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 I was very withdrawn, very fearful, quiet, and sometimes moody with a very bad temper.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