Wednesday, July 20, 2011

He doesn’t trust me yet he wants marriage

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


Dear Agatha,



I have read your column a couple of times and I am really impressed by the way you treat issues. I have an issue that is disturbing me seriously.

I have been dating this guy for about 10 months and have met some of his family members. He is nice and caring and has this rule of privacy.

I cannot pick his calls nor he mine. He has mentioned marriage a couple of times but has not met my family members apart from my younger sister. I have male friends he is aware of, but something happened when I went to see one of my male friends and the unthinkable happened. He, unknown to me, took my international passport from my bag. I only got to know when I left his house.

He denied seeing it when I called to ask if he had seen my passport. He only admitted to seeing and taking it when I decided to lodge a report with the Police. He said the cleaners found my passport and that I should come and collect it.

I went and he forcefully had his way with me. It was a very shameful thing for me. My boyfriend suspected something was wrong with me. I eventually had to tell him that I went to the other guy to collect my passport as well as what happened. I apologised for not telling him before going to the other guy’s place or that he called to inform me that he had seen my passport.

He didn’t react. I felt very bad and was moody throughout. He called me during that period but I noticed I was not excited to pick his calls any longer. He says he does not trust me again and yet he says he still wants to marry me.

This is my major problem. What kind of marriage would it be? I am afraid what happened will always be a reference point in our marriage. He might even use it to punish me, and I am not sure I am ready to continue the relationship. I am not sure of what I feel for him again. I have taken full responsibility for what happened. Please I would like to know your take on this issue.

Confused Lady.



Dear Confused Lady,

Precisely what is the reason for your anger against your boyfriend: the fact that he didn’t say anything or go to challenge the other man for raping you?

Sincerely, he is handling the whole thing well. A lot of men would not be so matured about this incident. They would naturally query your motive for going to the man’s house without informing him. Besides what kind of relationship exists between you and this man to give him access to your handbag? He should be the only drawing back, not you.

There is no way the other man would have forced you into such a compromising situation if you hadn’t gone to his place. You should have been alerted to the kind of person he is when he denied not seeing a passport you didn’t take away from your bag, called several weeks after to inform you that the cleaner saw it and that you should come and collect it when he could easily drop it for you. In addition, how many weeks does it take a cleaner to tidy a room? His conduct should have alerted you to the fact that something wasn’t right about him.

If you are bothered about trust, you haven’t actually left your boyfriend with too much room to trust you in the first place. If you are in a serious relationship with a man who is hinting on marriage and has taken the vital step of introducing you to some members of his family, why do you think you should still have other male friends, ones you actually take time out to visit in their homes? How do you begin to build trust in that kind of relationship? The onus is always on the woman to prove her morality.

Yes, he is aware you have male friends, but it isn’t the same thing as you paying them visit in their homes. None of these would have happened in the first place if you hadn’t gone visiting this guy in his home. When a woman or man has an existing relationship, the other person’s feelings should always be taken into consideration at all times. No matter how permissive the world has become, there are certain codes of conduct that go with conducting a transparent relationship.

Trust begins with the extra mile one goes in ensuring the other person’s feeling is put into consideration. For instance, how would you feel if a lady friend of his comes to visit him or he takes it upon himself to visit such a friend in her house? How would you react if he comes to tell you that a lady friend he visited took away his passport from his folder and later comes back to you weeks after to say the lady who initially denied having the passport now compromised him when he went to collect the passport she had persistently denied having?

While you have every reason to be angry at being raped by a man you trusted, it is unfair to put any blame on your boyfriend who is fighting a battle between his love for you and sense of betrayal as a man. For goodness sake you are his girlfriend, the one he is obviously considering marrying. It can’t be tea party for him knowing that another man took advantage of you in a situation that could have been avoided. What we are talking about here is his ego, his pride as a man. A lot of thoughts would naturally be going on in his mind. One of them is the natural question of: are you telling the truth concerning the nature of relationship between you and this man?

Another concern is his seeming helplessness in protecting you from what happened. The fact that he is still calling you shows that his feelings for you are very deep.

Something tells me there is more to this issue than you are saying. If there is anytime for you to be honest with your feelings for this man, it is now. You also have to be truthful about what you really feel for this other man. One thing is to take responsibility for what happened another thing is for you to be very truthful with yourself. If you have feelings for this other man, be nice to yourself and admit it irrespective of what he did to you because your anger against your boyfriend is misplaced. He wasn’t the one that asked the other man to rape you, so why are you very bitter against him? Unless you sincerely answer this question, you will not get the answer you seek.

Love is a funny feeling. Sometimes it happens in the most unexpected places and with someone we hate to love. Granted you may have been abused by him, but if within those minutes he touched a place in your being which no man has ever touched, stop getting angry with yourself and your current boyfriend, and sort things out immediately within yourself. A woman can only feel this bad about her man only if another man has touched her in that special place.

You won’t know precisely what is eating at you unless you take time out to be by yourself to think of your current relationship, what is missing and what you really want.

If at the end of the day, you really feel there is nothing for you in this relationship, move on because you have come to the realisation that there can never be anything meaningful and not because you are finding a reason to dump him. What you are doing now is finding a reason by trying to read his mind. And unless you say what is really on your mind no one can help you.

Honesty remains your only way out of this situation.

Good luck.

My black American lover is a sex freak

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

Dear Agatha,

I am an avid follower of your column because of the practical and truthful way you answer questions from your followers. I am a 32-year-old Nigerian residing in the United States of America and the only son of my parents.

The issue at hand is my relationship with a 29-year-old black American girl. Despite the persuasion by friends that black Americans are different from us and not always the best people to fall in love with I’ve been with this lady for over four years. Like every other couple, we’ve had our ups and downs. However, I sometime reflect on how crazy they could be, a development, which makes me very scared and has influenced me to ask her to abort a pregnancy once.

Most of my friends who are married with children, keep frowning at my relationship with her. I am with her because she’s nice, sincere, loyal to me, always concerned about my future, and wanting to help me always. She’s the closest person to me.

But one thing keeps bothering me about the relationship. About two years ago, we had a major disagreement, which led to our decision to go our different ways but we made up about a week after. To my hurt and pains, she confessed sleeping with another man within the very short period the disagreement lasted.

I was disappointed but I took her back because I still had feelings for her. Recently we broke up again, because a pastor told me she wasn’t my wife and that if I went on with her, something disastrous would happen to us. Out of fear of the prophecy, I sat her down and told her what I was told. I decided I had to let her go. We both felt bad. Shortly after, I travelled to Nigeria and met some other ladies but no matter how much I tried, my mind was still on my American girlfriend. I went around praying to different spiritualists to seek directions: some said she was good, others said she wasn’t, and this made me more confused. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I sent her a text message telling her I still loved her, she said the same thing and we really had a good heart to heart conversation.

At that point I made up my mind to damn the consequences and go ahead to marry her. I spent only two weeks in Nigeria and when I came back, I got her gifts and was happy to be back with her. Then out of inner curiosity, I started to ask her questions if she had met anyone during my absence, she said no, but something kept insisting I intensify my questions. At last she said she had someone, her ex, and that she slept with him. I felt really disappointed because while in Nigeria, I went about praying just to be with her, even my parents are against my relationship with her but this is what I get for insisting on going on with her.

Although she apologised for what she had done and I have accepted the apology, I fear she would still have sex with another person even when we profess to be in love with each other. I know I had broken up with her before she did that, but what pained me most is that within two weeks she had hooked up with her ex.

I felt it was too soon for her to do that and it made me feel that she had her options already even though we’ve been together for over four years. Now I am confused and beginning to doubt marrying her.

I have tried looking for someone else but nothing is working because I am truly in love with her. She makes me happy, she’s nice, respectful. It is just that I can’t vouch for her sexually anymore. It bothers me. Please I need your advice.

Worried Man.



Dear Worried Man,

Outside these two instances you cited, did she ever sleep with another man while both of you weren’t having any misunderstanding or ending the relationship?

More than anything else this is what you should find out. One thing is for her to sleep with another man while under the impression that it is over between the two of you, but another thing if she is sleeping with her ex when there are no issues between the two of you.

Also, there is the need for you to find out if this ex is the same man she has slept with in these two instances. Her answers would help you determine if there is really a relationship between the two of you or not.

If the ex is the same man she slept with on the two occasions, it means there is more to their relationship than she is actually telling you. Whatever may have gone wrong with them hasn’t dulled the feelings between them. The implication would be that you are actually the third party in the relationship, a sure sign that you may have to force yourself to let go of her completely. The fact that the two of them can’t let go of each other means that even when you marry her, he still has that power to tempt her to come back to bed with him.

Honestly, it has nothing to do with love but the power of seduction. She may really be in love with you but still cannot resist something deep and reckless in the other man. The danger is actually in her inability to resist this thing she herself cannot explain. Until she develops the will to fight whatever it is, that makes want to keep going back to this man chances of her being faithful to you is very slim.

This is one angle you must examine thoroughly. She may be nice, honest, caring and loyal to you but once she is unable to fight that urge deep in her person to go back to her ex, there is little or nothing you can do about it.

In discussing the issue with her, you have to make her talk about that thing she finds absolutely irresistible about her ex that she keeps going back to anytime you have disagreement with her.

But if the men are different, it means she has a passion for sex and cannot stay away from it for too long. The challenge of you managing this kind of woman would be to take her along with you everywhere you go if you are staying more than two or three days. There are some women who cannot exist without having a man by their side for more than 48 hours. Again, you have to be realistic enough to ask yourself if you can cope with her.

It has nothing to do with where she is from but with her nature as a person. Having tasted the pleasure of sex, she may not have the emotional stamina to stay away from it.

Ensure you discuss this issue with her with dispassion. She has to see how much she is hurting you just as you have to understand her kind of person.

As for your desire to spend the rest of your life with her, be careful you don’t end up consulting the wrong kinds of person. You are the one who wants to spend your life with her, why not be definite about what you want and seek the face of God yourself? There is nothing God is going to tell the pastor which He isn’t telling you. The question is are you listening to His voice?

To ensure you are on the right path, time is now for you to go on your knees and talk to God directly because marriage isn’t a journey you on into based on your own strength and desires.

It is a complex and intricate journey, one that requires more than love to conquer. As a man, you would need integrity to be lord in your home. There is nothing that destroys a man like not having confidence in his wife. It is like that tiny hole that destroys the best of fabrics.

When a man thinks his wife cannot be trusted, the relationship becomes doomed even before it has a chance to crawl. Before you go into this, put sentiments aside and look at this issue objectively. The fact that you are an African man makes the issue more important. Being respectful is not the same as sexual fidelity, which is the pivot of a marriage and family building. Every man should without thinking be able to vouch for the paternity of his children. If you are constantly in doubt of her person, what guarantees do you have of loving her and the children, as you should?

Go into this marriage only when you are sure, you can trust her get the kind of peace that every marriage requires to be happy from it.

Hear her out, when you get back. Thereafter, be very honest with yourself because it is your life, your peace and sanity. If you make the wrong choice, bear in mind you will be the one to suffer just as you would be the one to reap tremendous happiness if you make the right choice.

You do need time away from her, your friends and family to get the right signals from God. Once you finish having the discussion with her, go away for a while before making the final decision.

Good luck.