With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I’m an ardent reader of your column and I must say you have touched and saved lots of relationships through your work. I pray God bless you real good.
I have a girl I have been dating since high school. I’m 25 years of age while she is 22. Right from the beginning she has always nurtured this passion for wedding ceremonies. She practically attends all wedding ceremonies in her church because it makes her happy.
After high school, I left the country to study abroad. In fairness to her, she remained good and there for me. Our communication remained efficient. December 2009 was the first time of my coming back to Nigeria since I left.
Back in school she told me she was a virgin. Deep in me, I didn’t believe and anytime I tried making love to her, she would allow me touch her, but sex she won’t allow. I couldn’t force her, but when I returned to the country after two years of being away she allowed me. I was shocked to discover she was still a virgin. I’m in my final year now and hoping to further my studies. I know she misses me so much and I do too. I miss my family so much too.
By God’s grace, I should be through by next year and return home.
The problem now, in the few months, whenever we are talking on the phone, she would bring up the issue of marriage. At first, I told her I wish to have her as my wife but right now, there are things I need to achieve before settling down. I told her everything without holding back anything from her. I won’t be ready until about four or five years from now. She told me she wants to get married before she turns 25.
I know it’s the dream of everywoman to get married and start her own family, but she is making it appear as if husbands are on sales in the shop and that a woman simply walks in there to buy one when she desires to marry.
She doesn’t seem to appreciate that people need to date and plan for marriage and the days after.
There was a certain time she got upset over something I knew nothing about. I tried but she wouldn’t tell me the cause of her anger. I thought she was fed up of the relationship so I sent her an sms telling her that since she can’t tell me what her problems were and has decided to keep to herself, I was freeing her of all obligations to the relationship so she can try someone else.
I told her it would give her the opportunity of understanding herself better. She called immediately she got the message to declare her acceptance of my proposal.
After a month without calling each other, she called and we continued from where we stopped. After sometime, she told me her friend informed her, that I told my friend I have a girlfriend somewhere I intend to marry. To be honest, I never discussed such a thing with any friend of mine. I immediately knew she believed the story because friend mentioned is more like a brother to me who knows so much about me.
Agatha, she has started again with her marriage talk. I expressed my discomfort with it.
Recently she told me she would accept another man into her life if he is right for her.
She hurt by this and I asked her how she would feel if I am the one saying such a thing to her. She didn’t answer but apologised. In my opinion, it seems she is just keeping the relationship until she finds her so-called “right person”.
We have been talking, but I don’t want to be an obstacle to her since she sounds very desperate and I don’t want any pressure from her about getting married when I’m not ready for it.
I have been thinking and have decided to tell her to move on. I thought I could make up for her patience and support for the five years I was away but she is bent on me getting married at all cost. Her deadline isn’t just right for me.
I have talked to her and I do honestly love her very much just as I know she loves me. But her passion for marriage is threatening to tear the wonderful relationship we built for the past seven years. I really do need your help on how to handle this situation because it is tearing me apart.
Concerned Friend.
Dear Concerned Friend,
There is knot true love cannot untangle in a relationship. As long as both of you are ready to shift grounds, arrive at a workable compromise, there will always be a way out for both of you.
You are having all these tensions because none of you is willing to move an inch. Both of you are rigid in ensuring only your way is the right one.
Relationship doesn’t work out like that. If you are fair to her, she has been the one making all the sacrifices for the survival of this relationship. You must also make the effort to see things from her angle. She has never hidden her passion for weddings from you. If you knew you weren’t ready for immediate marriage, you should not have bothered sleeping with her. Doing so meant you were ready to marry as soon as possible. For her kind of person, it meant you were ready for the final step, which was why she held back when she felt you were not in a position to marry her at the time you first demanded for it.
From your own account, she waited for you while you were out of the country. Not many women would keep their virginity for a man they are not sure would come back to marry them. That she kept herself for you, even when you doubted her claim shows a woman properly brought up well and who has very deep feelings and respect for you.
That you meet her intact underscores her values as a woman. I am sure, while there you had one or two flings.
A lot must have gone into keeping her promises to you. Granted, her current attitude can be very frustrating and annoying, both of you need to go beyond you telling each other what you want, to what would work. She needs marriage urgently while you want it in five years time.
Your challenge is simple as long as you both have the maturity to overcome the stalemate you have both imported into your lives. And the earlier you faced this personality defects in your natures the better for the relationship.
From what is happening, you both have the same attitude to life, having things done your way. Despite being together for seven years, your relationship is still wrapped in egoism. No relationship survives if a couple is unable to make the essential sacrifice for the sake of the other person.
If there is a will, there is nothing stopping you from changing your plans a little to accommodate hers. Both of you can marry but not have children immediately to enable the other plans have proper roots. No plan is unalterable.
Frankly, this is a true test of your compartibility as a couple, your individual ability to go the extra mile for the other person to be happy. One thing is to be in love another challenge is to have the maturity and right attitude to make it work.
Situations like this will always come up from time to time in your relationship even after you get married. Unless you find the right key to unlock gridlocks like this, early in the life of a relationship, it often gets to a point when it becomes almost impossible for this kind of differences to be resolved. This is because selfish tendencies not addressed early in the life of a relationship soon become like a dreadful cancer eating at the life giving values of the union.
Even if both of you part, if you don’t individually work on this aspect of your natures, finding a person to live or accommodate either of you may not be easy. Relationship is about living your life in the body of another person, until both of you make the other person’s passion yours, nothing would work.
Try putting yourself in her shoes, in five years time how old would she be? What if you decide not to marry her or suddenly realises that you still have certain things to accomplish before marriage and want more time, what would have been her gains? Like women before her, is scared of the unknown; isn’t another woman wouldn’t get pregnant for you and you would have no choice but to marry her.
If she is anxious, she needs your assurances and one of the ways is to shift grounds a little bit for her.
Another mistake you are making is refusing to hear what her real fears are. Yes, you have been honest enough to tell her about your plans but what about encouraging her to share her real fears with you?
The missing link is trust. Insisting you have things done your way cannot earn her trust. Once you are able to earn her trust, a lot of the tension you feel now from her pressures will disappear.
Good luck.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Arranged marriage: My daughter won’t toe the line
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha, How do I persuade my daughter to marry the man her father wants her to marry? She wants to marry the man she has been dating since her first year at the university while her father wants her to marry the son of his best friend. She is 29 and as stubborn as her father. Even though I am forced by situation to support my husband on this, I want my daughter to be happy. Like my husband, I am of the view that it is in her interest she marries the son of a friend than a total stranger. Both of them grew up together as friends and this is why the two families feel they would make an ideal couple. She, on the other hand, says it is either we allow her marry her choice of a husband or she would remain single. We have been on this issue since last year and it is causing so much tension in my home. I am also getting irritated with my daughter over this issue. There is nothing I haven’t done or said to make her change her mind. Already the father is blaming me for her attitude. He says if I don’t convince her to marry this boy, my daughter and I should pack out of the house. I don’t know what to do again as both of them are very stubborn. Although the boy she wants to marry isn’t doing bad, but the issue is that the son of my husband’s friend is well established and very gentle. He is very capable of looking after our daughter besides the fact that their marriage will solidify the relationship we have built for several decades. What do I do to make my daughter listen to me? Mrs.
Ibe.
Dear Mrs. Ibe, As a woman, how would you feel if you were being forced against your will to spend the rest of your life with a man you feel nothing for? This has nothing to do with your daughter being stubborn but has a lot to do with what she feels and how she has planned her life. The fact that you and your husband are her parents does not give you both the right to govern her life. She is old enough to know what she wants from life. Our jobs as parents is to help point our in the right direction. Even God recognises our inherent right to our personnal decision, which is why He gave us the freewill to make choice. There is no greater teacher like experience. Even if you think her choice is all wrong for her, there is no way she can be convinced of this if you don’t allow her to make her mistake. I am sure, your present insight into whatever you think is wrong with her choice is borne out of experience. Without it, none of us would ever grow or acquire the kind of wisdom needed to make the world a better place. If there is one thing we cannot do for our children, no matter how much we love them, is to live with them in their marriages. There is no way you and your husband can abandon your own marriage to be with your daughter all the time just as you won’t sleep well in your bed if the only reports you get from her are woes and pains. Beyond this, there is also the danger of her going outside her home to be with the man she really loves and respects. How would you feel if your daughter is caught in adultery? You should know from experience that women seldom respect or make sacrifices for the men they don’t like, let alone love. Your marriage is still on because somewhere in your heart and memory you remember how your early days were, how you thought the world began and ended with your husband. These feelings never go away and are of tremendous help when disappointments and regrets come up in the journey of marriage. It is the power of these feelings that make the woman go extra mile, endure when the man misbehaves, understands with him when things are not working at all. A certain amount of feelings must be involved on your daughter’s part to enable her remember to give her man the kind of respect he deserves at all times. These are things you cannot force or decree her to feel. She has to learn to grow them on her own. Besides, there is nothing stopping her from deliberately working towards the failure of the marriage, if at the end of the day you succeed in getting her to marry this man her father has chosen for her. She could, to make a point, agree to marry him and make life very unbearable for him to punish you and your husband as well as earn her freedom to do what she wants with her life. More often than not, when children are forced into doing things they don’t want to do; make decisions they have nothing to do with, the parents are usually the ones that have the headaches at the end of the day. You are the mother and wife to both of them. Your best approach is not to take sides with either of them. Insist on fairness to prevent more headaches in the future. There is no way you will be able to rest in peace knowing that your daughter’s happiness was sold for sentimental values your husband feels about keeping a friendship that has nothing to do with your daughter. At the end of the day, what would be your gain if this friendship is preserved and your daughter unable to find the right kind of happiness every woman craves for in her marriage? How would you feel if she never forgives you for being party to her endless stories of marital woes? Do you realise that you are in danger of losing the respect, trust, and friendship mothers look forward to when their daughters grow up and have families of their own? How would you feel if you have to beg her to bring your grandchildren when ordinarily you should be the one they tilt towards to and want to be with? No matter how difficult your husband is, having lived with him all these years, you must have the antidote to soften him. It is time for his sake as well as yours to make him see reason. Let him know, no relationship is worth his daughter’s happiness; that if the relationship is strong, founded on the right values, it doesn’t need the sacrifice of the happiness of these two innocent children to survive. In trying to make your husband realise the implication of his demands, ask him, how would he feel if his daughter ends up being miserable in her marriage? If she is unable to forgive him or give him the kind of respect, he deserves from her as the father? Explain to him the possibility of her having extramarital affairs. He may not understand that women too have feelings but hearing it from you that love is what makes a woman remain faithful to her man may make him have second thoughts on this issue. If he fails to listen to you, make it clear to him that you are not going to be party to his plans to mortgage the happiness of your daughter. He may be stubborn about it because he knows you are on his side. Once he knows he no longer has your full support, he would think twice because inspite of his display of stubborness he knows he cannot cope with the implication of his actions when it comes full circle. Don’t relent in being the go between father and daughter. Use whatever you have as a woman and his wife to go insure your daughter’s happiness. As a mother, you should never be too tired of ensuring that your children are happy no matter their age and position. If you have to go on your knees on behalf of your daughter, do so. What should be of major concern to you is her happiness at the end of the day. Thereafter, arrange for your daughter to bring the man home to meet with your husband. Ensure you prepare your daughter and the man, give him tips on the kind of things to say, do or gifts to soften his mind. Back up your efforts with prayers. It is important for the unity of your home as nobody goes to bed with fire on the roof. Good luck.
Dear Agatha, How do I persuade my daughter to marry the man her father wants her to marry? She wants to marry the man she has been dating since her first year at the university while her father wants her to marry the son of his best friend. She is 29 and as stubborn as her father. Even though I am forced by situation to support my husband on this, I want my daughter to be happy. Like my husband, I am of the view that it is in her interest she marries the son of a friend than a total stranger. Both of them grew up together as friends and this is why the two families feel they would make an ideal couple. She, on the other hand, says it is either we allow her marry her choice of a husband or she would remain single. We have been on this issue since last year and it is causing so much tension in my home. I am also getting irritated with my daughter over this issue. There is nothing I haven’t done or said to make her change her mind. Already the father is blaming me for her attitude. He says if I don’t convince her to marry this boy, my daughter and I should pack out of the house. I don’t know what to do again as both of them are very stubborn. Although the boy she wants to marry isn’t doing bad, but the issue is that the son of my husband’s friend is well established and very gentle. He is very capable of looking after our daughter besides the fact that their marriage will solidify the relationship we have built for several decades. What do I do to make my daughter listen to me? Mrs.
Ibe.
Dear Mrs. Ibe, As a woman, how would you feel if you were being forced against your will to spend the rest of your life with a man you feel nothing for? This has nothing to do with your daughter being stubborn but has a lot to do with what she feels and how she has planned her life. The fact that you and your husband are her parents does not give you both the right to govern her life. She is old enough to know what she wants from life. Our jobs as parents is to help point our in the right direction. Even God recognises our inherent right to our personnal decision, which is why He gave us the freewill to make choice. There is no greater teacher like experience. Even if you think her choice is all wrong for her, there is no way she can be convinced of this if you don’t allow her to make her mistake. I am sure, your present insight into whatever you think is wrong with her choice is borne out of experience. Without it, none of us would ever grow or acquire the kind of wisdom needed to make the world a better place. If there is one thing we cannot do for our children, no matter how much we love them, is to live with them in their marriages. There is no way you and your husband can abandon your own marriage to be with your daughter all the time just as you won’t sleep well in your bed if the only reports you get from her are woes and pains. Beyond this, there is also the danger of her going outside her home to be with the man she really loves and respects. How would you feel if your daughter is caught in adultery? You should know from experience that women seldom respect or make sacrifices for the men they don’t like, let alone love. Your marriage is still on because somewhere in your heart and memory you remember how your early days were, how you thought the world began and ended with your husband. These feelings never go away and are of tremendous help when disappointments and regrets come up in the journey of marriage. It is the power of these feelings that make the woman go extra mile, endure when the man misbehaves, understands with him when things are not working at all. A certain amount of feelings must be involved on your daughter’s part to enable her remember to give her man the kind of respect he deserves at all times. These are things you cannot force or decree her to feel. She has to learn to grow them on her own. Besides, there is nothing stopping her from deliberately working towards the failure of the marriage, if at the end of the day you succeed in getting her to marry this man her father has chosen for her. She could, to make a point, agree to marry him and make life very unbearable for him to punish you and your husband as well as earn her freedom to do what she wants with her life. More often than not, when children are forced into doing things they don’t want to do; make decisions they have nothing to do with, the parents are usually the ones that have the headaches at the end of the day. You are the mother and wife to both of them. Your best approach is not to take sides with either of them. Insist on fairness to prevent more headaches in the future. There is no way you will be able to rest in peace knowing that your daughter’s happiness was sold for sentimental values your husband feels about keeping a friendship that has nothing to do with your daughter. At the end of the day, what would be your gain if this friendship is preserved and your daughter unable to find the right kind of happiness every woman craves for in her marriage? How would you feel if she never forgives you for being party to her endless stories of marital woes? Do you realise that you are in danger of losing the respect, trust, and friendship mothers look forward to when their daughters grow up and have families of their own? How would you feel if you have to beg her to bring your grandchildren when ordinarily you should be the one they tilt towards to and want to be with? No matter how difficult your husband is, having lived with him all these years, you must have the antidote to soften him. It is time for his sake as well as yours to make him see reason. Let him know, no relationship is worth his daughter’s happiness; that if the relationship is strong, founded on the right values, it doesn’t need the sacrifice of the happiness of these two innocent children to survive. In trying to make your husband realise the implication of his demands, ask him, how would he feel if his daughter ends up being miserable in her marriage? If she is unable to forgive him or give him the kind of respect, he deserves from her as the father? Explain to him the possibility of her having extramarital affairs. He may not understand that women too have feelings but hearing it from you that love is what makes a woman remain faithful to her man may make him have second thoughts on this issue. If he fails to listen to you, make it clear to him that you are not going to be party to his plans to mortgage the happiness of your daughter. He may be stubborn about it because he knows you are on his side. Once he knows he no longer has your full support, he would think twice because inspite of his display of stubborness he knows he cannot cope with the implication of his actions when it comes full circle. Don’t relent in being the go between father and daughter. Use whatever you have as a woman and his wife to go insure your daughter’s happiness. As a mother, you should never be too tired of ensuring that your children are happy no matter their age and position. If you have to go on your knees on behalf of your daughter, do so. What should be of major concern to you is her happiness at the end of the day. Thereafter, arrange for your daughter to bring the man home to meet with your husband. Ensure you prepare your daughter and the man, give him tips on the kind of things to say, do or gifts to soften his mind. Back up your efforts with prayers. It is important for the unity of your home as nobody goes to bed with fire on the roof. Good luck.
He doesn’t want me again…
With Auntie Agatha,gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.comTel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
Four years ago, I wrote to you about the problem I was going through in my marriage. I shared with you how my husband got our maid pregnant and how he blamed the act on my not always being around.
In your reply to my mail, you equally blamed me for the incident in my home. Your reply really got me very angry. I thought, as a woman too, you should support me like most of my friends were doing at that time. My mother too didn’t support me then. She, like you, also said I pushed my husband into the arms of our maid.
I was very angry with her too and refused to listen to what both of you said about my not quitting my home for the housemaid.
Since I had more than enough money of my own, I packed out of the house with my children. My two eldest children, who were in boarding school, refused to move with me, so I left with the younger ones.
Initially, I enjoyed the freedom to go and come, as I liked. I could stay in the office for as long as I wanted. It was very easy for me since I decided to send the children to boarding school too. My experience with my housemaid prompted my decision to put them in boarding school so I won’t have any need to employ someone to help me with them.
During this time, my husband and his entire family came to beg me to come back. There was nothing they didn’t do to make me change my mind. My mother and her sisters too came to beg me. My mother even volunteered to take care of the child herself. I refused.
Even when she gave birth, the lady came to beg me to please come back home to my husband; that she didn’t want anything to do with my home. Her parents too came to beg but I drove all of them away.
My friends kept urging me not to go back. Two of these friends were divorcees, while three were single mothers. We had enough time to go out for two years my husband kept on begging me. My children too wanted me back but I told them it was over between their father and I. He stopped coming to my house when he met a man I was dating in the house.
A month after that incident, I filed for a divorce. My husband didn’t bother to contest it. I was free to marry my lover as he has expressed a desire for it.
Unfortunately, the moment I became free to remarry, I noticed he didn’t want me anymore. He kept coming up with one excuse or the other anytime I expressed the need for us to move on.
It was not until one day when a woman came to my office to fight me for keeping her man away from her, that I realised he lied about being divorced.
In the last one year, I have discovered that I really want to go back to my husband having discovered what you said then in your advice to me that all men are the same and that I should stay put in my home.
All the things you said back then about being patient, creating time for my family and taking the child over as my own and doing everything to win back my husband are all coming back to me. Last month, I went to his office to see me. At least he was civil enough to let me in but from the looks on his face, I knew my mission to beg him to take me back was doomed.
Nobody in my family or his is ready to go with me to beg. His best friend declined to go with me reminding me of how I drove them all away when they came.
From my children, I know there is nobody in his life and that my former housemaid hasn’t come back to the house since I left. More investigations reveal that the girl is back in the village with her child. My husband only sends money for their upkeep.
I now realise that my friends actually misled me and all I want is to go back to my husband. I have since forgiven him.
Agatha, help me. He is a great fan of yours.
Abbey.
Dear Abbey,
There is an adage that says, the mess you refuse to clean up in the beginning soon becomes so huge and too messy for one person to handle. It is unfortunately that you allowed an issue you should have long buried to tarry to this moment. You frittered the rare opportunity you had of becoming the heroine in the eyes of your husband, his family and friends.
Honestly, not everyman would do what he did, come to beg even when it was your carelessness that gave birth to the situation in the first place. Another man would have called your bluff the moment the other woman’s pregnancy became public knowledge. He would insist on marrying her whether you liked the idea or not.
If everybody were misleading you, would your mother also have misled you? She, more than anyone else, had reasons to ask you to pack up the marriage but she didn’t because she knows from experience that the pains of disppointment lessens as each day goes bye.
She also knew that there is no marriage without its set of challenges and disappointments. That was why you should have applied patience and wisdom in your handling of the issue.
Frankly, if your husband refuses to take you back, nobody would blame him. He did everything he should have done to bring you back home. It couldn’t have been easy for him getting his family and yours to come and beg on his behalf. It showed a man who knew he had wronged you.
The divorce and meeting the other man in your place while he was still begging you to come back to him are now the twin problems that could make your bid to come back difficult.
Besides, would you have considered coming back to him if everything had gone well between you and the other man? Before going back to plead with your husband, you must find answer to this question. Like you have information about him, he too may know what transpired between you and your lover. And would rightly wonder if you are coming back because you have realised your mistake or because you were left high and dry by the other man.
He isn’t the only one you would be explaining this to. You must tell everybody you hope to enlist in your bid to come back to your home the truth.
Beyond the issue of enlisting people to plead on your behalf, you must take certain steps on your own to convince him that you are indeed sorry for your behaviour.
It is also important you understand that you are no longer his wife. You are now just the mother of his children like the other lady is. Granted you were once married to him, the divorce you got has neutralised whatever rights you think you had over him.
Therefore, if he decides to walk you away from his home, don’t insist on anything or try to claim a right you no longer have. Simply walk away, but keep pleading with him through text messages.
Another thing you should do as a matter of urgency is to find your former maid and her child. Make your peace with them and if you have the time, encourage her to bring the child to you while your children are on holidays. Even if your husband refuses to listen ensure you are involved in the life of that child. Send monthly allowances to them as a token for their upkeep and if there is anything you can to make them more comfortable please do it. The village can’t really be a good alternative for her.
Besides, the reason she came to work for you is to enhance her life as well as that of her family. Seeing her in the village with your stepchild will never make her family happy. If you bring her back to help her give more meaning to her life, you will not only be saving your children from future stress of bad blood that would arise from this kind of arrangment but ensuring this whole episode is finally put behind you.
No matter how hardhearted your husband is about you, once he sees your attempt to undo all the wrongs of the past, overtime he would warm up to the idea of hearing from you.
The fact that he refused to bring her home or any other woman for that matter shows that his feelings for you are really deep. Not many men would still be single for years after especially as you both divorced.
Beg your children to plead on your behalf, especially the eldest ones that stayed back with him. They cannot be happy seeing both of you living apart. Children have greater influence on their fathers than mothers.
I am sure if you dig deep into your knowledge of him, you will remember something he adores absolutely about you. Something he cannot resist that makes him go soft even when he is angry. This is the time you need that weapon to get him to at least grant you an audience.
Above all, go to God in prayers. Plead for His assistance in this matter. We are all prodigals before God. He has the powers to soften the heart of your husband. Ensure you begin your attempt with Him in it.
In addition to making your peace with God, go around your in-laws and family members to make peace with them. It is important your mother and mother-in-law forgive you.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
Four years ago, I wrote to you about the problem I was going through in my marriage. I shared with you how my husband got our maid pregnant and how he blamed the act on my not always being around.
In your reply to my mail, you equally blamed me for the incident in my home. Your reply really got me very angry. I thought, as a woman too, you should support me like most of my friends were doing at that time. My mother too didn’t support me then. She, like you, also said I pushed my husband into the arms of our maid.
I was very angry with her too and refused to listen to what both of you said about my not quitting my home for the housemaid.
Since I had more than enough money of my own, I packed out of the house with my children. My two eldest children, who were in boarding school, refused to move with me, so I left with the younger ones.
Initially, I enjoyed the freedom to go and come, as I liked. I could stay in the office for as long as I wanted. It was very easy for me since I decided to send the children to boarding school too. My experience with my housemaid prompted my decision to put them in boarding school so I won’t have any need to employ someone to help me with them.
During this time, my husband and his entire family came to beg me to come back. There was nothing they didn’t do to make me change my mind. My mother and her sisters too came to beg me. My mother even volunteered to take care of the child herself. I refused.
Even when she gave birth, the lady came to beg me to please come back home to my husband; that she didn’t want anything to do with my home. Her parents too came to beg but I drove all of them away.
My friends kept urging me not to go back. Two of these friends were divorcees, while three were single mothers. We had enough time to go out for two years my husband kept on begging me. My children too wanted me back but I told them it was over between their father and I. He stopped coming to my house when he met a man I was dating in the house.
A month after that incident, I filed for a divorce. My husband didn’t bother to contest it. I was free to marry my lover as he has expressed a desire for it.
Unfortunately, the moment I became free to remarry, I noticed he didn’t want me anymore. He kept coming up with one excuse or the other anytime I expressed the need for us to move on.
It was not until one day when a woman came to my office to fight me for keeping her man away from her, that I realised he lied about being divorced.
In the last one year, I have discovered that I really want to go back to my husband having discovered what you said then in your advice to me that all men are the same and that I should stay put in my home.
All the things you said back then about being patient, creating time for my family and taking the child over as my own and doing everything to win back my husband are all coming back to me. Last month, I went to his office to see me. At least he was civil enough to let me in but from the looks on his face, I knew my mission to beg him to take me back was doomed.
Nobody in my family or his is ready to go with me to beg. His best friend declined to go with me reminding me of how I drove them all away when they came.
From my children, I know there is nobody in his life and that my former housemaid hasn’t come back to the house since I left. More investigations reveal that the girl is back in the village with her child. My husband only sends money for their upkeep.
I now realise that my friends actually misled me and all I want is to go back to my husband. I have since forgiven him.
Agatha, help me. He is a great fan of yours.
Abbey.
Dear Abbey,
There is an adage that says, the mess you refuse to clean up in the beginning soon becomes so huge and too messy for one person to handle. It is unfortunately that you allowed an issue you should have long buried to tarry to this moment. You frittered the rare opportunity you had of becoming the heroine in the eyes of your husband, his family and friends.
Honestly, not everyman would do what he did, come to beg even when it was your carelessness that gave birth to the situation in the first place. Another man would have called your bluff the moment the other woman’s pregnancy became public knowledge. He would insist on marrying her whether you liked the idea or not.
If everybody were misleading you, would your mother also have misled you? She, more than anyone else, had reasons to ask you to pack up the marriage but she didn’t because she knows from experience that the pains of disppointment lessens as each day goes bye.
She also knew that there is no marriage without its set of challenges and disappointments. That was why you should have applied patience and wisdom in your handling of the issue.
Frankly, if your husband refuses to take you back, nobody would blame him. He did everything he should have done to bring you back home. It couldn’t have been easy for him getting his family and yours to come and beg on his behalf. It showed a man who knew he had wronged you.
The divorce and meeting the other man in your place while he was still begging you to come back to him are now the twin problems that could make your bid to come back difficult.
Besides, would you have considered coming back to him if everything had gone well between you and the other man? Before going back to plead with your husband, you must find answer to this question. Like you have information about him, he too may know what transpired between you and your lover. And would rightly wonder if you are coming back because you have realised your mistake or because you were left high and dry by the other man.
He isn’t the only one you would be explaining this to. You must tell everybody you hope to enlist in your bid to come back to your home the truth.
Beyond the issue of enlisting people to plead on your behalf, you must take certain steps on your own to convince him that you are indeed sorry for your behaviour.
It is also important you understand that you are no longer his wife. You are now just the mother of his children like the other lady is. Granted you were once married to him, the divorce you got has neutralised whatever rights you think you had over him.
Therefore, if he decides to walk you away from his home, don’t insist on anything or try to claim a right you no longer have. Simply walk away, but keep pleading with him through text messages.
Another thing you should do as a matter of urgency is to find your former maid and her child. Make your peace with them and if you have the time, encourage her to bring the child to you while your children are on holidays. Even if your husband refuses to listen ensure you are involved in the life of that child. Send monthly allowances to them as a token for their upkeep and if there is anything you can to make them more comfortable please do it. The village can’t really be a good alternative for her.
Besides, the reason she came to work for you is to enhance her life as well as that of her family. Seeing her in the village with your stepchild will never make her family happy. If you bring her back to help her give more meaning to her life, you will not only be saving your children from future stress of bad blood that would arise from this kind of arrangment but ensuring this whole episode is finally put behind you.
No matter how hardhearted your husband is about you, once he sees your attempt to undo all the wrongs of the past, overtime he would warm up to the idea of hearing from you.
The fact that he refused to bring her home or any other woman for that matter shows that his feelings for you are really deep. Not many men would still be single for years after especially as you both divorced.
Beg your children to plead on your behalf, especially the eldest ones that stayed back with him. They cannot be happy seeing both of you living apart. Children have greater influence on their fathers than mothers.
I am sure if you dig deep into your knowledge of him, you will remember something he adores absolutely about you. Something he cannot resist that makes him go soft even when he is angry. This is the time you need that weapon to get him to at least grant you an audience.
Above all, go to God in prayers. Plead for His assistance in this matter. We are all prodigals before God. He has the powers to soften the heart of your husband. Ensure you begin your attempt with Him in it.
In addition to making your peace with God, go around your in-laws and family members to make peace with them. It is important your mother and mother-in-law forgive you.
Good luck.
My husband is sexually inactive
With Agatha Edo Email:womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com , 08054500626
Dear Agatha, I am really ashamed to say this but if I don’t get urgent help, I may not be able to sustain my marriage beyond this point. I really don’t care what your readers would say about what I am about to share with you but I am sure a lot of women in my shoes who want to be honest would understand this particular issue. I have been married for five years and my marriage is blessed with two children. I have always been a serious Christian; never attempted anything until I got married. I wanted to be a good and honourable wife to my husband. I didn’t listen to the opinion of a lot of my friends who asked this question that I am now asking myself: ‘what happens if the man you are preserving yourself for ends up incompetent in bed? What if he is unable to make you happy as a woman?’ Would you leave him or endure the marriage simply because you want to do the right thing? Back then, I thought my friends were trying to bend my ways to follow their lifestyle. But, observing all of them today, happy with their husbands, having the best of what marriage offers, I cannot but ask myself this important question, ‘why am I, who held on till my wedding night, who wanted to do the right thing, having problems in my marriage?’ Even though I was naïve back then, when it came to actual experience, I was broadminded enough to accommodate everybody, knowing we were all built differently. When my husband approached me for a relationship, being the most handsome in school then, I was happy. Overnight, I became something of a celebrity among the many ladies who wanted him but I noticed this particular group of girls who made what my friends and I thought were jealous moves. One of them tried warning me to be careful; to look deeper before committing myself to marrying my husband. I dismissed her. Being from a very rich family, money wasn’t his problem. We got married immediately I finished my national youth service. Being inexperienced, our first night together was a total disaster. It didn’t bother me though because I thought it was meant to be like that. Besides, I didn’t notice the size of his manhood or thought it was abnormally tiny. There was nothing in that experience with him. But over the months, I knew something wasn’t right about our love life. He was always so clumsy. We didn’t get past the stage we started with on our wedding night. I was beginning to get worried when I discovered I was pregnant. Throughout my pregnancy, he didn’t bother to come near me even when I told him what the doctor recommended about frequent intimacy. Being pregnant with twins, I was told it would aid easy delivery during labour. My body was beginning to demand for intimacy and I told him so. When my pressures became too much for him, he abandoned our bedroom. On the few occasions he has agreed to sleep with me, the results were not different from our first time together. I have honestly tried everything, including your advice to others on this same issue but my husband isn’t helping matters. He is resolute in his own way and is refusing all the help I am willing to offer him on this issue. Now, he says I married him because of his father’s money; drinks and refuses to come home early. Severally, I have been tempted into having an affair but I know I just can’t. With the help of my friend, I got introduced to a vibrator. It has helped me to maintain sanity in my life and prevented me from doing what I shouldn’t do. One night, he came into my bedroom and found the vibrator, since then, he has not stopped calling me names. He says as a good wife, I should be satisfied with the package I have. I have really tried to keep my sanity in the last five years. I told my parents about the problems I was having in my marriage. They are of the view that if I can’t cope with the situation again, I should file for a divorce instead of having any affair outside my matrimonial home. Our pastor on the other hand says marriage is a lifetime commitment. My husband’s father, who is like a father to me, has tried to convince his son to seek medical help. He even offered to pay for plastic surgery to help enhance his manhood but nothing anybody says makes sense to him. As far as he is concerned, his twins are enough fulfillment. I am really fed up of the whole thing. I am in urgent need of your help in this matter.
Helen.
Dear Helen, I honestly sympathise with you but a lot of things went wrong before you both got married. Whatever issue you are currently having has to do with your inability to establish friendship with him before you agreed to marry him. You were carried away by your luck at having such a handsome man, the toast of women, come for your hand in marriage. More often than not, women end up having problems in their marriages for failing to go that extra mile when courting. A woman doesn’t have to be experienced to know those little things to look out for in a man she intends spending the rest of her life with. At the time you were dating, you must have noticed some of these flaws in his character. He didn’t just develop them; he must have displayed some of his selfish and arrogant disposition back then. If you are truthful, you both were never friends, the kind that shared thoughts, dreams, exchanged jokes or laughed with or at each other. This kind of challenge you have in your marriage can only be managed by two people who are friends, understand the need of the other person and by a man who is willing to submit to the helpful suggestions of his wife. That he has a small manhood isn’t the issue here at all rather, the real challenge you are facing has to do with your man’s attitude. Even if he agrees to plastic surgery aimed at helping him get some inches added, if both of you are unable to establish true friendship, things will continue to degenerate between the two of you. Granted, quality sex is a key to being happy in marriage but it is only part of the whole picture of a fulfilling marriage. This is because you cannot spend all your time together making love. After lovemaking, life must continue. The time has come to sit your husband down for a real talk. Hear him out. Listen to his grudges against you. He may really feel he isn’t getting the kind of sympathy he expects from his wife. A man that has his kind of challenge needs a wife who understands because it is both an ego and psychological problem. Telling him everyday he isn’t satisfying you is enough to make him become rude, violent and irresponsible. He is reacting the only way he knows how due to the fear of losing you and exposing himself to the ridicule of everybody. Your parents ought to have told you that each marriage comes with its own baggage. His attitude is an appeal for help from the woman he married. Rather than nag him, gently get him to open up; especially his worst nightmare. Ask how you can be of help to him; the options he has considered before meeting you as well as the ones you think can help the situation. Let him realise that you are not as bothered about the size of his manhood as much as his attitude towards you and your feelings. Let him know you really care about him more than he knows. You must really show him that you care deeply for his well-being and about his happiness. The fact that you got pregnant and have a set of twins to show for it, shows that he is fertile. It is just a matter of both of you giving your imagination freedom to blossom. No matter the size of a man’s organ, the success or otherwise of lovemaking is more often premised on the kind of imagination a couple has. Divorce shouldn’t be your first option because there is no telling what challenges you would meet in another relationship. Learn to be patient, be more understanding and supportive of him; this is what marriage is all about. Challenges are compulsory part of marriage. They are designed to take a couple to the next level. Your vibrator isn’t a solution but a major distraction to the real steps you should take in getting lasting solution to your problem. By the time you change tactics, become more of his friend, who isn’t condemning, who has the real desire to help and has the maturity to take whatever comes out of it; he would change. Also you need to pray for help to change those things you don’t like about him as well as yourself.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha, I am really ashamed to say this but if I don’t get urgent help, I may not be able to sustain my marriage beyond this point. I really don’t care what your readers would say about what I am about to share with you but I am sure a lot of women in my shoes who want to be honest would understand this particular issue. I have been married for five years and my marriage is blessed with two children. I have always been a serious Christian; never attempted anything until I got married. I wanted to be a good and honourable wife to my husband. I didn’t listen to the opinion of a lot of my friends who asked this question that I am now asking myself: ‘what happens if the man you are preserving yourself for ends up incompetent in bed? What if he is unable to make you happy as a woman?’ Would you leave him or endure the marriage simply because you want to do the right thing? Back then, I thought my friends were trying to bend my ways to follow their lifestyle. But, observing all of them today, happy with their husbands, having the best of what marriage offers, I cannot but ask myself this important question, ‘why am I, who held on till my wedding night, who wanted to do the right thing, having problems in my marriage?’ Even though I was naïve back then, when it came to actual experience, I was broadminded enough to accommodate everybody, knowing we were all built differently. When my husband approached me for a relationship, being the most handsome in school then, I was happy. Overnight, I became something of a celebrity among the many ladies who wanted him but I noticed this particular group of girls who made what my friends and I thought were jealous moves. One of them tried warning me to be careful; to look deeper before committing myself to marrying my husband. I dismissed her. Being from a very rich family, money wasn’t his problem. We got married immediately I finished my national youth service. Being inexperienced, our first night together was a total disaster. It didn’t bother me though because I thought it was meant to be like that. Besides, I didn’t notice the size of his manhood or thought it was abnormally tiny. There was nothing in that experience with him. But over the months, I knew something wasn’t right about our love life. He was always so clumsy. We didn’t get past the stage we started with on our wedding night. I was beginning to get worried when I discovered I was pregnant. Throughout my pregnancy, he didn’t bother to come near me even when I told him what the doctor recommended about frequent intimacy. Being pregnant with twins, I was told it would aid easy delivery during labour. My body was beginning to demand for intimacy and I told him so. When my pressures became too much for him, he abandoned our bedroom. On the few occasions he has agreed to sleep with me, the results were not different from our first time together. I have honestly tried everything, including your advice to others on this same issue but my husband isn’t helping matters. He is resolute in his own way and is refusing all the help I am willing to offer him on this issue. Now, he says I married him because of his father’s money; drinks and refuses to come home early. Severally, I have been tempted into having an affair but I know I just can’t. With the help of my friend, I got introduced to a vibrator. It has helped me to maintain sanity in my life and prevented me from doing what I shouldn’t do. One night, he came into my bedroom and found the vibrator, since then, he has not stopped calling me names. He says as a good wife, I should be satisfied with the package I have. I have really tried to keep my sanity in the last five years. I told my parents about the problems I was having in my marriage. They are of the view that if I can’t cope with the situation again, I should file for a divorce instead of having any affair outside my matrimonial home. Our pastor on the other hand says marriage is a lifetime commitment. My husband’s father, who is like a father to me, has tried to convince his son to seek medical help. He even offered to pay for plastic surgery to help enhance his manhood but nothing anybody says makes sense to him. As far as he is concerned, his twins are enough fulfillment. I am really fed up of the whole thing. I am in urgent need of your help in this matter.
Helen.
Dear Helen, I honestly sympathise with you but a lot of things went wrong before you both got married. Whatever issue you are currently having has to do with your inability to establish friendship with him before you agreed to marry him. You were carried away by your luck at having such a handsome man, the toast of women, come for your hand in marriage. More often than not, women end up having problems in their marriages for failing to go that extra mile when courting. A woman doesn’t have to be experienced to know those little things to look out for in a man she intends spending the rest of her life with. At the time you were dating, you must have noticed some of these flaws in his character. He didn’t just develop them; he must have displayed some of his selfish and arrogant disposition back then. If you are truthful, you both were never friends, the kind that shared thoughts, dreams, exchanged jokes or laughed with or at each other. This kind of challenge you have in your marriage can only be managed by two people who are friends, understand the need of the other person and by a man who is willing to submit to the helpful suggestions of his wife. That he has a small manhood isn’t the issue here at all rather, the real challenge you are facing has to do with your man’s attitude. Even if he agrees to plastic surgery aimed at helping him get some inches added, if both of you are unable to establish true friendship, things will continue to degenerate between the two of you. Granted, quality sex is a key to being happy in marriage but it is only part of the whole picture of a fulfilling marriage. This is because you cannot spend all your time together making love. After lovemaking, life must continue. The time has come to sit your husband down for a real talk. Hear him out. Listen to his grudges against you. He may really feel he isn’t getting the kind of sympathy he expects from his wife. A man that has his kind of challenge needs a wife who understands because it is both an ego and psychological problem. Telling him everyday he isn’t satisfying you is enough to make him become rude, violent and irresponsible. He is reacting the only way he knows how due to the fear of losing you and exposing himself to the ridicule of everybody. Your parents ought to have told you that each marriage comes with its own baggage. His attitude is an appeal for help from the woman he married. Rather than nag him, gently get him to open up; especially his worst nightmare. Ask how you can be of help to him; the options he has considered before meeting you as well as the ones you think can help the situation. Let him realise that you are not as bothered about the size of his manhood as much as his attitude towards you and your feelings. Let him know you really care about him more than he knows. You must really show him that you care deeply for his well-being and about his happiness. The fact that you got pregnant and have a set of twins to show for it, shows that he is fertile. It is just a matter of both of you giving your imagination freedom to blossom. No matter the size of a man’s organ, the success or otherwise of lovemaking is more often premised on the kind of imagination a couple has. Divorce shouldn’t be your first option because there is no telling what challenges you would meet in another relationship. Learn to be patient, be more understanding and supportive of him; this is what marriage is all about. Challenges are compulsory part of marriage. They are designed to take a couple to the next level. Your vibrator isn’t a solution but a major distraction to the real steps you should take in getting lasting solution to your problem. By the time you change tactics, become more of his friend, who isn’t condemning, who has the real desire to help and has the maturity to take whatever comes out of it; he would change. Also you need to pray for help to change those things you don’t like about him as well as yourself.
Good luck.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
