I’m confused about my girlfriend’s changed mood

With Agatha Edo, Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, I have a problem that is making me restless. It has to do with my five-year-old relationship. I deflowered my girlfriend who is now in her final year at nursing school. I met her, a very humble, respectful and loyal girl. But earlier this year, a guy visited her who she introduced as a cousin’s brother. When I offered to take the guy out that day, he said he was tired and they slept together in her room that night. So not quite long, I met the same guy on Facebook only to discover he is the same secondary school friend she had been telling me about. I confronted her with my discovery when she came back home after two months from her posting; she couldn’t deny it. All she said was that if she had told me the identity of the boy, I would have fought him. I was not only hurt but disappointed since I had planned to marry her. Her action made me to start dating another girl. When she found out about the other girl, I didn’t bother to lie. I told her the truth. From that moment she became a kind of wolf, there is no name she didn’t call me, but I ignored her. Recently, I got her an engagement ring as proof of my love for her and to announce my decision to quit the other relationship. To my surprise, she turned down my request on the ground that God hadn’t told her if I was the one for her. I was planning the introduction ceremony for December, this year. When I told her mother what she said, she said God would guide and protect me if it is His will for me to marry her daughter. But my girlfriend doesn’t pick my calls, let alone call me. I am tired and confused over this problem I am having with her. Vincent. Dear Vincent, Don’t be. Most times what we think is best for us, turns out not to be. When it comes to the issues of the heart and marriage in particular, it pays to listen to the voice of God. This is because marriage takes more than love and sentimental feelings to sustain. It takes a lot of courage and a very deep kind of friendship to maintain. A lot of things have to be right from the foundation level for relative peace to reign. One of the necessary ingredients is trust. Unless you get the composition right from the onset, no matter how much in love you both are, it won’t work in the end. Even though her motive for asking you to wait may be suspect, but since she has mentioned the name of God, don’t panic. Nothing entrusted to the hands of God ever brings unhappiness. You may think she is doing the things women who have lost interest in their men do, looking for an easy was to ease you out of her life but ultimately you will come to see that it was God at work in your life. Whether she comes back or you find another woman, this moment is to help you focus on the important things about relationship in general and your person in particular. What do you understand by being in a relationship? Is it for you an opportunity to have free sex or a special chance for you to help another person grow and be happy? Beyond being her first lover, how will she remember you? What special thing is she going to miss by not having you in her life? Just like in every thing we do, relationships are meant to establish something extraordinary in the lives of those we care so much about. So, our absence would be so much profound when we are no longer in their lives. Between a man and woman, the contact goes beyond sleeping together to living in each other’s bodies. This way, it is easy to establish that compassion, link, ease, understanding and tolerance needed to make a relationship work. Unless there is a spiritual link between a woman and man, a relationship hardly ever survives the politics of everyday living. This is what you should use this time out to cultivate. Go beyond what a woman looks like to the inherent qualities in her. This way, you would know when you are being taken for a fool or when she is telling the truth. It will help you control your temper because when a man gets to the level of being able to vouch for the character of his woman, nothing she does would ever make him suspicious of her. This is what absolute trust in each other does for a relationship. Stop calling her if she isn’t inclined to picking your calls anymore. Granted, you are hurting and desire a chance to be together again with her but, this can only happen if she is willing and since she has expressed a wish not to, allow her be. This way, you will also be giving yourself time to heal before someone else comes along. Good luck.