I’m a single mother in need of companionship

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


Dear Agatha,
I am an ardent reader of your column and I must say that you are a blessing to humanity.
I need your honest advice on this matter. I am a single mother of one; this is as a result of separation from my husband who eventually died before we could be reconciled.
I was separated from my husband for about three and a half years before he died. I didn’t have any other relationship with any other man until after his death.
I was a Christian before the tragedy. The pains of his death were so deep that I actually backslid and started dating a married man with the hope of becoming his second wife.
As God would have it, three years into the relationship, I became conscious of the mess I was in after certain things happened which gave me the strength to retrace my steps and break up the unholy union.
Since breaking the relationship, some other men have come and gone but I’ve not been able to make up my mind about any of them because of fear.
Then, sometime last year, a neighbour told me about her husband’s friend who lives in the United Kingdom who was looking for a wife.
According to her, she recommended me to him on the strength of my cordial relationship with her. She told me the man was eager to speak with me on the phone. At first, I rebuffed him since I didn’t believe in long distant relationships but, I changed my mind when we began to talk on the phone every night. I actually began to develop interest in him and hope in the relationship.
After a while, I discovered I could not sleep or go a day without speaking to him and all of a sudden his calls ceased and all attempts to reach him were fruitless. He neither picked my calls nor replied my numerous text messages or e-mails. I was really devastated. When I mentioned it to my neighbour, she was speechless and offered to call him but she never did.
Two weeks after, I decided to try his line and he picked the call but to my surprise, he sounded as if nothing ever happened. When I asked him what happened and why he wasn’t picking my calls, he said he just didn’t feel like picking any call that week. He also denied telling my neighbour to look for a wife for him but only asked her to look for a professional friend for him. I felt very insulted but not wanting to sound desperate I agreed to be his friend.
Now, he calls me whenever he feels like but any time I travel outside Lagos, he calls me every night with the intentions of monitoring my movement in the hotel.
I later got to know he was married before but that it didn’t work out. He hasn’t said a word about this to me so I also didn’t bother to ask. I also did not tell him about my son but he got to know and when he asked I told him about my son.
Agatha, do you think any thing good can come out of this relationship?
Mary.

Dear Mary,
It would depend on how honest both of you are to each other and your pasts. You cannot accuse him of being disloyal to you for refusing to tell you about his past because you too weren’t honest with yours.
You can only feel bad if you had told him everything about your past. There is no way he would be sensitive to your feelings, appreciate your fears and give you the assurances you need to overcome this period of your life if he doesn’t know anything about your separation and subsequent death of your former husband.
He would continue to treat you anyhow because he doesn’t know that you are back in the relationship market as a result of your unfortunate experiences. He has to know you are like him; that yesterday’s pains, betrayals and disappointments have made you very vulnerable and apprehensive.
Telling him would enable him know that he just cannot treat you like a young single woman.
Whosoever gave him the information about your son must have told him about your marital status so this was your cue to tell him everything about that time of your life was when he asked about your son. It was not only your son he was asking you about, he was also indirectly demanding you trust him with the story of your past.
Maybe if you had told him everything about you, he might also have told you about his failed marriage.
Like you, he has his reasons for not telling you but that shouldn’t have made you keep quiet about yours. It is most difficult for a man to trust a woman than it is for a woman to trust a man. Your failure to tell him about your late husband may have driven some fears into him about your type of person. He isn’t sure he can trust you.
Although his feelings and attitude may not hold water given he is as guilty as you are but, it still should not stop you from telling him the truth. Even as friends, you owe each other honesty.
There is no way you can build a relationship on dishonesty, shadows of fear and hurts of the past. You both have experiences and issues you should bury in the past.
He has to do away with the attendant disappointments that coloured his first marriage while you too must overcome all the experiences that first led you to leave your matrimonial home and the feelings of guilt that you are battling with over the death of your husband.
Although, you didn’t expressly say, the guilt of not being by his side as his wife when he died may be the reason you are refusing to discuss him or the incidents that happened with this man, but you cannot continue to blame yourself for the decisions you took then. He died because it was his time to go, there was no way your presence by his side could have prevented it.
Not talking about it would not make the guilt less or delete it from your memory. You just must find the strength to go on by being very honest about all the issues in your life.
It is not just about this man who also may not be very serious but because of another man who may really like to start something serious and permanent with you. The information would help men who come your way treat you with more tenderness than other women.
As for this man, don’t build too much hope on your friendship. Take each day as it comes and when someone else comes you way, consider that person but only after you have reconciled with God in every way.
Remember you made your choices; God didn’t make them for you so don’t injure yourself by laying the blames of your disappointments in life or the death of your husband on Him. Yes, He could have prevented him from dying but who are we to question the authority of God?
You are making too many mistakes because you are refusing to take the loving hands God is offering you. Go to Him in prayers and repentance if you want to be happy again.
Starting again after a failed marriage or the death of a loved spouse isn’t easy. Sometimes, the experiences are so bitter and frustrating. This is the time you need to be at peace with God and to be at your wisest so you don’t end up acting out of desperation which appears to be the stage you are in now. Desperation can make one susceptible to deadly mistakes.
Slow down, take stock and revaluate your visions for your tomorrows. Between the time you first got married and now, a lot of things must have changed. It would do you a world of good to factor in your new perspectives on life into your new dreams as well as that of your son. It is only when you get this new vision that you would know with all clarity, who among the many men swimming around you would make you most happy.
Good luck.