I’m a teenager in love, how do I survive long dating?

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I am a teenager, about to finish secondary school. I have a boyfriend, a year older than I am, in a boarding school. I know you might think I’m too young to be in a relationship, but I have been able to balance my relationship and my schoolwork. We are both very brilliant and it was actually his brilliance that got me attracted to him. He wants to become a doctor and I want to study International Relations. I am ready to do anything for him, even give up my dream of studying at the University of Lagos to follow him to any university he intends to study. Now, my problem is how I am going to make our relationship last because I know it won’t be easy. Please advise me on what to do. We have spoken severally about our future and being married. Cynthia. Dear Cynthia, The teenage years are the most dreamy and idealist years of a woman’s life. This is because the teenage years form love from the perspective of romance writers. Everything is still, for you, rose coloured. The happy ever ending rhythm that runs through all the romance books pre-supposes love to mean, a woman will always end up with her first love. As a result many teenagers unwittingly interpret love to be bright, beautiful and a panorama of nature’s finest and most radiant of colours. Unfortunately, by the time many teenagers get to the reality zone of their lives, when the hormones stop playing tricks with their emotions, some would have made the most hideous mistakes of their lives. The kinds of missteps, which are irrevocable. Which is what you are about to do by putting your dream on the hold to follow that of your boyfriend. Nobody is saying both of you cannot be together forever but there are many processes to go through before you get to that point of being definite about what you both want in life. What if you are unable to get admission into his choice: wait, while he goes ahead with his life? What makes you so sure he wants what you want is ready to allow you tag along with him? Have you considered the fact that deep down he isn’t ready for the kind of commitment you want to foist on him? The restrain you want to be put on his freedom as a young man who is eager to fly the nest of his home and seek freedom before life becomes too serious? Chances are your relationship may not even survive the first few months if you insist on tagging along with him. If care isn’t taken by you, he may turn around to hate you for making his life miserable. Besides it brings up the matter of trust. Is it that you don’t trust him to behave or that you are very insecure as a young woman to instigate this kind of wishes for you to put your dream on hold for him? My dear, things don’t work like that. You have to have a dream of your own to be relevant to any man. The world is changing every second; you need your career and education to be useful to your home as woman and to be a good mother to your children. Besides, your reproductive years as a woman, is well defined for you by nature. It takes almost an eternity for a woman to recover any lost year, whereas the man has even Mother Nature bending backwards to make things easier for him. While a man of 100 years of age can still get a woman pregnant, not so for a woman half his age. So any rash and irrational decision you make now would in later years come to haunt you especially when you see all the friends you should have graduated with doing so well in their fields of endeavour while you are still struggling to give meaning to your life. By the time you recognise the implication of your decision, your boyfriend you made the sacrifice for would have long gone. Nobody wants to be associated with a failed project. Even if he doesn’t mean to treat you that way, his new friends, family and situation would all conspire to make him keep his distance from you. As he gets older, there will always be a cocktail of different kinds of women for him. Besides, his choice, ideas as well as desires would eventually change once he has a broader place to operate. If by the time he is ready to move on, you are still struggling with the challenge of gaining admission, you will be hurt more than you should. Besides, you could also meet another man and fall in love with him. But if you have sacrificed your own dream for another man, this other man may not even look your way because you would be lacking in one of the things he requires from his woman – good education. You only think he is your world now because you haven’t even seen all the vast potentials the world has to offer. You are limited not only by your age but also by the environments you operate. As you get older, when you begin to see all that life has to offer, chances are you will ask yourself when the right man comes along what you ever saw in your current image of Mr. Right. And even if both of you are destined to end up as an item, the kind of sacrifice you are contemplating is dangerous for your happiness in life. The wise thing is for you to hold on to your dream. If both of you are meant to be together you will find away out of it. But, for now, the choice before you is to pursue your dream. It is the key to your happiness in life as a woman. Good luck.