Marriage outside my love’s plan

With Agatha Edo,Email:womaneditor@independentngonline.com,gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com,Tel:08054500626 Dear Agatha, I will clock 30 this year. I have been dating the man in my life for five years now. We have talked about getting married. When it looks like he is all set for it, he comes up with an excuse of why we should postpone it. Initially his excuses had to do with his lack of accommodation and a viable job. Through my father’s connection, I was able to secure him a good job in the ministry; his job came with staff quarters. He heads a department that is into verification of land, which means he is making so much from his extra deals. Not only does he have a house now, through his deals, he has two houses to his name. So it isn’t a matter of us not having the required funds or the right kind of accommodation. The thing is that I don’t know why he appears afraid to marry. I have tried to find out from him if there is anything about the matter; something I am doing that is wrong or he doesn’t like. He has never stopped assuring me that I mean so much to him. It isn’t as if I depend on him financially. I run my own business with very impressive clientele which have also increased through his own connections. He appears to be happy with the arrangement of both of us staying together without any legal paper. With my parents moving down town, he wants us to live together but much as I love him, I have never really liked the idea of a couple living together permanently without formalising their relationship. Our families are well known to each other, a point he refers to when I insist on us formalising our relationship. His friends too appear hesitant to marry. Except for two of them, many of his friends, are mostly single parents or live in lovers with the mothers of their children. I love him, but I don’t know what to do about him or this relationship. I have tried to reason with him about my age, pointing out to him that I am a woman with limited time to have children. He says there is nothing stopping us from starting a family if I so desire. Agatha, I don’t know what is happening. I am so confused about this whole thing. I love him so much to end the relationship. He loves me too; he demonstrates it everywhere we are. Do I take my friend’s suggestion and get pregnant? I don’t want any woman to reap where I have cultivated and sowed. Help me. Layimika. Dear Layimika, The choice to begin a family with a man who isn’t ready to perform any form of marital ceremony on you is purely your choice. But marriage isn’t something one does out of desperation or with half baked reasons. Unless your mind is made up to journey with those children as a single parent, nothing protects your union. No matter how strong your love for each other is, you are merely his girlfriend if nothing formal is done on you by him or members of his family. That which you fear, another woman coming to reap where you have tilled and sowed may one day become a reality if he insists on both of you living together as live in lovers. But beyond the issue of marriage, what was the agreement between the two of you when you met? Did he promise you anything at the beginning? Did he plan to marry you when he approached you for a relationship five years ago? Sincerely, this is where you should start from. Some men approach a woman simply to have an affair with her while others plan marriage from the beginning. If he never conceptualised marriage with you from the beginning, it might be difficult for him to now do so despite having spent five years together. Although you have been instrumental to his success as a man, there must be a spiritual harmony between his person and spirit man concerning having you as a wife. He may want it, but if that deep part of his is struggling against the idea of you being a permanent feature in his life, he will always fight the idea of having anything formal. What he can cope with now is having you in his life without the complications of the legal structure. He wants to be able to go and come. This is what he can cope with at this point. To an extent he is sincere with you. The problem is, are you sincere with yourself? Will you ever be happy with him under this condition he has given you? It is obvious you are only willing to play along because you don’t have an alternative to him but for you to be really happy, you must consider every angle to this issue before deciding on it. Sometime what we consider to be the end of the road may be the beginning of a very wonderful road. That you helped him doesn’t mean you must end up as his wife. You must ask God first to know what you should do. If after having children, he doesn’t marry you again. What would be your testimony and story to the children? What name will you be answering if you live with him as his live in lover? Mrs. or Miss? What we do today becomes a reference point for our children. Be wise and prayerful. Good luck.