with Aunty Agatha, email, gataedo@yahoo.com; agatha.edo@gmail.com; 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I want to thank God for using you to be a blessing to this generation especially the young ones, there is this lady I met last year through my cousin, I like her because she is my kind of person. Sincerely, I would like to marry her.
I have actually proposed marriage to her and she has accepted. But I don’t understand her character, she finds it difficult to call even when I send her airtime or she sees my missed calls. I am always the only one calling her. Please I need your candid advice on how to handle her because I like her so much and would not like to lose her.
Worried Brother.
Dear Worried Brother,
One thing is to see someone you would very much love to have in your life another thing is for both of you to share the same enthusiasm for being together.
She may have accepted your proposal for marriage but from the look of things, both of you have nothing to work on at all. You are still very much strangers to each other and if you must move on from the point you have pegged yourselves, there is the need for you both to go back to the drawing board with a view of finding out a common meeting point between you.
Sincerely, offering her proposal when you barely know whom she is, a huge mistake. For any relationship to succeed, certain things must be put in place. Your proposal before you even had time to know her is akin to putting the cart before the horse. It shouldn’t have been the first thing to do. You needed time to familiarise yourself with her person, character and attitude before offering her a visa to share your space.
First impression isn’t always enough when it comes to the issue of deciding on a life partner. It is just the beginning of so many meetings, interactions before one can be sure that the first impression is the right one.
To help ease your disappointments with her, begin to see her as a friend, one you don’t mind calling because you desire to have her in your life. It is always easy to make a huge sacrifice for a friend than a lover. This is because with a friend, one is relaxed and has no shame exposing a weak side whereas one is constantly under pressure to put the right foot forwards when with a lover.
Also, regard her attitude as being of great assistance in the growth of your relationship. Now you know the challenge you are most likely to face with her if you end up as an item. Rather than see it as a huge discouragement, see it as a blessing in disguise. And the only way to do this is to understand her mental psychology regarding phone calls generally. Despite the huge success of mobile communication, many are still illiterates when it comes to telephone culture. Not many know that courtesy demands, a call from a known person, should be returned or text messages replied.
Often than not, it isn’t just a matter of not having enough credit on the phone but that of not knowing proper telephone usage ethics. Unfortunately many of us are guilty of this.
You won’t know if her attitude is deliberate or not unless you call her attention to it. You have to teach her, through love and not anger, how to respond to your messages as well as calls. Some things are better taught through the examples we give in our own attitudes.
Since your mind is on marrying her, it would do you a world of good to begin the process of integration now. Whatever sacrifices have to be made by both of you to get it right, begin the process now.
If you must know, you haven’t even started at all. The process that would take you from this point to marriage is a long painful journey of tolerance, patience, understanding as well as determination to make it work. There is no way you can get to the sweet part of a relationship without first paying attention to the bitter side. It is the devotion one gives to this bitter side that tells how sweet the relationship or marriage would be as the journey progresses.
In addition you need the presence and help of God from beginning to end.
Good luck.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Hard to tell him I had a child before…
with Aunty Agatha, email, gataedo@yahoo.com; agatha.edo@gmail.com; 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I have been dating this man for seven months. He has even proposed marriage to me and I have accepted.
But there is a huge problem. I don’t know how to tell him about my past that I have a child from a previous relationship. I am scared I may lose him if he finds out.
Agatha, please help me because I don’t know how to go about it.
Debby.
Dear Debby,
Try putting yourself in the shoes of this man; how would you feel if after seven months of being together, you are just finding out that he has kept the vital information about a child from you?
Would you be able to trust him again? It isn’t just that you kept the information from him that would bother him but the issue of trust in its entirety that has been mortgaged by your refusal to tell him at the very wee hours of your first meeting.
The major question is why did you not tell him at the beginning about this child? This is going to his take when you finally tell him about this child?
Is it just fear that you would lose him or that you were desperate to have him and didn’t want anything that would drive him away from you? Could it be also that you weren’t too sure about his love for you or that you were too ashamed of your past to let him in?
Your refusal also calls to question the place of that child in your life. If this man of yours is a deep person, this might make him wonder at the kind of mother you are. No mother, no matter the consequences, denies her child even if it is one second.
Could it also be you deliberately kept the information from him till you are sure you have him where it would be difficult for him to back out?
These are questions you must quickly answer within yourself if you hope to convince him of your true intentions at not telling him from the onset.
In addition, whatever your reason is, be very honest with it since that is the only way you can defend whatever reason informed your not telling him initially.
Marshall your points very well before confronting him with the truth, the issue has gone beyond you having a child from a previous relationship to the twin issue of you keeping such vital information away from him and the credibility of your person.
Rather than deal with you having a child for another man, he has to convince himself that you don’t have any more unpleasant skeleton in your cupboard, persuade himself that his initial guts, feelings about you, are still right as well as overcome his sense of hurt at your attitude.
Whatever thinking you have to do, ensure it is done quickly to prevent someone else telling him about your child before you have the chance to tell him yourself. You can bet if some busybodies give him the information before you do, it won’t be easy getting him to listen to you.
The best way to handle it at this stage is to first beg him on your knees for forgiveness. Make him understand that your reason was induced by fear of what his reactions would if he got to know when you first met that you are a mother of one.
Whatever his reactions are, don’t stop until you tell him the whole story of what happened between you and the father of your child. Tell him where the child is, your role in the life of the child as well as your current relationship with the father. He would definitely be interested in knowing this.
Continue by letting him know that you would understand if he decides to leave you as a result of what you had done but that he would make you the happiest woman on earth if he finds it in his heart to forgive you.
Don’t expect him to just gloss over the issue, he would need time to properly assimilate it and decide on it. Don’t forget that he also has the challenge of telling his parents and friends that his wife to be already has a child.
He has to first convince himself that irrespective of what may have happened in your past, you are the woman for him.
No matter the temptation, don’t attempt to hurry him into a decision. Let it come from his heart else you risk losing him to disappointments. You must let him learn to trust you again because you are now a total stranger to him based on what you held back from him.
One thing you can be sure of, if God has ordered the two of you to be together, he would eventually find a place in his heart to forgive you.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I have been dating this man for seven months. He has even proposed marriage to me and I have accepted.
But there is a huge problem. I don’t know how to tell him about my past that I have a child from a previous relationship. I am scared I may lose him if he finds out.
Agatha, please help me because I don’t know how to go about it.
Debby.
Dear Debby,
Try putting yourself in the shoes of this man; how would you feel if after seven months of being together, you are just finding out that he has kept the vital information about a child from you?
Would you be able to trust him again? It isn’t just that you kept the information from him that would bother him but the issue of trust in its entirety that has been mortgaged by your refusal to tell him at the very wee hours of your first meeting.
The major question is why did you not tell him at the beginning about this child? This is going to his take when you finally tell him about this child?
Is it just fear that you would lose him or that you were desperate to have him and didn’t want anything that would drive him away from you? Could it be also that you weren’t too sure about his love for you or that you were too ashamed of your past to let him in?
Your refusal also calls to question the place of that child in your life. If this man of yours is a deep person, this might make him wonder at the kind of mother you are. No mother, no matter the consequences, denies her child even if it is one second.
Could it also be you deliberately kept the information from him till you are sure you have him where it would be difficult for him to back out?
These are questions you must quickly answer within yourself if you hope to convince him of your true intentions at not telling him from the onset.
In addition, whatever your reason is, be very honest with it since that is the only way you can defend whatever reason informed your not telling him initially.
Marshall your points very well before confronting him with the truth, the issue has gone beyond you having a child from a previous relationship to the twin issue of you keeping such vital information away from him and the credibility of your person.
Rather than deal with you having a child for another man, he has to convince himself that you don’t have any more unpleasant skeleton in your cupboard, persuade himself that his initial guts, feelings about you, are still right as well as overcome his sense of hurt at your attitude.
Whatever thinking you have to do, ensure it is done quickly to prevent someone else telling him about your child before you have the chance to tell him yourself. You can bet if some busybodies give him the information before you do, it won’t be easy getting him to listen to you.
The best way to handle it at this stage is to first beg him on your knees for forgiveness. Make him understand that your reason was induced by fear of what his reactions would if he got to know when you first met that you are a mother of one.
Whatever his reactions are, don’t stop until you tell him the whole story of what happened between you and the father of your child. Tell him where the child is, your role in the life of the child as well as your current relationship with the father. He would definitely be interested in knowing this.
Continue by letting him know that you would understand if he decides to leave you as a result of what you had done but that he would make you the happiest woman on earth if he finds it in his heart to forgive you.
Don’t expect him to just gloss over the issue, he would need time to properly assimilate it and decide on it. Don’t forget that he also has the challenge of telling his parents and friends that his wife to be already has a child.
He has to first convince himself that irrespective of what may have happened in your past, you are the woman for him.
No matter the temptation, don’t attempt to hurry him into a decision. Let it come from his heart else you risk losing him to disappointments. You must let him learn to trust you again because you are now a total stranger to him based on what you held back from him.
One thing you can be sure of, if God has ordered the two of you to be together, he would eventually find a place in his heart to forgive you.
Good luck.
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