing both of your disappointment now. It means wiping the slate clean of all past mistakes and making a pledge to integrate into your relationship all those attributes you never thought of and didn’t know were important.

You are worried about trust because now you know its importance to your happiness. Now you know that love comes in different shades, that it is not another word for sex.

Having reached the stage in your life where your body and emotions are demanding for the same things, being very frank with her and giving her the final opportunity to confront and revisit the decision she took when she was still physically and emotionally an innocent virgin would go a long way in helping bring your relationship boat to berth at the right anchor.

You may not like the outcome but given the fact that you are both discussing your lives, future happiness and lifetime security, it is important you give yourselves time to unburden your fears and pains.

Why is she lying to you? Why is she interested in other relationships? Do you fit into her matured dream of a husband? Do you have what it takes to make her absolutely happy in marriage?

Also hear her out. What precisely is bothering her about your behaviour? Insist she tells you. She may not want to initially but it is best you also know what she isn’t happy about. This way, resolution of all outstanding matters that has gathered between you two over the years become possible.

But you in particular must be willing to forgive her. She also must be ready to let go of all other sundry relationships in her life. There is no way she can continue with these other men if you both agree to move forward.

She must learn to win your trust and respect through the values she markets, emphasis this while discussing with her. She must realise that love, friendship and marriage happen out of trust and selflessness.

Yes, you may not have all the qualities she wants in a man but she has to be satisfied with the ones you have because these are what make you unique. If at this age, she doesn’t know what makes her happy, then she has a long way to go.

Your discussion must focus on what your expectations of each other are as well as for your future. It must strive to imbibe unconditional friendship to survive till the end comes. You both can only achieve this by laying all your cards face up on the table.

The outcome of the meeting would determine whether you have a future together or not.

Also by trusting God with your relationship and life, would help in no small way to make light every challenge before you two.

Good luck.

Monday, June 27, 2011

He cheats and beats me

Agatha Edo, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com, 08054500626


Dear Agatha,

I am 26 years and my husband is 37. We have been married for three and half years now. My problem is for about two years that I have lived with my husband, he has cheated on me with more than 10 girls.

The first time I discovered his infidelity, I couldn’t believe it because one of the major reasons I married him was because of his religious disposition.

I was naturally devastated. Worst of all, he didn’t even try to explain things to me. Instead of apologies, I got the beating of my life that very day although he later came to ask for forgiveness. I forgave him with the confidence he would change, but he didn’t, he continued cheating and beating me. This has happened more than 10 times.

Three months ago, I heard him telling someone on the phone that he would send money to pay for a hotel accommodation where they would stay when he comes.

I was forced to check through his phone and discovered he was making an arrangement with his girl friend on where they would meet.

I got the beating of my life that same day and was admitted in the hospital. According to him, I had no right to go through his phones.

Agatha, I now hate him for all the pain and embarrassment he has caused me.

We are yet to have children; we have been to hospitals and they confirmed he has watery and low sperm. He was told to stop smoking and drinking, though he drinks once in a while but he doesn’t want to give up smoking as instructed by doctors.

Right now, I don’t know what to do; my father is an evangelist and I always consider my parents in all that I want to do.

I am in tears as I write this. I have no kids yet, the person that should be my source of happiness is causing me so much pain, always beating and cheating on me. Please advice me on what to do.

Amara.



Dear Amara,

Life, most of the time, isn’t fair because we always don’t get what we want or deserve.

And when it comes to the issue of marriage, it can be very complex and complicated. However, many a time, we are also architects of our pains. Because of your family background, you simply wanted a man who was religious without bothering about the person behind the mask.

You looked at his ‘cloak of religion’ without looking at his life. Before walking down the aisle with him, what did you know about him; about his background; his friends and values? What did you know about his mind and the workings of that mind? Did you bother to find out about the man you planned to spend the rest of your life with beyond his religious disposition?

Did you ever consider what marriage was before marrying him? What precisely was your idea of marriage and its many challenges? What were the things you noticed and pretended didn’t matter until now?

Religion comes from the mind, an awareness of who God is and what He requires of us as His people while ‘religiosity’ is pretentiousness and comes without the conviction of a deeply religious person.

Had you a clear idea of the type of man you would be most happy with, not one who is masquerading to be another person you would have noticed that he has always been unfaithful and a complete cheat.

To be frank, he didn’t deceive you. You did the most harm to yourself by treating the issue of marriage with levity, something which isn’t serious, that doesn’t need planning and preparations.

You don’t marry for a single reason. An enduring marriage survives on multiple tripods.

Your mistakes are not in his unfaithfulness but in his attitude and the violence that follows your every new discovery. While a marriage can endure unfaithfulness, only the living survives to tell of the story of violence. This is one time, you have to overlook the desires of your parents and face the challenge with all the seriousness it deserves.

Your life is the one at stake, not your parents’ or their image. Your father is the evangelist, not you. Even evangelists know when to give up.

If his beating is serious enough to get you admitted into hospital, there is the need for your families to know about it. Go to your parents and report the issue because if you leave it for too long, you might be driven to commit murder because when hatred gets to a boiling point, it can deaden all reasoning faculties.

As it is, you are already suffering dejection from his totalitarian approach to your matrimonial challenges. This is definitely something you cannot handle on your own. You need help to define your marriage and fashion a way out of your mistake.

It is either you keep quiet and continue to endure maltreatment or depression or take the bold step of making open a potentially dangerous trend. Telling your parents doesn’t automatically mean you are quitting the marriage but their own experiences and knowledge of God would offer you and your partner something to lean on with a view of managing your own peculiarities.

Don’t feel ashamed of anything, believe me, you don’t have the solution to this problem. A lot of women are contending with worse situations in their own marriages but the difference is in their willingness to get help.

You both need peace to settle the issue of his infertility. There is no way you two can ever discuss and solve any issue without first clearing out the deficit of trust.

Talking to your parents is not ridiculing your marriage or the image of your parents. As a matter of fact, the ridicule would come if you do something out of character.

Your husband has to be helped to realise that with a problem like the one he is facing, it can’t be solved going from the arms of one woman to another. He has to realise it is a very serious medical condition that not only needs the grace of God but a good attitude on his part to solve.

No doubt he has hurt you more than words can say but if you don’t find it in your heart to let go of these pains, the clarity and objectivity of mind to offer him help would not be easy for you to summon.

The knowledge that he might not be able to get you pregnant might be one of the top reasons for his attitude. Deep down, he understandably feels less than a man and might have convinced himself that you would eventually leave him hence sees no reason to be nice to you or elongate the marriage.

For a man, the knowledge that he cannot get a woman pregnant is crippling. Your husband may appear to you to be wicked or having all the fun in the world with the many women he is being unfaithful with, but his attitude is also a cry for help. He seems determined to ruin himself because he thinks there is nothing worth living for. Deep down he may feel that his life is completely ruined as a man.

This is the point you, your parents and his family have to step in to offer him a solid pair of shoulders, love and words of encouragement. The first step is to help him realise the damage he is causing you by beating you. Once he is made to realise that your love is unconditional and that violence would only drive you further from him and even cause him to lose his home, the tiny step of reformation would have started.

For now, you may have to relocate to your parents or another place to drive home the point that you don’t like to be treated like an animal but there is no way both of you can avoid discussing all the troubling issues in your marriage.

As part of your plans, include the option of child adoption. The fact that he has a medical condition doesn’t mean you cannot adopt children. Discussing the issue with him with all the honesty and care you can, would give him the assurance of being loved by you and make him consider constructive options instead of this path of self destruction he seems hooked on.

Let him know he has something worth living for in you.

Marriage is a voyage of sacrifices and patience. It is also a journey which requires wisdom at every point. If you react to the current situation without applying wisdom, there is the danger of you destroying your happiness forever. You may have married him for the wrong reasons but if he is the one God has destined you to be with, you may never find happiness with another man.

Leaving him completely isn’t a solution, at least for now. It is only when he refuses to change you can consider it as an option but for now, the option is to find ways of getting him to listen to and see the love you have for him through your support for his predicament.

This is the agenda you should present before your parents when you go to them for help.

Furthermore learn to pray for help and strength from God to be able to go through this period successfully because the pains of what is happening in your home now could make even the most sane woman make mistakes.

Good luck.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Sexual molestation makes man scary to me…

With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626


Dear Agatha,

When I was a young girl, I was sexually abused. My advice to mothers is not to trust anyone with their daughters and should endeavour to be close to their daughters.

That incident really affected my life. I was deeply hurt emotionally. I was always snobbish, people actually called be arrogant. I was very withdrawn, very fearful, quiet, and sometimes moody with a very bad temper. I hated men with a passion. I made up my mind not to marry. I just wanted a good career. I am in hot demands from men but I have always been harsh to them. Most of them get very scared and simply give up further attempts.
I can’t say my parents were not good enough or careless, they are the best parents any child could pray for. I was just a victim of the presence of bad people, relatives among us. Sometime also, bad things happen to good people. I never told a soul about the incident until last year.

I am 22 years of age now and in the university. Two years ago, I became a committed Christian and knowing God has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I am not completely healed, but I believe I am a work in progress. Even though I am sometime still harsh and unfriendly I know God will change me completely.

When I was newly admitted into the university, there was a brother in the fellowship I attend that I was always having series of dreams about him like both of us playing together like kids or he helping me stand when I am very weak in the dream.

The first time I saw him in my dream he was standing on a corridor, and I heard a voice saying ‘you and him in the nearest future’.

Honestly, I didn’t understand these dreams, and subsequently forgot about them. Besides, beyond the courtesy of exchanging greetings, we don’t talk because I wasn’t into being friends with men. I can remember he called me on phone one day that he would like to talk to me about something, but when I went he didn’t say anything. I assumed God was trying to tell me he and I would be business partner.

Last year, I was just so heavy and down in my heart. For the first time I wanted to talk to someone about what I had kept to myself for years. Strangely, this guy was the only person that came to my mind. So I summoned courage and told him everything. Surprisingly he wasn’t judgmental at all. He was so nice. For several days he was always at hand to accompany me wherever I was going to, offer me some sorts of protection. It got to a point I had to remind him I wasn’t a kid anymore.

After a while, he told me about his feelings for me. He explained that he wasn’t interested in just dating me but marrying me. I promptly told him I was only interested in him as a friend and nothing more. He vowed to wait around me until I feel ready for a relationship.

Agatha this guy is a blessing to my world, always attentive to me as well as caring. He supports me with materials for my studies, Christian growth as well as other educational materials I need to build my knowledge of issues. I am able to talk to him about anything, and I feel very comfortable around him.

Sometimes, I feel he knows me more than myself, he will always tell me I am gifted in this area or that area and encourages me to try something new. There are so many things I never knew I could do, he actually pushes me forward, treats me as if I am something so precious and golden. In essence I know he loves me so much.

But the problem is he is different from the image of the man I considered marrying if I do decide to marry. I preferred a tall guy and a man who would be at least seven years older than I am. But this guy is of the same height with me and I am not too tall, two and a half years older than I am.

I actually told my mother and sister about him. They feel it is his personality that matters and not his physical appearance. They feel he loves me and that to them is most important.

He will be graduating in a few months time, and recently told me he is very scared we would never see again since he is travelling out for his master’s programme. I love his personality he’s a gift to me. He is nice, caring, a good Christian, not judgmental at all. Sometimes I feel he is God’s choice for me and think if I don’t end up marrying him, I will end up losing my first ever friend in the world, but I don’t know how to date or even give my heart to a man.

K.



Dear K,

I totally agree with your mother and sister, love is all that matters. If you agree to his proposition, you won’t be attached to his age or height but to his personality. Couples who are happy are those who ignored the image of their partners and looked instead at the personality of their persons.

If by your own admission, you say he is caring, supportive, honest and loyal, what else do you want in a man? Age isn’t the same thing as maturity. A person can be a hundred years of age and still lack what it takes to be responsible or caring. The fact that you were able to tell this man something you have never shared with anybody before underlies his ability to bring out the best in you.

A lot of guys would have capitalised on that to demand for sex from you, instead he was contented with offering you protection and friendship. Honestly, it is rare.

Besides, given the emotional and psychological trauma you suffered as a child in the hands of that man who raped you, you need a man who is caring and compassionate in your life.

No matter what you say today about marriage and intimacy with a man, a time would come when your body and mind would demand it. If you don’t get the right man to properly handle you, appreciate the woman in you as well as produce the required understanding to nurture you through the concomitant difficulties that accompany rape victims on their first time with a man of their choice, you may never be able to enjoy sex again.

At 22, there is a whole life out there for you. You will in time come to crave for the comforting presence of a man in your life. To get it right, you have to delete that incident from your mind. It took the brutality and animalistic nature of one man to get you to this point, you need the love and care of another man to get you out of it.

Love is what sustains life. You would be helping that man that violently deflowered you destroy your life if you refuse to give your heart to a man. He would have achieved his intentions of reducing you to nothing but a sex machine. He would have succeeded in his original quest of destroying you forever.

If you actually saw this young man in your dream and heard a voice telling you, both of you are meant to be together in future, it means your destinies are interwoven irrespective of all the fears you currently harbour in your mind.

Frankly, given your experience, you have the right to be weary of men, but you also have to consider the basic fact that in this world there are two categories of people, the good and the bad. The bad only helps us to be cautious but not to live life the way it should be lived. If you totally refuse to have anything to do with a man simply because one bad man has betrayed trust, then you are deluding yourself on the essence of life. God didn’t promise us life without challenges but His grace to overcome it whenever it arises.

You must move on from that point you have been since you were raped. You have stayed too long there. Give yourself freedom by moving on and exploring the beautiful side of life. There are very responsible and trustworthy men out there who would never hurt a woman.

And you will never know the strength of your feelings for this man or his feelings for you if you don’t remove all the obstacles you have unwittingly put in your way to happiness.

Go back to God and ask for His grace to make you forget that ugly incident as well as open your heart to love. Only the strong gets up after a fall to win.

Good luck

He brought in another woman as his wife

Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626

Dear Agatha,

Please help me urgently. My husband and I have been married for 10 years and blessed with three lovely girls. Although his mother has been agitating for a male child, he never gave the inkling that he was worried about not having a male child.

Not once did he mention it, not even when I was agitating for it. He was the one telling me not to worry about it; that he was happy with his daughters. He was forever telling me that I should cheer up, that there are women who don’t even have any.

With this in mind, I was rest assured that my marriage was intact. So you can imagine my pains and horror when he came home last week with a pregnant woman and a young male child.

He didn’t say anything to me but took the woman into the room next to ours. He settled her in, went into the kitchen to get food for her himself.

It took me a lot of will power to keep quiet until we were in our bedroom. It was then he told that the woman in the next room was his wife; that he was responsible for the pregnancy and that the little boy his, son.

I was too shocked to say anything. I couldn’t sleep all through the night. In the morning, he left our bedroom for hers and from there went to the office.

It wasn’t an hour after he left that his mother came in. she didn’t even bother with me but made straight for the other woman’s room.

Later the other woman and my mother-in-law went out and by the time they came back she was his legal wife. Unknown to me, they went to the registry to make formal their union. That night she moved into our matrimonial room ably supported by my mother-in-law who insisted she should sleep with her husband on her wedding night.

That was when I lost my cool. I slapped the woman hard on her cheek and that was when all hell was released in my home. But for the interventions of our neighbours who had never come to settle any dispute in my home, my mother-in-law would have thrown my children and I out of the house.

My husband met the commotion. He didn’t say anything to anybody. Instead, he went into the room and stayed there until everyone left.

The next morning he woke up before anybody, came into the children’s room, woke me up and told me to pack my things out the house. He told me that if I didn’t, I would regret knowing him.

That night, he almost killed me when he came back to meet me and the children still at home. From that day, it has become a pattern in my home for my husband to beat me.

I actually wanted to leave but my pastor insists I stay on because it is my home. My friends think I would be stupid to leave for another woman. My children want us to leave.

Sincerely I am so confused, don’t know what to do.

Agatha, I only married him under the customary law. After he paid my bride price and met my people, I moved in with him because by then I was already pregnant. I was so secured in his love, I didn’t push we go to the registry to formalize it. Although I pressurized him when his mother began to agitate for male child, I didn’t push it again when he kept telling me not to worry.

I love my husband but don’t know what to do about this. He isn’t acting like the man I know at all. I know something is wrong. Please I don’t know what to do. My mother-in-law says the other woman is the legal wife? Agatha, is it true? What are my chances in my marriage? It is all so frustrating.

Betrayed Wife.



Dear Betrayed Wife

Unfortunately and painfully, it is true that the other woman by virtue of being the one he married under the common law, is the legal wife recognized by the government. Because he married you under the customary law, the law sadly is on her side. You cannot sue for bigamy. The law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria recognizes polygamy provided the man didn’t marry his wives under the common law.

Call it unfair, but regrettably this is the position of the law.

Honestly, you need time out to think and have a breath of fresh air. Emotionally, physically and psychologically, you are going through very tough and difficult times. If you are not careful, you risk developing blood pressure or suffer stroke because of what is happening to you. There is no way you can think in this kind of situation and hostility. Besides, only the wise runs to fight another day. Who do you think would care for your children if during his strange and violent moments, he kills you?

Can the dead care, train and provide for children? Only the living does that. This situation requires wisdom to handle. To continue to stay is to put your life and those of your children at risk. Frankly, this marriage is n

ot worth you dying for. It is too complex and dangerous for you at this moment.

There is no way you can fight all three without losing something in the end. Even if you can fight all of them, what about your children? Are they strong enough to resist? Apart from the physical, a lot of spiritual manipulation is going on here, one you have to avoid until its potency clears enough for your husband to realize his mistakes. The truth is, if you don’t leave on your own, his mother and the other woman are quite capable of making you leave by force.

This battle isn’t yours to fight. Only God wins this kind of battle effortlessly and unless you leave, your husband would never come to his senses. They would continue to renew that thing they did to him to make him hate you so much.

Also consider the psychological effect of your being beaten daily by their father on the children. Being girls, these experiences could for life color their views concerning marriage and you won’t be able to convince them to change their minds. You owe it to these children and yourself to be happy again. You also need to protect them from all these violence. If you die, your children would be other people’s children, to send on errand, do the house chores while their own children go to school.

Only a fool stays near a burning fuel tanker or raging volcano. For now, your husband is raging; forget whether he is under some spell or not, the fact is, his anger is against you. it takes one fatal blow to terminate a life. If he is under influence like you suspect, then you are in more danger as he could be controlled to do anything his operators wish at any time. He would have done it before coming to his senses.

If you can afford it, no matter how small the accommodation is, move into a place where you can have the peace and presence of mind to think of your life, plan for the children and pray to God. He has already married her and there is nothing you on your own can do about that. Only God can do something about it so why allow yourself to be killed in a battle you lack the power to win?

Bear in mind that whatever goes up, comes down. Your day of laughter and thanksgiving would come but only if you are alive. For now, your children are your solace, your pride and comfort. Allow them to suffocate you with care and love. Believe me, children are very good at this. They know without being told when their mother needs their protection, attention and care. They may not have money to give you now, but they have so much love, loyalty and trust in your abilities to bounce back.

Your leaving is to help him with prayers as well as concentrate on caring for your children. Ensure you give them the best to help them get to the height of their career choices. It is the best way to silence people like your mother-in-law who thinks female children are worthless. You simply have to be strong for the children because the battle ahead requires strength and determination to overcome. Wipe those tears away and get moving because you haven’t even started on this journey of strength of mind. Be determined to emboss success on your children so much that, your husband’s family would be irrelevant without them.

This is the request you should take to God in prayers and worship. Don’t worry. The God you serve is strong and knows how to fight our battles.

Good luck

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

My brother boils over my proposed marriage to a police officer…

Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626

Dear Agatha,
I am in a relationship that is currently about two years. The girl in question is the same girl I intend to marry. I have taken her to my place and I have gone to see her people as well. Our traditional marriage ceremony is coming very soon.

The problem I have is that my elder brother does not like the girl I want to marry due to her profession, a police officer. Although my brother isn’t supporting me financially or offering any moral help, yet his attitude is affecting me all the same.

Please how do I handle this?

Mr. J.


Dear Mr. J,

What is wrong in being a police officer? Since when did being a police personal become a consideration in the process of marriage?

You are the one marrying this lady, not your brother. You are the one who will live with her and as long as you are comfortable about what she does for a living, don’t listen to what any other person has to say.

As your elder brother, he has a right to an opinion, but that is as far as it goes. When it comes to the issue of marriage, it is a personal thing because the choice is one you must have to live with for the rest of your life.

For you to have come this far with this woman, you must have found priceless qualities in her. Ones you may never find in another woman. Ones, which in later years would give you the happiness you deserve in life.

This man may be your brother but he has no right to stand between you and happiness especially if the reasons are as flimsy as the one he is advertising. You are not going to be living with her uniform but the woman inside the uniform. This is the point you should communicate to your elder brother.

Tell him that beyond the uniform of her profession is a woman who has all it takes to make you eternally happy. Marriage has no uniform, creed, colour, tribe beyond it being rewarding and beneficial emotionally, psychologically, mentally and spiritually fulfilling to the two people involved.

If his fears are based on her paramilitary training and the possibility of her refusal to submit herself to your authority in the home front, for whatever it is worth, assure him that you don’t intend playing the hen-pecked husband and that her uniform is only relevant outside your home.

I suspect his discomfort with her has to do with your ability to manage the intimidation her uniform presents. Being an elder brother who perhaps has more knowledge of your limitations as a person, he is simply concerned. On this premise, humour him by explaining your need for this woman in your life as well as your capacity to head your home.

If after this he persists in his attitude, ignore him and go ahead with your plans to marry this woman.

However, in your interest, don’t discuss this with your woman because your woman may never be able to forgive your brother or forget the fact that he tried to stop you from marrying her. She may never be able to bring herself to treat him with all the respect he deserves as your elder brother. An attitude if not managed well may bring about a permanent crack in the quality of friendship between you and your brother.

Managing a home and maintaining a balance in the relationships between you, your family as well as friends, entails tremendous wisdom and craft. If you tell your woman about your brother’s disapproval of her, you may be forfeiting the opportunity of assuring your brother of your ability to control your home.

Besides telling her you may also pitch her against other family members who may want to rally behind your brother if she insults him.

If you are sure of the choice you made and that your elder brother’s opposition isn’t premised on something more fundamental; please go ahead to secure your own happiness.

Good luck.

I don’t trust him again

Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I am 21 years of age. I am in a relationship with this man who has agreed to marry me.

However, recently I noticed he has gotten into the habit of hiding his phone from me.

Somehow I managed to get his phone, went through his text messages until I chanced on a suspicious text message from a lady.

He didn’t give me any convincing answer when I confronted him with my findings but came back to beg for my forgiveness.



Please I am confused because I am two-month pregnant for this man. Should I terminate the pregnancy?

Confused Lady.




Dear Confused Lady,

Don’t, under any circumstances, terminate the pregnancy. You didn’t create the life growing inside of you, so to harm it is to call to question the wisdom of God in giving you that child.

Besides, the child is an innocent party in all these. It didn’t ask to be born. You and your boyfriend took the decision without consulting it whether it wanted either or both of you as its parents.

And would you have on account of the betrayal of you by its father considered killing it had it been born already? To terminate the pregnancy is to commit a crime you may never get pardoned for. So don’t try your luck because this child might just be the only one you are destined to have.

In addition, you could end up losing your life in the process of aborting it and what would have been your gain, that your man betrayed you?

Is that enough reason to commit suicide?

Having come back to beg for your forgiveness, why not allow the past be? There is no relationship without issues like this. At least he tried hiding the knowledge from you, which speaks of the high regards he has for you as a person. He cares and loves you. If he didn’t, he would have called your bluff and condemned you for going through his phone, which would have presented you as the guilty party because going through his phone was a breach of his privacy. Being his girlfriend or wife doesn’t make it right for you to go through his phone.

Allow peace reign by forgiving him. At least this is one relationship crime he would think twice before engaging in it again.

That you found out would never make it easy for him to do it again. His refusal to lie about it as well as the dignity he handled the matter shows a man whose feelings are deep.

Although completely wrong, having another woman in his life doesn’t mean he loves you less. It is just that some men find it extremely difficult to resist the adventure of dating other women.

Primarily men are hunters and easily get excited by what they see. A wise woman wishing to keep her home would not do the silly thing of engaging them in an emotional war or quarrels.

God may be using this situation to point you at the area of danger in your relationship. What is required is for you to pray and not get into hasty decisions.

Whether you realise it or not, you and this man through the child in your womb, have embarked on a permanent relationship irrespective of whatever happens later in life.

This child would always ensure communication and interaction between the two of you.

The oil of a relationship is forgiveness. It must never be in short supply because injuries and pains are constant features in a relationship. There is no way a couple can avoid hurting each other, some very painful and thoughtless. When such moments occur, it takes the strength of the love and commitment to pull through.

Unless you are admitting that your love for him lacks proper foundation and strength of character to pull both of you out of these doldrums. Achieving this requires so much understanding and willingness on your part.

To help you get to the point of complete forgiveness, ask yourself what this man means to you! What do you like most about him? What makes him very different from all the other men you have met since you started dating? There must be something very special about him to make you get pregnant and planning for a future with him.

How are you sure the next man you would meet won’t treat you more shabbily than this man? Recalling all the special moments you have spent together as well as the future you both plan would make this betrayal easiest to bear.

Another way to ensure you constantly remain his heroine is to allow your forgiveness come from the heart. True forgiveness is the only way to survive and be happy in the human jungle called life.

Good luck.

Monday, June 20, 2011

My wife cannot be trusted with money

Agatha Edo, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com, 08054500626


Dear Agatha,

My wife is the problem in my life. With three children between us, our marriage is loveless. She is greedy and cannot be trusted with money. She is also troublesome. I just feel sorry for the children.

Worried Husband.


Dear Worried Husband,

How did you two get to this stage? Surely those children couldn’t have happened in hate, they must be products of love between two people who care about each other.

Although, you didn’t tell me how long you have been married, chances are that you are both going through the thorny years of marriage, when a couple think they have made a mistake in the choice of who to share their lives with.

Because of the shattered dreams, your mind is blocking off any attempt to remember those wonderful nascent years. From my own experiences, I know how difficult it can be for couples going through severe challenges in their marriage to recall anything positive about their spouses.

It is never easy to overcome a problematic marriage but that is not to say it cannot be done if both parties let go of the bitter disappointment and make a strong effort to change things.

Your disappointment could also be a function of your inabilities to study each other during your courtship years. A lot of dating couples limit their knowledge of their partners’ attitudes and qualities to only their dating years. They neglect to factor into their relationship those enduring qualities and dreams that would guarantee them happiness in their marriage.

What were your expectations of the woman who would end up answering your name and bearing your children? Did you ever have one and if you did, how did they apply to your wife when you met and married her?

At what point in your marriage did these dreams become nightmares? What were your contributions to the problems? Human nature makes it very easy to find faults in other people, neglecting our own contributions to the problem. Just like it takes two to tango, it takes two to destroy something very beautiful.

Did you measure up to her expectations, meeting her own dreams of an ideal husband? Yes, you may not be able to trust her with money, but are you giving her the chance to exercise her authority as an adult or do you police how she spends every kobo you give her? Do you give her the freedom to exist as your second in command at home or do you treat her opinion and actions as inferior?

What areas is she spending too much money? How come you think she cannot be trusted with money? Is it with the housekeeping money you cannot trust her? Is she stealing your money? Is it with her money? Where and what do you think she is spending the money on?

To be frank, there is no woman who doesn’t take advantage of her husband’s money either with or without his consent. Women generally believe that they have unrestricted access to their husband’s money and take the liberty of taking whenever they come across their husband’s money. Some go to the ridiculous extent of spending money meant for house-keeping on clothes and other things.

On whether it is right or wrong, isn’t the issue here. The issue is, it isn’t peculiar to your woman. To condemn her for it is to classify the majority of women as thieves. Granted a woman should ask permission before taking her husband’s money but we all know that in most homes, it isn’t practicable. Most women don’t feel they should ask permission before spending their husband’s money. If you think otherwise, let her know precisely how you feel about her attitude to money.

You can teach her to submit to your ways by not nagging or shouting over it. Be careful you don’t allow her escape with the impression that you are stingy because that is where the problem of stubbornness, suspicion and differences usually come from. When a woman has the impression that her husband doesn’t want her to take his money, she begins to suspect him of having affairs on the side. The thought of another woman having all the opportunities of spending her husband’s money while she is placed under ban brings out the green-eyed monster in her and before you know it, she begins to nag and misbehave.

Check your own contributions to the problems in your home. Admit yours and gently point her to hers. For the sake of those children, you both must learn to shift grounds because posterity won’t forgive both of you if you allow challenges that can be solved if there is the will and sincerity tamper with the peace of mind of these children.

There is a lot of wisdom in the old ways, which forbids a man from reacting to every thing a woman does. Sometimes, laughing at her and being friendly when she tries to quarrel could avert a major upset in the home.

Take a trip down memory lane to the first time you met her, to your wedding day and night, to the first time you held your first child, to those early days when you could not stop whispering sweet nothing into each other’s ears.

Follow this trip with a new determination to make your marriage work no matter what it cost you in time and pride. One of you must make the sacrifice to ensure those children remain happy.

Invite God into your marriage. Remember He didn’t say it would be problem free but He has promised His grace which in times of need is more than enough. This woman may appear to be very bad now but I can assure you, the next woman might be worse because nobody is perfect.

Marriage becomes enviable only if we invest into it.

Good luck.

She’s pregnant for me, but I don’t love her

Agatha Edo, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com, 08054500626

Dear Agatha,

I have a very serious problem to share with you following the kind of solutions you have been giving to people.

Agatha, my girlfriend whom I have dated for over four years got pregnant for me recently. I am really bothered about this development because I don’t have a well paid job.

Besides, I have recently found another woman whom I really love. Please advice me on what to do. Should I marry because of sentiment or because of love?.

Akpan Asuquo.


Dear Akpan Asuquo,

People should marry for love not for sentiment but not when that supposed love is flawed with so many inconsistencies.

If you are complaining of not having enough money to care for your unborn baby and mother, where would the money come from to execute this new relationship? Even if this new lady is the one with all the money, there is no way you would not be required to spend some money at one time or the other.

At what point did you discover you are not so much in love with your pregnant girlfriend? After she got pregnant and you discovered the responsibilities that come with having a baby and a woman to care for?

What happens if this new woman gets pregnant, leave her alone to care for the baby while you find another woman to love?

No, it isn’t fair. Nobody is saying you must marry this girl but good sense and justice demand that you give her all your support at this critical time of her life. It is the least you can do for a woman you have slept with for four years and who is carrying the results of those pleasurable moments you both shared. She doesn’t need this treatment now, no matter what she has done wrong or whatever feelings you have for this other woman.

Don’t forget the child she carries once out is more of yours than hers. That child, apart from being your first, would carry your name till eternity. If you start maltreating the mother from this stage on account of her being pregnant with your child, what hopes does the child have of you caring for his education and needs?

The ideal thing to do is to sit down with your girlfriend and discuss the way forward. If you cannot marry her, let her know even though it beats my imagination that you are only discovering you cannot marry her after she got pregnant. At least let her know why you don’t think she is good enough for you anymore.

Also discuss the support you would give to her after the baby comes.

The right thing, no matter what you both agree to is to wait around her until the baby is born. If the other woman is the one you prefer at the end of the day, just make sure you are going for her because of love and not due to fear of responsibility.

A man who is afraid of responsibility lacks the moral grounds to be counted as a man when a census of men is being taken. It is not the biological features only that counts but the fearlessness of a man to own up to his responsibilities always.

Good luck.

Can she remain faithful while I’m abroad?

Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626


Dear Agatha,

I must say you are an instrument of God. Thank you for your great honesty.

I am 27 years of age. I currently have this problem with my fiancée.

In the first place there is no denying the fact that we are both in love with each other but since I have the desire to travel abroad without her, I am scared about losing her.

This is because I am not her first lover. What do you think I should do to manage this situation without losing her to another man?

Do you think a blood engagement can help?

Since meeting her, I have never cheated on her or thought of looking at another woman. How do I know if she is my wife?

Agatha, I keep having this feeling she may cheat on me while I am out of the country, what can I do to stop her from cheating on me? I love her so much. Finally, I can do whatever she wants. Please am I doing the right thing?

Confused Man



Dear Confused Man,

Trust is the basis for the success of every relationship. Without it, there is nothing anybody can do. You must learn to trust her, no matter what you feel especially if she hasn’t given you any reason to distrust her.

Not being her first lover doesn’t make her less of a person to be trusted. You knew she wasn’t a virgin when you met her, so you must learn to live with that knowledge no matter the situation you both find yourselves in.

Being a virgin doesn’t automatically confer the status of trust on a woman, what does is her conduct and commitment to her partner at any given time.

For you to be so in love with her, she must have some outstanding qualities you cannot afford to miss.

Trust isn’t built in a day, it takes a while and this is derived from behavioural pattern of a particular person. In all your time with her, think as objectively as possible, has she ever given you any reason to doubt her, suspect her of being incapable of staying faithful to you while you are away?

Jealousy is a very dangerous emotion. She would feel very hurt and miserable if she finds out that you don’t trust her to be responsible while you are away in a foreign land and that you even suspect her of being incapable of remaining faithful to you.

However, to give you the assurance you need to live a stress free life, call her to discuss your fears and anxiety with her. Be careful not to give her the impression you don’t trust her at all because it could make her undergo severe pressure from men or her family do something she would ordinarily not do; whereas if she is secured in your trust you would equally do anything to defend that trust.

What do you mean by blood engagement? Are you talking about blood covenant? Sincerely, it isn’t worth it, because the spiritual implications are usually not favourable. The attendant spiritual complication is always too severe at the end of the day especially if both of you end up with other partners.

Blood engagement or covenant is also an evidence of insecurity and lack of trust. It is akin to forcing each other to stay in a relationship against one’s will, having a relationship under duress. This should arise where there is trust and security.

One way you can get her to remain faithful to you and you to her is for both of you to fuse unconditional friendship into your relationship. To do this, de-emphasise sex. You are jittery of leaving her behind because you think she cannot stay without sex. If both of you had from the beginning founded your relationship on enduring qualities like friendship, tolerance and understanding what is really required to make a relationship happy, this morbid fears you are nursing would not have been.

Unless you have an idea of what you want from life, learn to pay attention to those qualities you know would give you endless happiness in a woman, you may never know if she is your wife or not. To know if she is the right one for you, you must begin the appraisal from your own end. What do you understand by love? Is it for you the same thing as having fulfilling sex with a pretty woman? Is physical beauty for you the only thing that your ideal woman must have? What do you understand by inner beauty, which envelops humility, respects loyalty, tolerance, support, care, believes in you, responsibility, understanding, faith in the relationship and selflessness? These are all the things that give birth to friendship, which brings out the inner treasures in a person.

Without you having full grasp of all that are required to turn an ordinary relationship into an earth moving experience irrespective of whether the couple is together or not, inside or outside the bedroom, there is no way anybody can say she is a wife material. She must in addition to the above qualities have a passion for your well being which in turn translates to good house keeping and nourishment.

Sincerely there is nothing you can do to stop her from being disloyal to you if she has the tendency to do it. She doesn’t have to wait for you to travel out before dating another man. A man or woman, who has the tendency to cheat, would do it irrespective of where his or her partner is. The only thing that can stop her is her commitment to you and yours to her. It is not enough for her to remain committed to you if you fail to reciprocate her gesture. As a matter of fact, she is the one that needs all the assurances in the world because you are the one leaving her behind. The excitement and loneliness of a new surrounding are enough grounds for you to be unfaithful. If you love her also learn to trust her.

But one very solid way of protecting this relationship is to entrust it to God. If you are both meant to be, God would preserve it no matter the challenge but if God didn’t design her for you, everything you do would be in vain.

Good luck.

Monday, June 13, 2011

My hubby betrayed me by siding with his family

Marriage Clinic With Agatha Edo, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com, 08054500626

Dear Agatha,

I am newly married. I got married seven months ago and my husband brought me to live in his family house where his parents, sisters and brothers live. He is the first born so his father gave him one of the flats in their house.

I really didn’t like the idea but I had no choice. When he first mentioned it and I tried to discourage him, he told me it would save us a lot of money and the stress of looking for another accommodation.

Besides, he assured me that since we would be living in our own flat, we would have no problems with any member of his family.

I got pregnant almost immediately after marriage hence I was indoors most of the time. If the mother didn’t come to search my freezer for something to cook for her family, his sisters or brothers would come to watch one film or the other not minding if I was watching a programme or not.

My home became the venue for all kinds of meetings. They would come with friends to party and when I complained of too much noise, they would turn it down for a while before increasing it again.

I tried reporting them to my husband but he appears incapable of doing anything forcing me to report them to my mother-in-law who didn’t hesitate to let me know that the flat we are in is part of her husband’s house and her children’s inheritance.

This, she told me, gives them the right to do what they like because the place also happens to be where their elder brother stays. She warned me not to come between her children.

From then on, nothing I did made sense. If she is not complaining about my cooking, she goes to my pot without invitation, she is complaining about my housekeeping. It got so bad that I almost lost my pregnancy.

The latest embarrassment came when my mother came on a visit. But for the intervention of my father-in-law who happened to be around, she would have been thrown out for asking one of my sisters-in-law not to take out the soup she just prepared for me.

There was nothing my mother-in-law didn’t say to my mother. It was too much provocation for me. I had to confront my sisters-in-law and their mother. It earned me a slap on my face. My mother was beside herself and would have retaliated but for my father-in-law who walked in at that moment.

I have had it to my limits. I cannot cope anymore and my husband isn’t helping the situation. He says I am not patient enough and that my mother lacks the right to caution his sister from going to my pot or kitchen.

It is all so confusing. I don’t know what to do.

Rita


Dear Rita,

There is no marriage without its challenges especially if you begin your married life living with your in-laws. It can be very hectic for the woman who is at the center of it all.

Honestly, your husband is at fault. It was wrong for him to have insisted you live in his family house. Your marriage is still too tender to survive such interventions and assaults of the entire family clan. The odds are heavily against you because nothing you do would ever be right with them being a stranger among the lot.

It is too much of a risk for your young marriage. There is no price too much for him to pay for the success of this marriage and if that means leaving the family house to rent even a room, he should consider the option.

No matter how much his father tries to make peace, since the issue has extended to your mothers, it would only keep degenerating, choking any chance your marriage may have to recover from this injury.

Even if you are willing to let go of that incident, what about your mother or his? Frankly, the two didn’t act as matured women at all. Your mother shouldn’t have challenged your sister-in-law given the acrimony already existing between you and your in-laws. She should just have ignored her no matter how provoking the situation was to her. For your sake and health, she should have walked away from it all after all the house and pot of soup are yours. If you didn’t complain at the effrontery of your sister-in-law to go into your pot of soup, she should simply have ignored everything. Had she done that, even if it was a deliberate act on the side of your sister-in-law, the ugliness of that incident would have been averted. The issue now is that she went to her daughter’s house to fight her in-laws. Only very few would reason along the line of her protecting the health of her pregnant daughter. Besides, it would have given you more time to work on your husband to find alternative accommodation. Your mother has no right to come to your house to fight your in-laws just as your mother-in-law lacked the right to slap you.

Now she has made the situation more difficult for you to convince your husband on the need for both of you to find an alternative accommodation. He would think your mother is the one pulling the strings from behind. Even if your husband had the intention of doing that before, had sympathies for you, being a man he would really drag now because of the involvement of your mother.

Though she acted on instinct, but her timing was very wrong. Your husband wouldn’t want to act now to avoid being tagged as a hen- pecked husband.

Being the victim of all these family politics and pressures, you have to act fast. Play the kind of politics this situation requires for your own peace of mind.

Unless there is something you aren’t doing right, his whole family cannot be against you. There must be someone outside your husband among his siblings that can fight on your behalf, put a good word for you when the others are blowing hot against you.

If you are unable to get anyone to do this for you, please there is the need for you too to check your attitude. Sometimes the way people react to us come from our own attitudes. You have been married for seven months and before that time, you must have dated for sometime. It means you must have met some of his siblings while you were both dating in that house. He couldn’t have brought you to them on the day of introduction. A form of acquaintance must have been formed between you and his siblings before you officially became his wife.

What happened to that bridge relation? What efforts did you put into building it into full blown friendship? Did you, like most women, become too bitter about your husband’s decision to stay on with his people? Were you blind to the good side of these people who have become your family too? Would you have minded the excesses of his siblings if they were your own brothers and sisters?

Would you have minded his mother going into your pot if she was your mother? Didn’t your mother have access to the same pot of soup, she prevented your sister-in-law from going into?

When his mother was coming to get things from you, did you at anytime go to her to ask what was in her kitchen too? Did you try to make her care for you as one of her children?

If you intend to stay in this marriage for a long time and defeat every opposition, these are issues you must look at. First admit to your own faults. You refused to integrate because you saw them as strangers and a third force in your marriage. You saw them as nuisances hence became cold to the very people who would have neutralised whatever oppositions their mother had against you. If she couldn’t and didn’t stop her son from marrying you, then whatever she has against you isn’t so fundamental.

Go to her when she is alone to beg her. Don’t forget that your husband is her child, her first son for that matter. You represent a rival in the deepest part of her heart because you have the love of the son she had always had.

Deep down, she isn’t too happy and is determined to show you that her hold over her son is stronger than yours being his mother. Be wise and go to her, show her that you aren’t in her son’s life to displace her but to consolidate his love for her.

Asking her for help to make your husband a better man would give her the sense of belonging she wants. Befriend her. Learn to cook her favorite meals and make her your friend. It might not be easy but if you are patient and prayerful, she would eventually thaw and call her riotous children to order.

Concurrently, make the attempt to befriend his siblings, start from the younger ones whose positions aren’t rigid. These ones are easily appeased once you have extra cash and gifts to throw their way. By the time you play your cards well, your husband would be the one wanting to pack out of the house on account of your being too close to his family for comfort. He would feel threatened by it all because he would feel they have more of you than him. It is a simple case of tact, determination, wisdom and tolerance of each other’s strength and weakness.

In marriage, a wise wife learns to stoop to conquer.

Good luck.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

I’m pregnant for my friend's husband

with Agatha Edo, email; gataedo@yahoo.com; agatha.edo@gamil.com: Tel: 08054500626

Dear Agatha,

About three houses away from where I stay, there is a very secluded guesthouse where men wishing to hide their affairs come to now and then with their dates.

But for the heavy traffic in the evenings to that place, nothing about the house gives the impression of what it is used for. Being in a very responsible estate completes the camouflage of secrecy.

On my way from work one evening, I noticed a very familiar car. Since it was about three cars ahead of mine I couldn’t be sure by the time I drove through our estate security.

I know it entered into the guesthouse. There was no way I could go and check since I had work to do. Being a single mother of two daughters from two men, I take my job seriously.

I almost forgot until my friend called me around 11.30 that night to complain that her husband isn’t back from work yet. According to her, he was busy with a new project. I almost told her I saw a car like that of her husband in my estate but I kept quiet. In the first place, the husband didn’t like me too much he thinks I am a very bad influence on his wife because of my two failed marriages. Secondly, he doesn’t even know where I lived and for some strange reasons I don’t want him to find out because around him, I can’t trust myself to behave. His maleness is that potent.

I immediately knew what his new project was. That night, I didn’t sleep but kept vigil in the bedroom that looked directly over the compound. He left at about 12.30 a.m.

For a month, I kept tab on him. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the information I was gathering because I would be the last to tell his wife anything.

The wife remains my oldest friend and we have been through some wildlife together, boyfriend swapping and all those naughty things young women did, visiting spiritualists to make men fall and stay with us as long as we wanted. It was this charm my friend actually used on him the first time they met.

I honestly didn’t mean anything to happen until one night I gave in to the temptation inside of me. I called him and gave him the name of the guesthouse on my street. Since I knew when he would be coming, I waited for him outside my gate. That started the illicit affair between my friend’s husband and me.

It is been a year now. My friend unknown to her tells me everything happening between her and her husband, how he doesn’t come home anymore. I am always the one visiting her to prevent her from coming to my place.

Seeing how old and depressed she has become I want to end it all but I discover that I am deeply in love with me and don’t ever want to let go of him unlike all the other men in my life.

I deliberately got pregnant to keep him. He was happy at first but in these last couple of weeks, he seems to be withdrawing and don’t pick my calls. I know he is my friend’s husband but I have always wanted him.

You may condemn me but try to understand that I love him too and help me overcome this.

Idowu.



Dear Idowu,

Try putting yourself in the shoes of your friend. Even if you are trying to justify your reason for obviously charming this man into your bed and arms, the fact remains that he isn’t yours to keep.

If you had done boyfriend swapping as young girls, is it an excuse for you to do what you are now doing to her? How would you feel in her shoes? And to think she still confides all her matrimonial problem in you?

No matter how attractive this man is he can’t be the only one with such charisma. Getting old and more experienced, the ways of life should have told you that the world is governed by responsibilities. There is no way we can ever get all that we want from life. It would have been better this hurt is coming from an unknown person and not one she considers her intimate friend.

That she did her charms and got away with it doesn’t mean you will get away with the one you have done on him. In the first instance, God is very fair in His judgement. She didn’t hurt another woman to get her husband. You are hurting another woman, your friend, her children and home in the process of you having your wish fulfilled. This isn’t right.

Well, you are old enough to handle the pregnancy. It was your choice to get pregnant, so be prepared to face the challenges of telling that child how the husband of your friend became its father. Begin from now to defend yourself against the condemnation of that child whose foundation is already faulty.

How do you expect that child if he turns out to be a boy to feel among his siblings and relatives?

As a mother you should worry about that time when the child is old enough to understand the politics, intrigues and shame that followed his or her birth. If this pregnancy turns out to be a girl, what moral authority would you have to caution her against following in your footsteps? Don’t forget by then, you would no longer view life from this angle unless of course you think your ways remain the best.

There is nothing you can do anymore but to confront the ghost you have exhumed. It is either you make the choice of staying out of their lives, conceal the identity of the father of your unborn child from your friend as well as think of an imaginary father in a far away land who is dead to give your child. This way, you would be leaving the choice of exposing your affair to this man just as you must be prepared to go to your grave with this secret.

This option gives the child a free and fair foundation to begin life and exist as a product of true love and not smeary one you planned for it.

You also have the choice to open up your can of worms by telling your friend you are the woman who not only stole her husband but also destroyed the peace of her home.

You can trust this option won’t be without a dirty fight, one in which both of you would expire untimely. Before you consider this option think of your daughters who need you around, who may not be as strong as you might have fortified yourself spiritually. Your girls may be targets of reprisal attack from a friend if she has your kind of heart and wishes to hurt you as much you have hurt her.

It is unfortunate you didn’t think beyond the immediate, but you must now if you even want to be alive to enjoy seeing this child you are carrying. It is only the living that gets married and to have children.

You have made a costly mistake; don’t complicate things further. Life is too fragile, and its tomorrow very pregnant.

For now, go away until you have the baby. Change your number so this friend of yours won’t be able to get through to you for a time. By the time you resurface, too much time would have gone for both of you to have the time to be close again.

Since apart from the fact you actually want to stop this relationship, your also going away would to help your friend and her husband to reconcile their differences. Overtime they would find a stable ground to put this time behind them. Once both parties are determined to make it work, incidents like this can be forgiven.

You have had your wish to have a child for him, let him have her wish of a happy home. Having gone through two broken marriages, you should have inkling into how she would be feeling now, her tension, fears and aches. You said so yourself that she is suffering emotionally. Don’t you feel something die inside of you anytime you behold the face of someone who trusts you so much and thinks you are on her side?

Sincerely, this is the least you can do in this situation and the most honourable thing for you to do first as a woman and secondly for the good times you once shared as true friends.

Good luck.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

She can’t be pregnant after years of masturbation…

With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626


Dear Agatha,

I am so impressed at your wise answers to people with different problems.

My close friend at school called two weeks ago concerning her marital problems.

She said that she started masturbating in 2007 when her boyfriend had sex with her. She did that to avoid sleeping with other guys after that relationship broke up. But now she is married and she is not pregnant after five months of marriage. The reason is that her husband’s sperm come out her body immediately after they made love.

Please Agatha does it mean that my friend is not productive and cannot bear children again in her lifetime? Is there other alternative? Please she is confused. Help her out, please.

Caring Friend.


Dear Caring Friend,

Your friend has no reason to worry about it, because what she is experiencing is normal. Her history of masturbation has nothing to do with what is happening to her. She isn’t alone. Many women experience such discharges each time their men ejaculate inside them, but that hasn’t stopped a lot of these women from becoming pregnant.

Like everything else about the human body, the vagina differs from one woman to the other, hence performs differently. While some are able to absorb perfectly all the semen, some don’t have that capacity, hence leak.

Besides, I am told the semen is the protective coat of the sperm. Once the man discharges, they separate. While the sperm travels to its destination, the semen comes out.

Since your friend is trying to conceive, she and her husband may try to experiment with other styles. The missionary position is notorious for making it easy for the sperm to come out of the vagina. They could adopt a position that gives the man more room to penetrate and discharge close to her uterus to make it easier for the sperm to get to her egg faster than if they have been discharged at the walls of her vagina.

Your friend and her husband can get details from books specially written to help couple to explore more intimate positions to adopt during lovemaking.

Since she is trying to get pregnant, she should refrain from standing up immediately after having sex with her husband. She should help herself by elevating her behind on a pillow for close to 20 minutes to help keep the sperm close to her womb. As a matter of fact, the pillow should be in place especially if both of them are more comfortable with the missionary position during lovemaking.

If adopting another position, once her husband ejaculates, she should stay in that elevated position to further assist the sperm perform its duty in the womb.

She should try as much as possible to avoid putting herself under needless stress. A lot of time, it isn’t the quality of sperm or the woman’s quality of reproductive health that is the culprit but the anxiety that goes into expecting the expected to happen at the end of every month. For some women, it is simply a matter of relaxing and enjoying the thrills of being made love to by her husband. A lot of things could go wrong with the woman’s body system if she fixes her mind too much on trying to get pregnant. The tension alone of expecting it to happen may send her body into knots, making it unreceptive to sperm.

A sperm needs a warm and receptive body to settle in. Once the chemicals of anxiety sets in, it becomes difficult for it to reach its destination and some who brave it all to reach it, find out that the anxiety makes the egg too tense to grow into maturity.

This explains why a woman would experience the entire natural things she is supposed to feel and still not have a baby. Anxiety can cause temporary infertility in some women.

If this is the case, she needs your help to go through this phase. Continue to encourage her to trust God and be at peace with herself. Five months isn’t too long for her to work herself up unnecessarily.

However, there is also the need for her and her husband to seek further medical help to eliminate the presence of medical problems like watery sperm or possible medical problems she may have.

Good luck.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

We can’t enjoy sex due to morals fed us as kids…

Share a problem With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626


Dear Agatha,

I am in desperate need for help and advice. This is something I am too ashamed to discuss with anybody. I am a pastor. My wife and I married as virgins.

I was 35 when I got married and was already a pastor. All my life I have worked in various capacities in the church. I grew up in that kind of home where sex was never discussed. As a matter of fact, I didn’t know what to expect until my wedding night.

I didn’t even have the guts to woo a woman. My mother actually married my wife for me. She is the daughter of a very close friend of hers. As expected my mother and her friend share the same ideology about life.

The only time my mother made reference to sex was after our wedding night, when she called me aside for a talk. She told me it wasn’t to be taken as food, that my wife should be contented with whatever I give her and that I should remember that Adam fell because he couldn’t resist Eve. She said I should not allow my labours in God’s vineyard to go down the drain over a woman.

We have been married for two years now. After that wedding night, my wife and I haven’t summoned the courage to sleep together again. She says she is still praying to God for forgiveness for what we did on our wedding night.

My family and hers are beginning to ask questions about our ability to produce children. My mother is very worried because I am her only child and she wants grandchildren like every other woman.

Recently she shocked me by asking me if she can secretly make plans for me to have another wife in the village that would give her grandchildren.

I am confused and too ashamed to ask, how can I enjoy sex with my wife and how can I get her to relax?

Confused Hubby.


Dear Confused Hubby,

Honestly, I admit this is one of the toughest problems I have had to deal with, but I am confident this is one problem God would solve for you and your wife.

To begin with, flee from your mothers. These women are the main cause of the problem you and your wife are having now. If you and your wife haven’t been able to make love after your wedding night two years ago, it underscores the amount of damaging information they have brainwashed you two with.

Having experienced matrimony for the number of years they have been married to your fathers, they should have known how important sex is to couple and the institution of marriage generally. As women, they ought to know what is true from what isn’t. That they were the ones feeding your brains with ideologies that are totally wrong and unworkable is rather unfortunate. Can they in all honestly say they only sleep with their husbands only when they want to produce babies? Is your mother in particular saying she slept with your father only on the occasion that produced you and that since then she hasn’t had sex with her husband?

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that she and your father actually premised their marriage on this doctrine of hers, time should have told her that it wouldn’t work for you.

The fallacy of her position is made evident in her current demand that she arranges another woman for you secretly to give her grandchildren. You should have told her that the problem is not in your wife’s ability to conceive but as a result of the combined effort of her and her friend in damaging the psychology of your wife who is still praying for forgiveness for sleeping with her husband two years ago.

You should call the two friends to find ways of undoing their massive damage on your wife and you. To keep quiet is to give the impression that your wife is actually at fault when in reality she is only acting the script in a play written for her by her mother and yours long before you both got married.

Tell your mother that her twisted sense of moral values is the reason she hasn’t had a grand child two years after your marriage. Invite your mother-in-law to begin the process of debriefing your wife, making her understand that sex isn’t ugly, dirty, frigid and full of pains, but most important of all that there is no sin in enjoying intimacy with one’s spouse.

Both your mother and her friend have to come and plead with your wife to see sex as one of her major duties in your house. She must be made to understand that without giving in to sex, she has no business in your house and is actually a sin before God for a woman to deny her husband sex. She has to be told that she is unwittingly pushing you into the waiting arms of another woman as well as exposing your ministry to temptations.

The duplicity of your mother is her insistence she marries secretly for you. If you allow her to do this, she would have finally destroyed you forever. Sincerely, you are not doing yourself any good by not letting her know the problem she has caused for you. The danger of allowing too much access to you now is embedded in your wife’s refusal to sleep with you. It makes you very vulnerable and open to temptations.

Wherever your mother’s effort in making you hate sex, you remain a man that any determined lady to have you can get. The fact that you have gone through it one is already registered in your brain and would take the attractive body and smell of a woman to bring back. The fact is you may not have planned for it, both the combination of lust, pressure from your mother to have a child and the refusal of your wife to sleep with you would make you do what you don’t want to do.

Therefore you need to be careful because the same woman who once cautioned you against being a sex slave for the sake of your ministry is no longer so concerned for your ministry. She now wants a grandchild from her only child. When a mother becomes that desperate for a grandchild, there is no telling what she would do.

This is really the time for you to grow out of your jacket as your mother’s tool. The situation in your home has continued for this long because you lack the will to think and take on challenges head on. Although you didn’t say it, you are secretly relying on your mother to find solutions to this mess. This is not a way to live life as a man. It is time you took charge of your life completely as a man of 35 years old. You have gone past the age of tutorials. As a pastor, you should know how important sex is. You don’t need your mother anymore to tell you that it isn’t dirty or a sin. Natural curiosity should have made you to investigate the nature of sex. If a member of your congregation should approach you with this kind of problem, how would you handle it? This is why you should grow up and stop allowing your mother dictate what pattern your life should take.

Doubtless, the Bible frowns against premarital affairs but it doesn’t limit sex to a baby machine routine. Sex as a special gift from God, a tool that binds and soften the rough edges of married life, it also bridges the difficulties of two total strangers coming together to form a home. Above all, it is a covenant between a man and a woman.

No matter how tense a situation in a marriage is, once the man and woman are able to make love, a lot of the tension goes out of the issue making it easy for the couple to make peace.

As the man of the house, it is time you sat your wife down for some home truths. It is unimaginable that two years after your marriage, you have only slept with each other once. She is also not too young or naïve to know that when a man gets married, she is expected to sleep with her husband and that it is the only way babies are conceived. So the idea of her finding it a sin is strange and absolutely laughable. Also let her know the first time for women is always a painful experience.

Make it clear you are ready to exercise your rights as her husband any moment from now. But take your time to make it enjoyable for both of you by having an opened mind about sex. See it as a gift, something to be enjoyed by allowing your natural instinct help navigate you.

There is nothing difficult about it. It is just a matter of having the right attitude towards sex. This is the message you must communicate to your wife. I am sure once she gets the right signal from you, backed with relevant Bible passages to help her understand that she is not doing anything she isn’t supposed to do, things would improve significantly between the two of you.

If she won’t mind meeting me, let her come to my office. She needs another view of what sex is to function effectively.

Good luck.

Monday, June 6, 2011

How do I know my Mr Right?

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com,Tel: 08054500626


Dear Agatha,

As a young lady, how do I know the right man when he comes for marriage?

Bisi.


Dear Bisi,

Although there is no sign to announce a man as being the right one or not, more often than not, the seriousness of a man can be dete

cted from the values he puts forward.

A man who is interested in marrying a woman would never be in a hurry to sleep with her, neither would he do anything to compromise her image.

This is because he knows that he would be affected eventually by whatever negative impression his actions bring upon her. Even when he knows that she has not lived an unblemished life, he still makes the effort to shield her from public ridicule, pointing people at her strong points.

He also ensures that he does everything to conceal her weakness from his friends and family members. Such a man is always ready to be on the firing line, taking the blame for his woman’s shortcomings even when it is obvious that the woman is at fault.

Where others see problem, he sees hope in the woman. He is always positive that if shown love, the woman would change.

He is the kind of friend and cheerleader every woman needs to arrive at her destination in life. Even when the woman is contemplating giving up, complaining about perceived limitations, he is always on hand to give her all the support and encouragement needed to excel.

This is because he isn’t threatened by her success or leadership qualities. He doesn’t mind taking the backseat for her to be at the centre stage. He hardly gets angry and when he does, it is only to help the woman become better at being a wife and mother.

But you can find this kind of man if you also know as a woman what you want from life. Many a time women throw away their opportunity to be happy by the choices they put forward. A woman who is more interested in physical looks and how large a man’s wallet is would eventually find out that her seemingly Mr. Right is one of the worst mistakes of her life.

Like everything good in life, you have to be ready to pay the price of patience in knowing who your Mr. Right is. Be prepared to look beyond his appearance, status, connection, family as well as size of his wallet. This is because he may come in the least attractive package. Only a woman who is sure of what she wants for herself discovers the value of gold in its raw form.

Every relationship has a gestation period, one that requires both parties to till the hard grown of building a relationship with all the seriousness it deserves.

Once you as a young woman know that the man you want to marry is for life, no matter how tempting other prospects are, you will take the time to find out from all the ones that come who the real gem is.

You must also have the right idea of what a marriage is to know the kind of man you need in your life. If you think marriage is a journey of a smooth ride to happiness, to that Island of fantasy where everything happens without sacrifices and struggles, chances are you will settle for the man who appears to have the looks and means to do it effortlessly.

But from experience marriage is more about the strength of a man’s character as well as determination to stay married. This is so because a man without the resolve to stay married may lack the unique tolerance to cope with the temperament of a woman especially on those times of the month when the mood is controlled by hormones.

You must, from the very beginning, give yourself that chance to meet the right man.

Good luck.