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 I was very withdrawn, very fearful, quiet, and sometimes moody with a very bad temper.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