When he wooed me, I snubbed him, now I want him badly

Agatha,gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, Four years ago, this man in my office asked me out, declared his intentions to marry me. Because he wasn’t as good looking as I dreamt my man should be, I declined his offer. But that didn’t stop him from asking me to marry him. Until two years ago, he was still asking me to marry him. The guy I was dating then, after three weeks of leaving me got married to another woman. It was so painful an experience but I kept trusting God that someone else will come into my life. Since then, it has been very difficult attracting a man let alone finding one who is interested enough to make a marriage proposal to me. I am fed up. All my friends are married and have started making babies. At the point I was thinking of making overtures to the guy in the office, I discovered he would be getting married in a month’s time. I have suddenly realised he is a very good man and responsible too. He has the best set of lips and dentition I have ever seen. What more he isn’t really bad just that at the time he first came, I wasn’t interested. Now I am very interested but there is another woman in his life. I want him desperately. Some of my close friends I shared the story with think there is still something I can do about it. One of them said I should go and declare my love for him, while two others said I should seek spiritual help in getting his interest back in me. They argued, a position I shared too, that since I have always been the one he truly loves, he went for her because I turned him down. And that once he finds out that I love him, he will call off his wedding plans to the other woman. Agatha, I need your help. How do I convince this man of my true love for him? Do you know of any good spiritualist I can approach for help? Is there anything you can do for me to get him back? I was 35 in June. Ewa. Dear Ewa, Pride goes before a terrible fall. Your case is the proverbial rejected cornerstone becoming the most sought after. Had your boyfriend not disappointed you, would you have made this kind of dramatic U-turn in your long held opinion of this man? Why do you suddenly want a man you persistently turned down, said he wasn’t good enough for your dreams. Didn’t measure up to the kind of man you admired for a husband? Would you have even considered him if your former boyfriend had remained in your life, or one of the ideal men by your standards, had come to you for your hand in marriage? It is too late for you to want this man. He is getting married to another woman who saw beyond what you failed to recognise in him when he offered to share his life with you. You had your chance to be his wife but you threw it away for flimsy excuses. What has good looks got to do with marriage? Do you marry a man on account of how he looks or because he is responsible and understanding? Why has it suddenly occurred to you that he has the best set of teeth and smile? These qualities have always been there. He didn’t develop that kind of teeth yesterday or the smile for that matter. The notice you have of them now calls to question the sincerity of your interest in him as well as the worth of your feelings for him. This man doesn’t need you in his life because your feelings for him aren’t skin deep. They are superficial and won’t last the bumpy marital road. It takes a special kind of love, devotion, determination and understanding of all the kinds of sacrifices embedded in the precept of marriage to overcome all the natural and man-made challenges that come with being married to a person. If from the first time he came to you, all you saw in him are imperfection, nothing he does will ever be good enough for you. This is why after a while he stopped asking you because he found another woman blessed with the abilities to help him overcome his disabilities and was willing to overshadow him with the best of her qualities. She gave him his unconditional trust to get him to want to keep her for life. To go to him is to expose your deceit and confusion. Nobody can help you because you are yet to come to terms with reality. From your e-mail, you don’t even know who you are or what you want. To identify the right man for you, you must first recognise whom you are. At 35, you are no longer a young lady and romantic teenager or young adult. You are a mature woman who by right should know that life doesn’t always go or give what we want. And that life itself is a process of compromises. If you are unwilling to give up something to get that thing you require for life to move smoothly, disappointment is often the end result. At the time he wanted you, you were too blinded by your self-importance to recognise his inherent qualities. He was and will never be yours. The fact that he made attempts to date you doesn’t make him yours. He is just like every other man that has come to ask you for a date. Why aren’t you talking about the man who got married three weeks after you both broke-up? Surely, that should bother you more than this man you never gave a chance to get close to you. The bottom line is – you are desperate. What your friends are asking you to do is what frantic women do. Are your friends not married? Are they not women? How would they feel if another woman goes to a spiritualist to get their men to like her? How would you feel for that matter if another woman wants to snatch your man? How did you feel when you heard your ex was getting married after only three weeks of you leaving each other? This man and woman didn’t offend you in any way. The man’s only crime was declaring his interest in you, which you rejected. So how is it the fault of that man or the woman he is going to marry some few weeks away? Why do you want to go to a spiritualist to destroy this couple when you should be seeking help for your inability to attract the attention of another man? Or is it the fault of this man or the woman he is about to marry that no man is interested in you again? Don’t do something you will end up regretting for the rest of your life because even if you succeed in stopping their marriage, nothing says he will come to you. Besides, nobody can upturn what God has ordained. If this couple has the blessing of heaven, you will be fighting a lost battle. If care isn’t taken, you will end up adding to your problems. Therefore don’t listen to your friends or capitulate to that destructive voice in you. Rather go on your knees to ask God for mercy and forgiveness. Chances are that God is punishing you for your arrogant disposition to this man when he came to ask for your hand in marriage. These friends should have told you to pray and even offer to pray along with you to ask for mercy. If they had asked you to seek a spiritualist to know why you are no longer attractive to men, it would have been understandable. Their offer and manner of assistance to you clearly spells out the kinds of friends you all are to yourselves because I am sure as your friends, you must have told them about this man’s interest in you and persistence then. Why didn’t they try to match-make you with the single men around, friends or relatives of their husbands who are single? The fact that none of them could talk sense into you, encouraged you not to throw away perhaps the only man heavens ordained for you as a husband, should tell you, if you are wise, to run away from them. Forget about this man. He isn’t yours. The best you can do is to wish him and his wife the very best in life and marriage. Free yourself from any form of needless bitterness. Help comes from only God. If you are in right standing with Him, there is nothing impossible in His dictionary. You will discover 35 would be like 16 when He is set to do something great in your life. Make peace with Him and forget whatever solutions your friends have suggested. Good luck.

She isn’t fair enough…

With Agatha Edo, Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com, 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I am an ardent reader of your columns. There is a saying that says it is better to do what’s right than to insist on being right. I am 30-year-old, the eldest of my siblings. My immediate younger brother is married and already has a child. My people are pressurising me to marry irrespective of the fact that I am still in school. I’m demure and resilient. I used to have a girl friend always pestering me for money. Now, I have met another girl through her mother. It happened at a place I frequent to meet my friends. Because it is a place I must go to meet my friends, the lady’s mother is pressurising me to befriend her but I have refused. She’s into foodstuff business and always pestering me to buy on credit, though sometimes I oblige her. I can’t avoid her because she’s at the exit of the house. She always says she loves me because I am quiet. She’s from my hometown but married from another town. To get out of her pressure, I told her I prefer one of her daughters. Since the younger sister is the only one I have met besides the fact that the second daughter is always sharper than the first sister. So, I settled for the second. Agatha, I want to know if I should go ahead with this relationship. She’s through with her secondary education. But the snag is that I like women who are very fair like me. She isn’t as fair as the ladies I have previous dated. Please help me. Bernete. Dear Bernete, The question is: what do you want from this relationship? Whether she is fair or not isn’t as important as the person who resides inside of her. Many a time, in the process of making a choice of who we want to spend the rest of our lives with we market issues that are not as important as those that we would contend with in the union. If just being fair is the only criterion for you, how come those other fair ladies you dated are no longer around you? With the amount of pressure coming from your family, ensure the woman you are going to date now is the kind of woman you can live with for the rest of your life. At this stage of your life, anything can happen that would warrant your family and hers insisting you marry the woman. To avoid a situation where you would end up regretting your decision or blaming people around you for forcing you into a situation you don’t want, pause to think of what you understand by relationship in the first place. Is it for you just a physical thing one premised on outward qualities or the more lasting ones of who the person really is? In addition, this relationship you are about going into calls for tremendous caution. If the conduct of the mother is anything to go by, there is the need for you to be of extreme care. To avoid you ending up with a wife, who like her mother would throw morals to the winds to run after younger men, take time out to study this lady before making any commitment to her. You must devote appreciable time to uncover the mask behind her personality. Issues like her moral values, her temper, attitude towards life as well as her place in your own plans in life are most important than the colour of her skin. There is also the need for you to ask yourself what kind of woman you really want beside you, putting into consideration your dreams in life. Your woman must have the drive and belief in your dreams to help you get to where you hope to be in future. Without the right kind of woman by your side, achieving your dreams would either be a struggle to achieve or die completely as other factors she would throw up at home could frustrate you sufficiently to make you give up on your own plans. For instance, if your dream can only accommodate two children and you end up with a woman whose dream in life is to have as many as 10 children, the difference of eight children is enough to sink your dream forever. So ensure you first offer her friendship, it is the only platform to discover if you and her can make it beyond the point you both are now. In addition, you must also factor in the attitude of her mother? Beyond trusting the daughter, do you think you can trust the motive of her mother? Can you trust her to behave like a mother-in-law should when the daughter isn’t around? A woman who has cravings for a particular man doesn’t just give up. Honestly, this to me is the major worry in all these! Can you contain the unbridle desire of a morally bankrupt mother? Please talk to God to avoid you going into a relationship that could cripple you spiritually. Good luck.

My husband has low self-esteem

WithAgatha Edo Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com, 08054500626 Dear Agatha, My husband and I married three years ago after five years of courtship. We are both in our 30s. My husband is a very sweet man though very anxious and with low self-esteem. His relationship with his mother is a volatile one – she nags him a lot and is quite critical of him. A priest friend of ours described her as oppressive and my husband, often curses and swears at her in their conversations and when being nice, talks to her in a baby voice. I get on well with her although I’m often in the middle of their arguments. His father is emotionally absent as he keeps his head buried in newspapers all the time. One of the problems in my marriage is that my husband refuses to spend time with my own parents and indeed some of my workmates. My workmates and family all want to spend time with him. Prior to marrying him, I was extremely close to my family. Now we are not. He gives different excuses to avoid spending time with them and I am constantly putting my family and friends off. I sense he is scared of them getting the wrong impression about him and I also think for some unknown reasons he might dislike them. He constantly competes with me and if I, quite innocently, bring up some subject about an achievement I attained during a conversation, he will put on a stupid mocking voice and say, “oh how wonderful you are!” Often I am mindful of what I say when conversing with him as he can be very touchy and sensitive. The few times he visited my parents, he took alcohol or drugs to calm his anxiety. Since I don’t like him resorting to the use of these drugs, I have had to give in to what he wants – that is, not spending time with my parents. As a result, my entire family and colleagues feel I have something against them as I have distanced myself from them all; giving my attention to my husband. I haven’t told them why I have distanced myself from them as I do not want to betray my husband in any way. I recognise that he may be mentally ill but, he does not think so as he has always been this way. He realises how it upsets me and my family but, he doesn’t seem to give that much thought. I pray a lot too. Any advice? Struggling Wife Dear Struggling Wife, If you courted for five years, you must have known or noticed this aspect of his person. This isn’t something he could have hidden from you for too long. You married him knowing you could cope with his emotional disabilities. To want to change him now is to further set him off on a path that will completely destroy him forever. It is either you learn to cope as you coped during your courtship years or simply pretend that aspect of him doesn’t exist at all. Two things would happen when you try too much to change him from the person who he currently is to what you want him to be; first you will simply be replacing his mother with yourself in his life and second, you will make him hate you like he obviously hates his mother. It isn’t easy growing up with a domineering mother; one who thinks and treats you like a baby. His mother didn’t only destroy him but turned his father into a hen-pecked husband which is why the father finds safety behind the pages of newspapers. Your husband has, throughout his life, watched and experienced intimidation; what he needs now isn’t another woman who will destroy him as his mother destroyed his father but one who will love and help him out of his predicament. For now, if he doesn’t want to visit your family, allow him be. All his life, he has faced criticism from his mother; no matter how much he tries to please her. Now he isn’t sure of who he is or sure of how to properly conduct himself without risking condemnation from his audience. In plain English, your husband lacks confidence in his choices as a man. His pains are deep and real. He cannot even recognise help and true friendship when he sees one. But, that he managed to fall in love and marry you shows that he isn’t completely lost. He may have married you too because something in your attitude reminds him of his mother. For your sake as well as his, be resolute not to allow that side of you overshadow the soft side of you so your husband too doesn’t take after his father by escaping behind the newspapers. But again, you must also be watchful he doesn’t try to repress you like his mother. The challenge in marrying this kind of man is to be wise and prayerful. Trust me, from experience, it isn’t a bed of roses being married to a man who has been psychologically damaged by his mother. The wife has to be alert that she doesn’t end up being like her mother-in-law or being the victim of her husband’s desire to act like a man for the first time in his life. For this reason, you must have the strength to strike a balance between being supportive and being independent. This is because he is currently mixed up. For the first time in his life, he is free from his mother and her constant naggings, he has a home of his own but deep inside, he is still very afraid of his mother. This fear is why you shouldn’t force him to do anything against his will; rather, find a way of making your family understand why you have kept your distance from them. Your immediate family has to understand why he appears uncomfortable with them; you need their help to make him develop the confidence in himself. He needs understanding to come out of the bondage of his environment. Let them come for a visit instead. Having confided in them, your parents’ show of love will go a long way in helping him see another side of parenting. Through the help of your parents, he will be taught how to love and be loved. The challenge here is to get him to know what love is. A man that swears and curses his mother is obviously lacking in love and respect for everything his mother represents. There is no way that man can ever respect his wife because mothers are the gateway to life. He has never known what true love is all about. You have to teach him what love gives and demands. His cynicism of your achievements is a direct flow from his mother. His mother has never shown appreciation for him or his achievements. He doesn’t have it in him so he cannot give what he doesn’t have. Begin by showering him with compliments and pleasure in all things. Rather than nag his attitude, compliment him; his looks and sense of dressing. Even when you are not too pleased, first compliment him before lovingly pointing out his mistake. Don’t forget he has never been treated with respect or love. He needs you and your family to show him a different kind of life from where he is coming from. It is the only time you can also get him to treat you with respect, be sensitive to your needs and trust you with his everything. He cannot be but selfish because that is the way he has seen his mother behave all his life. Pray for him always and continue to urge him to see a psychiatrist. Good luck.

How do I know I’m courting the right person?

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, First, I acknowledge the maturity you always demonstrate in handling people’s problems. May God give you more grace. I am a born-again child of God and want every thing about me to be done right. I am 27 years old and will be graduating in December this year. I want to find out whether what is happening to me is normal. I don’t have any plan for marriage and don’t have any girl friend. I am waiting upon the Lord for the right time and right person. All of a sudden, there is this loneliness within me and my joy no longer complete. These days, I feel I need a life partner. Is this feeling a sign that the time has come for me to look for a partner? If it is time, how can I be convinced if I find the right person? What is the courtship like? I need your help. Aondohemba. Dear Aondohemba, What is happening to you is perfectly normal. Right from the beginning of creation God created us a pair. You are only following a path laid down by the Creator. So don’t fret. You are old enough and at the age when this strong thirst for a companionship of the opposite sex is at its strongest. No matter our religious affiliations, a time comes in a person’s life when love is required to peep it up. It is primordial. We have been wired from our manufacturer’s table to be part of someone’s life. Once we get to that age, nothing we do or say will prevent us from longing for it. Unless of course, those sworn to celibacy and have made up their minds to remain single for the rest of their lives, the rest of humanity once the set time comes, the alarm bell goes off. For most people, the human biological heat alarm is set to trigger once we begin the journey into our teenage-hood. Your alarm bell is ringing loudest; because at 27 you should by now be considering who would share your life, have your children. Because this journey requires a lot of thoughts and reconsiderations in the process of arriving at the final decision, you must first have a very clear idea of where you are going. This way, it cuts down by half the confusion of finding and knowing the right girl for the position of a helpmate in your life. As one, born again, I am sure, the church must have told you some of the things to look out for in a woman: her behaviour, attitude and disposition towards things in life. Granted these are things you cannot determine at first sight, but having a picture of the kind of woman will help you recognise that something extra in a woman you are meeting for the first time. The eyes are said to be the gateway to the soul. There is usually an aura that follows every one of us about. In repose, the face can tell a lot about one’s attitude; no matter how good an actor one is, a person’s nature can be judged almost correctly in the first few early minutes of a conversation. The rest is usually an act put up by a conniving mind to deceive the other party into a hurried decision. So one thing is to pay detailed attention to the attitude and truth in the eyes as well as facial expression of the woman you are interested in those few first minutes of your conversation with her. The second thing is to offer her friendship. Avoid the mistake of telling a woman you love her at first sight. It is always advisable to offer the platform of friendship. Amity offers an intending couple the opportunity to observe each other at close quarters. It exposes the pair a chance to expose each other to peculiar weaknesses, strength, and temperament, state of mind, way of thinking and all the other tidbits in the other person’s character. The exclusion of sex makes it easier for a dating couple to be very honest about their limits. Also, it makes forgiveness easy to give and obtain just as it enables trust and understanding effortlessly in the relationship. It also makes it possible for a man and woman to look beyond the physical look into the heart of the person. In addition, you must be determined and clear minded about demands being made on the other person. What you cannot tolerate, don’t expect your woman to. There is no stopping the inevitable. Go before God to ask for help in finding the right woman. As long as you have the understanding that nobody is perfect, mistakes are part of human nature. It won’t be so difficult to integrate with another human being. Courtship is a time for a man and woman to set sentiments aside for practical solutions as well as approach to issues. When it comes to the matter of decision on a life partner, be true to yourself; this way, you save yourself a lifetime of pains and horror. The challenge, the marriage institution is facing comes from the refusal of young men and women to look at things from the practical point of view. Most couples marry on the strength of the spur of the moment without giving adequate thoughts as well as considerations to the wear and tear of two strangers living together. Thirsty as you are to connect with a woman; be careful you don’t end up making the mistake a young butterfly makes in front of a lizard. This is a journey that will end only when death occurs; so a lot of care must be given to your search to find the right woman. Trust God and be truthful to yourself from the beginning. Good luck.

Can’t I make my inter-tribal relationship work?

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I am a huge fan of yours. You are actually my role model and I pray that God will continue to bless you. My problem started a few weeks ago. I am in an inter-tribal relationship. I’m a Yoruba girl while my boyfriend is Ibo. Our relationship is a few months old and so far we haven’t had any problems apart from the time he thought I was cheating on him because of a message he saw on my phone. Agatha, I don’t mind our tribal differences and he also claims not to mind but a few weeks ago, I was browsing and came across an article which gave reasons why inter-tribal relationships never work out, especially between the Ibo and Yoruba. I browsed further and discovered some even more disturbing articles. Some claim that his parents, especially his mother would never accept me; another said the Ibo guys only date Yoruba girls for their wealth. I’m very sure my boyfriend loves me for who I am but lately, I can’t stop thinking about the articles and that our relationship might not work out. I love him very much but I don’t want a situation in the future that we will break up after years of dating because his family doesn’t accept me. Agatha, I really need your opinion on this matter because I am very confused. AtDawn. Dear AtDawn, Only the determination of a couple offers a relationship its security. Even if you and your boyfriend come from the same clan, the moment you both allow your families too much freedom to meddle in your union, it becomes doom. No doubt in some families, tribe plays an important role in determining what becomes of their children’s happiness but once a couple at the centre of it all holds on to their dreams of being together, trust in each other’s love as well as strength, the relationship does survive the onslaught. What you read are the experiences of other people. Some of the time, the writers use their encounters as the barometer in arriving at their conclusions. A marriage not meant to be will not work no matter the tribe or nationality. Every marriage is a school of different encounters, challenges and situations. No two marriages are alike simply because no two human beings can ever be alike, not even that of twins married to another set of twins. Just as there are bad inter-tribal marriages, there are equally inter-tribal marriages that are perfect examples of what an ideal marriage should be. What you need now is not the doubts reading such articles have generated in your mind but looking at ways you can avoid making such mistakes in your own relationship. One of the reasons most inter-tribal marriages break down has to do with cultural and language differences. What you should do now is to make attempts at learning your boyfriend’s language as well as the important cultural observations of his people. No matter how difficult his people are, the fact that you even made attempts to speak their language and learn their customs, including the kinds of food the mother and father like the most, will make them pause in their assessment of you to study you. Often than not, the fear of not knowing how to relate to a woman from another tribe, prompts hostility from the man’s family. But once you are able to break the ice by speaking some words in their language lessens the fear of you turning their son into a complete stranger as well as converting your children into your side of the country. A woman who marries outside her tribe must be ready to tolerant and sensitive to the ways of her new family. People are naturally suspicious of change therefore if the woman makes the extra effort to present her new family a kind of menu that is familiar, she sets herself up to win the battle. If you are serious about this man, pressure him to teach you his language, customs, the fashion sense of his people as well as the kinds of food they eat. Every tribe is determined to preserve some of its cultural values so be determined to succeed in your own choice. Good luck.

Despite his lackadaisical attitude he wants me to stay

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I am 27 years of age. The man who proposed marriage to me doesn’t have time due to his workload. I have taken him to my house to meet with my family but I neither know where he lives nor has he taken me to see his parents. Recently, I told him I have found someone else; to my surprise he warned me not to even contemplate dating another man since he still cares for me and wants to marry me. I have scared him into believing that I would be getting married by December but he says I shouldn’t. What should I do? Chinonye. Dear Chinonye, The question is, do you have a suitor lined up to marry you in December? What if he calls you bluff and tells you to go ahead with your new suitor because he isn’t ready to marry by this December? What are you going to do or tell him next? Rather than lie to him about an imaginary suitor, why not ask him outright questions concerning his attitude towards you and your relationship with him? The danger of trying to blackmail him into doing what you want is that he can easily turn round to use it as an excuse to exit your life. Have you considered what he would think of you if no wedding takes place by December as you have led him to think? The infinitesimal step to a successful relationship begins with a tiny seed of trust. He must have a reason for proposing marriage to you. Since you are in doubt about his motive, let him know why you don’t trust him or the sincerity of his proposal. Besides, you have to be careful in your bid to be married. No good thing comes easy so why the rush and obvious desperation on your part? It isn’t healthy for your peace of mind as well as reputation when this man discovers you have been less than truthful to him. Allow this relationship grow naturally. Marriage is more than having a partner and proposal; it is devoting time to the study of the character, nature and attitude of the person you plan to spend the rest of your life with. It is also important you know the kind of temperament he has. Rather than make marriage the reason you want him in your life, why not let him know that you desire some private moments with him to enable both of you expose your characters to each other which will help you both arrive at a clear picture of what to expect later in marriage? Going to see his family isn’t as important as you both being sure of your feelings for each other as well as knowing the abilities and disabilities you would be interested in from the other person. At least you know that he is career focused, and may not have the kind of time you would have loved to share with him. Beyond introducing you to his family and knowing where he stays, in all sincerity, can you cope with the situation? Be honest with yourself because it is most likely that he won’t change jobs just to please you. This is more important than the issue of knowing his family since this is what you would be living with until he changes the kind of job he does. His family isn’t who you are going to live with; his family members may really like you but if you are not at peace with him, cannot endure the time you spend apart or certain things about him, it would be difficult to find the kind of happiness that makes marriage enjoyable. Besides, there is nowhere in your mail you mentioned love or even that you like him. All you appear interested in is marrying him. It doesn’t work that way. There can never be a happy union without the mention of love. The lack of love is why you appear anxious and skeptical of his motive. Relationship is more than wanting a partner in your life, it is also about growing and nurturing your feelings to the point of living in each other’s mind and body. What you have now and appear to be pursuing is a blank canvass. Not even an ink stroke to announce a kind of activity on the canvass of your relationship. These are the concerns you should tell him instead of pressuring him to come for your introduction. If you are asked to summarise the character of the man you want to marry or tell his likes and dislikes, what can you say about him? What if after you both marry, you discover he has some attitudes you cannot cope with; it won’t be easy for you to walk away as it is now that you have no legal and religious encumbrances to contend with. My advice to you is to learn to take each day as it comes in this relationship. If God wants both of you to grow in love and friendship, no matter what is happening to him now, he will find time for both of you to sort things out to favour you. There is always a certain kind of peace that accompanies the wait of something God has designed for one. If you look deep into your heart, without pressuring him, you will know if he is yours or not. Good luck.

Where do I start after her exit?

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, Now that I need my woman the most, she decided to leave me. Where am I going to begin, the church, cinema or nightclub? Where am I going to start? Confused Man. Dear Confused Man, Start by asking yourself what went wrong between you and your ex. For a woman to just decide she is abandoning a relationship means things were not working well. What kind of boyfriend were you to your ex? What were the things she constantly complained about before she decided to leave you? Deep down will you say you were a dependable, loving and available man to her? The solutions to some of our challenges in life are often in our past. There is no place you cannot run into a woman but you have to be certain of what you want from life. If you are not, chances of you ending up with the wrong woman is very high. Life is a phase. After this disappointment, be determined to take things more serious in life. Be sure first of what you want and where you are going; this way the choice of the kind of woman you need in your life would be easier to define. Once you know, you will know exactly what you are looking for in your woman and where to find her. At least it will help you come to a realisation that going to the nightclub to look for a wife may not be the right idea. Good luck.

Lonely Heart

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I met a very unique young woman through the mail I last sent you in 2010. I must say she was the very woman I wanted but was not serious in cementing our relationship and now she is married. My heart has been bleeding since. She was my first real love. I just got a good job and still my heart is empty. There are so many beautiful women in Lagos but I am not that type of man who walks up to a woman to begin gibbering complete rubbish to her simply because I am sexually attracted to her. I do not have friends and don’t make friends that easily. I am a very responsible person who likes studying people before I take the relationship to the next level. Maybe that is why I lost my last girlfriend. I do not like woman who are insecure, I like confident and mature thinking women. I love an adventurous woman, but not the kind who is adventurous to a fault. I love a woman who is business minded and thinks like an entrepreneur. I am a budding entrepreneur and would like to spend the rest of my life with a woman who is. I love plus size or buxom, big, bold and beautiful women. I do not mind the tribe she comes from, although I am Igbo and would prefer she comes from other tribes than mine because I would like to contest for the office of the Nigerian President one day and unite Nigeria as a country but, I don’t mind if an Igbo hooks me up. I hope I could get connected again to a serious minded woman through your unique platform. My number is, 08122351449 and I want to get hooked to ladies living in Lagos. I don’t like long distant relationships please.

My wife is grossly lacking in parlour etiquette

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I need urgent help. I am a 40-year-old man who has been married for over 10 years. But I have never enjoyed a minute peace in my marriage, as my wife is a tyrant. She beats me at will; dehumanizes me in the presence of our children. I know it sounds strange but it is the truth. My wife is a monster. She denies me sex and only agrees to it when she wants. Until I practically hand over my salary to her, she won’t give me any form of rest in the house. She knows how much I earn because she went to the office to lodge complaints against me; that I don’t give her money at home. Because of her nature, all my friends and family members have deserted me. None of them understands my reason for keeping her as my wife; in all honestly I don’t understand it myself when in the presence of visitors, she would call me names or water like she did when my mother came to help with our last child. The funny thing is that she is very sweet to her own family members and the few friends she has. Like me the children keep away from her for fear of her mood. The reason I am writing you has to do with her recent behaviour when our landlord came to ask for his rents. I was actually asleep when the man came; rather than come into the room to wake me she started raining curses on me and at the same time the landlord. By the time I came out of the room with my rent, my landlord was very angry. He refused to collect the money from me; insisting I must vacate his premises that he can no longer endure the attitude and rudeness of my wife. This will be the sixth place we have lived since we got married. I am really fed up with the whole thing called marriage. Everyday, she pushes me to the edge of my endurance. I grew up with very peace loving parents; never once did I witness my parents quarreling. Knowing that no two human beings can be together without having their moments of disagreement, they kept their disagreement inside their bedroom. It is so bad that my eldest daughter talks to me without respect or fear just like her mother. I am fed up; please help me, Agatha. I am a senior officer in my place of work with people working under me. They all respect me. Helpless Man, Dear Helpless Man, Going through the content of your mail got me very confused and my first reaction was to ignore your letter and invite you instead for a private discussion. But since you refused to come to our office because of what you tagged shame, I have decided through the help of God to reply you. Marriage is a partnership, not a prison. Its wheel must constantly be greased with respect for it to function well. It is also governed by its sets of principles and rules; once there is dislodgement in any of these rules, the foundation of the marriage becomes threatened and if nothing is done immediately to rectify it, it risks complete collapse. In a situation where there is total breakdown of law and order between the two of you, for the sake of the children, you especially, have to reconsider the condition of your being together as man and wife. The reason couples patch things up in a bad marriage is because of the children, but there are certain instances when the children have to be protected from the negative influences of their parents’ examples. The longer your children are exposed to this situation between you and your wife, the greater danger of your children modeling their marriages after yours because it is the only example they have. To prevent their future partners being subjected to you and your wife kind of examples, it is appropriate you sit to think of a way out of this mess your marriage has become. You and your wife made the choice to spend the rest of your lives together so in that aspect, you can decide to endure whatever kind of discomfort, insults and disrespect from your wife because you made the choice to spend the rest of your lives together but the children had no choice in the matter of the family they are born into. You invited the children into your lives hence you must take responsibilities for how they turn out in future. Your situation is an example of how the negative behaviour of parents impact negatively on the children. Your wife’s unruly and cantankerous behaviour didn’t start today or were born with her. She must have learnt to beat you from the example of someone close to her. Your daughter is fast copying the same attributes from her. If nothing is turn to help her see the good side of marriage, point her at how a normal relationship between a man and woman should be, she will end up being another man’s nightmare. That your parents didn’t quarrel in the open doesn’t mean they never did. Their example shows good management and effective leadership on the part of your father. If your father didn’t command the respect of your mother, she won’t be support him to succeed as the head of the family. The lesson here is that your father was man enough to have provided your mother the kind leadership that kept her in her place as the woman. It is either you make up your mind to be a man in your home or end the marriage and spare your children the horror of seeing their father being beaten by their mother at any little excuse. There is a huge difference between being quiet and being timid. No matter what your excuse is, you are weak as a man; which is why your wife has escaped for too long with her behavior. Had you from the very first time she raised her hand against you to put her in her place, she wouldn’t have dared it a second time let alone allow it to become the norm in her relationship with you. If your decision is to stay with her, you have to help yourself stop this abuse of your person and ego. One way to do it is to find the guts to be a man in your home. The fact that you have people working under you, are in a position of authority at your place of work shows that your problem with leadership is at the home front. So why is it so difficult for you to exercise your leadership potentials in your home? this is the time to tell yourself some plain truth. What kind of courtship did you two have and what kinds of indulgences did you allow in the name of love during that time? What kind of woman was she, way back then? Did you have any inkling that she would become a man beater along the road? What kind of marriage do her parents have or had? What kind of woman is your mother-in-law and man, your father-in-law is or was? Difficult situations require tough solutions. It is either your love for your wife reduced you into a weakling for a husband or there is a power you are not aware of at work in your life. Whatever the case maybe, you just have to resist it and fight back for your respect as a man in your home and dependable father to your children. First is the awareness that something is wrong with your marriage and life which is good; it give emphasis to your silent rejection of the current status quo in your home as well as a determination to change things. The first signal is to call your wife and express your displeasure at her attitude to you in private and public places. Let her know you are no longer ready to put up with her attitude and that if she persists; you have the option of ending the marriage and going away with your children. The fact that you can make the declaration will put some measure of fear into her. The next time she puts up her hand to hit you, grab her hand and pretend as if you are going hit her back. Although the temptation of giving her back the same measure you got from her, don’t give it because once you start hitting her, the memory of how she has treated you all these years will keep urging you to carry on. At the end of the day, you will only have succeeded in replacing one kind of violence with another kind, leaving your children still without a good example to emulate in their own lives and homes in the future. Studies have shown that bullies are scared of challenge. She may want to fight back but let your eyes and the set of your face tell her how serious you are. Do it in the presence of your children for the simple reason that they witnessed your humiliation by their mother and have developed an attitude towards you. Seeing you talk and treat their mother like that will automatically beat them into line. You are helpless because you allow yourself to be. Children are the best politicians on earth. They are good at shifting to where the power base is. Think of positive ways of putting your wife in her place without raising your voice or hand against her. Even if spiritual, once you have the awareness and determination to break it; whatever was used in putting you into bondage becomes neutralized. All you have to do is to back it up with prayers at all times. As for your landlord, go and beg him personally but if he insists you vacate his property, plead for time but ensure your wife never puts you in a position to beg your next landlord. Good luck.

Yet my AS son wants his AS girl for keep…

Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I appreciate the good work you are doing, more power to your elbow. I write this letter to seek your advice on what to do as I am presently in a state of confusion. My son brought home a lady whom he introduced to me as his fiancée, I took to her easily, but upon careful and calculated questioning, I discovered that the lady is AS. The same genotype as my son, this is where the dilemma sets in. I have advised them both on the fact that though they may love themselves, they cannot get married as the chances of bearing a SS genotype baby is evident and the pain and suffering they would be subjecting the innocent child to, I think, is going to be enormous. My son refused and has even picked up a quarrel with me on ‘not wanting his happiness’. He even tried to convince me that all I needed to do was to pray for them as a pastor has prayed for them and told them to ‘have faith’ and they would have S- free children. I am deeply affected because I know whatit means to see a loved one suffer from Sickle Cell and eventually die. I do not know what to do anymore as all my advice and appeal have fallen on his deaf ears. I am a Christian and I know the Bible says we should not tempt God. I feel this is what my son is doing. No one should make such mistakes in this age and time, and to think they are both educated makes it more appalling. I really don’t know what to do again. Please advise me on what to do. Concerned Mother. Dear Concerned Mother, Frankly, at this stage, the chances of your son listening to the voice of reason are very slim. When people think they are in love, it is always very difficult for them to accept the voice of reason, no matter how well meaning the voice is. Besides, he is very suspicious of your reason for wanting him to drop the woman he appears to love the most in his life. He probably thinks you are hiding under the guise of this medical problem to force him into abandoning this lady. Your motive is suspicious to him because it concerns his love for another woman. Suddenly you are no more his mother, but a jealous mother-in-law-to be to the woman he wants to marry. For this reason, you have to be very careful how hard you push him to avoid losing him altogether. From experience, I have learnt to pray for assistance from God in matters like this. For reasons best known to the young, when issues like this come up, the advice of their parents is the least they are likely to accept. Being his mother, he suspects you of ulterior motive, of not liking his choice and of you wanting to control him by forcing him to do your bidding. Bear in mind that he doesn’t have the experiences you have, don’t know what it is like to suffer helplessly at the sight of one’s child dying a slow death or constantly living in fear that the child may die one day. No, he and his girlfriend don’t know what it is like to feel guilty at bringing into the world a child that shouldn’t have been born in the first place. They don’t know that such pressures brought from guilt of bringing an SS child into the world could kill the love they have now. The issue of their genotype isn’t the problem as far as they are concerned; you and your so-called experiences are! To them the pastor has said it is okay and as far as they are concerned that is enough for them. They cannot imagine it now because they are so young and filled with rose-coloured ideas of what tomorrow holds. The solution is to change your attitude. Befriend his woman. Let her know that much as you love her as a daughter, reality demands that they know what they are about to do to their love. It might require you take her to see a doctor or visit a family that has a Sickle Cell child or crisis child in the hospital. Nothing has the power to communicate reality like being faced with a real situation of a crisis. By the time she gets close to a family with a Sickle Cell child, see the pains and hopelessness when the child is in crisis, experience first hand the pains the child goes through as well as the constant medical requirements something in her would begin to think the other way. Without them facing the reality of what they are about to enter into as well as the cost of the choice they have to make, they will never listen to you and continue to see you as their enemy. She must be made to understand through these real life experiences that there are some situations that love isn’t just enough to get a marriage going. By the time she realises that your concern is more for their happiness and not because you hate her she would be the one telling your son to reconsider their plans to marry. As a woman, she is most likely to see reasons with you because she would invariably be the one to suffer more of the emotional pains. Don’t stop praying for them. They need your prayers more than they realise.

My husband refuses to give me money

Dear Agatha, My husband is the stingiest man on earth. He never likes to part with money and he is always complaining of not having anything even when I know he has money. The only time he willingly brings money is when it concerns his children and mother. There is no time I ask him for money that he cheerfully gives me. His excuse is that I work and that since I don’t spend my money on the children and home, I should at least spend it on myself and extended family. Early this year, my mother took ill and I needed money urgently to pay her medical bills. I needed about N60,000.00 to make up the balance of the money needed for her treatment. I went to my husband to give me the money. Rather than give me all the money, he gave me N45,000.00 and said I should make up the difference. I felt bad and told him so. A month later, his mother too took ill and he spent more money treating his mother. When I pointed his double standards to him, he told me that his mother has nowhere to go and that if he doesn’t provide her with the money, nobody will do it because he is her only child. I can go citing different instances. I am really tired of it all. What is the need of being married? Isn’t the man supposed to care for his wife and her family? He keeps reminding me that he alone cannot shoulder the challenges of my family since he isn’t the only son-in-law. The reason for my writing is for you to help me deal with this issue. Of what essence is marriage if I have to take care of myself? I am really getting fed up as well as the fact that he is treating me badly in his house. I feel I am more entitled than his mother to his wealth afterall, I contributed to whatever he is. If I were his girlfriend, would he not spend money on me? My friends describe his attitude as pure selfishness and wickedness. I totally agree with them because he is simply being wicked to me. Please tell me how to make him listen to me as well as get him to spend on me and my family members. Chy. Dear Chy, Be careful else, you give the impression that you are more interested in your husband’s money than in his person. And by the time this impression is created, you will have a hell of a time trying to erase it from his memory. As a matter of fact, you stand losing everything; his trust, love and confidence in your ability to manage his family at his death. Greed is a very dangerous thing. Every marriage works on the foundation of contentment. The moment you begin to crave for someone else’s piece of cake, you risk losing the value and goodness of what you have. This man and his ways have become your cross. Those friends of yours also have issues they are coping with in their marriages and the earlier you realise this, the better for you. He is your husband, not the husband of your friends so they cannot appreciate the issues involved in your marriage. If they are good friends, they should have shared the minus side of their marriages to help you come to a better understanding that no marriage is perfect. They are supposed to give you, through their stories, every encouragement to stay and not call your husband names they cannot call their own husbands. Honestly, there is the need for you to exercise caution and patience in this matter. It is also in your interest to stop discussing the person and nature of your husband with friends to avoid negative influence from those who don’t have your experience or are out to bring down your home. Besides, it isn’t in your interest or that of your marriage to have your friends disrespect the person of your husband. By the time you sort out your differences with him, how do you make your friends change their opinion of him? How do you re-purchase his respect back from your friends who in turn would have told one or two more persons? Friends can be very dangerous because people have different motives for getting close. If the motive of any of these friends is to bring you down, you have unwittingly armed them with a weapon to cause you pains for life. No issue in your marriage is worth anybody calling your husband the names your friends have called him. Frankly, you have not acted wisely. If you don’t learn to value your husband and father of your children, no one would. Besides, if you care to look around, you will discover that you are luckier than most women who are married today. All your husband is asking is for you to spend what you earn on your family as well as yourself. Other women in addition to what your husband is asking you to do, pay their children’s school fees as well as provide the food and rents of their homes. It isn’t as if their husbands are not working or don’t have money to give, they simply have refused to live up to their responsibilities. Learn to be grateful for little mercies by accepting your husband for who he is. It is the first step in being happy in your marriage. Don’t try looking at another person’s marriage; instead focus your attention to his good sides and learn to relay your appreciation to him for being good to the children and you. You may think he isn’t doing enough but if you are like those other women whose husbands have the money but refuse to provide for their families, what would you do? Marriage is a journey of sacrifices. If your money isn’t enough for you and your family, what makes you think he has enough for everyone? The fact that he is a man doesn’t mean he has unlimited funds. Like you, his resources too are limited and if it comes from one source, salary, it follows that he has to plan properly. He is only being realistic to tell you what he can afford rather than make empty promises he has no intention of honouring. Rather than complain, you should take time out to find out his actual financial position with a view of knowing how to help the family grow. Sometimes we fret and complain over something we lack knowledge of. You may just be judging your husband on something that isn’t real. Communication remains the key to better understanding in a union. Couples often make the mistake of claiming to know everything about their partners when in fact they don’t. You can only appreciate your husband based on what you know. A man who cares for his children and home cannot be said to be irresponsible. It either he doesn’t have enough to go round or your attitude is all wrong. If you make it mandatory for him to care for your parents and family, chances are he may not. You must know the nature of a person to get the best from that person. Obviously you haven’t really taken time out to study the nature of your man. Once you do, you will know how best to approach him on certain issues. There is no man who will not part with something if his wife is kind, respectful, understanding and supportive. If he has a girlfriend, check what you are doing wrong in your marriage. Sometimes the attitude of many women is the reason some men actually look outside their homes. Learn to be respectful, humble at all times as well as prayerful to get the best out of your man. Good luck.

My in-laws are the pains of my marriage

Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, Please how do I handle my in-laws? Why are in-laws always problematic? My in-laws don’t have human feelings for me. They were not there when I needed them most in my marriage. Rather than provide my husband and I with their shoulders to lean on, they instead are fond of pointing out our errors. I think they don’t like my husband and have extended their dislike for him to me. Confused Wife. Dear Confused Wife, In-laws are every married woman’s nightmare. They are generally blamed for real or imaginary problems in a marriage. Even when they keep their distance, they are still viewed with suspicion by the wife who reads a meaning to their every move. Before we can talk of handling your in-laws, it is of essence we talk about you first. More often than not, many young women come into their matrimonial families with prejudices against their in-laws; making it impossible for them to recognise or appreciate the positive qualities in their new families. As a result perfectly innocent mistakes on the part of in-laws are magnified out of proportion by combat ready wives. Unfortunately, the husbands are the ones who suffer the most as they strive to strike a balance between their wives and families. The consequences of this, is that the man at the centre of it all, is seen by both parties as a betrayer. While the family fights to retain his interest and obligations to them; his wife on the other hand pushes the button of intimacy to secure her points. Lots of men in their desire to maintain neutrality in a fight they don’t understand or appreciate, end up fighting all parties, earning for themselves the label of the main enemy. This perhaps may be the point your husband has gotten to. He doesn’t want to take sides with either you or his family. For this reason, his family thinks he is siding with you against them and as such decides to be hostile to him. The hostility of your in-laws towards your husband may come from this. They think your husband’s refusal to side openly with them; declare a definite stand on some vexing issues may be your influence over him. Because you will one day also be in their shoes, learn to tread carefully by applying a lot of wisdom. The first thing you must learn and accept is that you are a stranger in their family hence must create the room for a period of learning. There is no way you will ever be completely part of them. You have to make the allowances that sometimes, the family may just want to have a private discussion with their son just like you too may want some private time with your siblings outside him. It is natural for families to crave for private zones once in a while. When such demands come, a wise woman learns to step aside. To try to force yourself into such meetings is to create unnecessary tension for your husband as well as friction in the family. Frankly, this is where some of the issues between wives and in-laws originate from – the inability of wives to discern when they should cling to their husbands and when to release them to their families. As human beings, appreciate we are all prone to mistakes and not every blunder is deliberate as wives often think of their in-laws. To handle your in-laws better, devote time to study them. It might appear to be time wasting considering that some will never like you but, since you plan to stay with them for the rest of your life, get close to them. Pretend not to notice their attitude towards you; it is the best way to learn in life. At times, play the fool, as long as it affords you the chance to get close to them; take no notice of the kinds of insults or discomfort their attitude is subjecting you to. Don’t forget you are daughter-in-law to another woman and that one day, you too will be a mother-in-law and at the receiving end of another woman’s suspicions. The essence of getting close to them is to befriend one or two persons; it helps to have a friend in the enemy’s camp. These are the people that will constantly act as your ears, eyes and mouth when issues concerning you come up within the family circle. They will be the ones to inform you about the likes and dislikes of your most critical member of the family as well as the person’s weak points. One thing you should never do is attempt to fight or quarrel with any of them; when the situation becomes too unbearable for you to tolerate, simply walk away. Always have at the back of your mind that what you are facing in your home is what another woman married into your family is also experiencing with your family. Therefore, try not to conduct yourself the way you would not want your brother’s wife to behave towards you or your future daughter-in-law for that matter. Life is a process of give and take; a little bit of patience and wisdom would buy us everlasting happiness and comfort. To help yourself better, be humble. Don’t forget you are the stranger in their mist. Your husband and his family come a long way, have a relationship and knowledge of each other that predates yours with him. They have established a format, which you must never attempt to break into. With time, you will be a part of that formation but it requires a lot of patience to get to that level. If you know how to play the right kind of politics, you will one day become the rally point – a mother to all of them. The attitude of in-laws is a natural human reaction to someone new; learn from the behaviour of little children; first they view a new member with suspicion before either making up their mind on how to walk with the new member. A wife is a stranger to her in-laws; first her motive for marrying into the family has to be established before she can be fully integrated. Most often the desire to protect their son from the hands of a scheming woman triggers the animosity between in-laws and their daughters-in-law. The simple fact that women are wise to the games they play on men, explains why female in-laws are very problematic. Women are always afraid that their sisters-in-law or daughters-in-law will play the same tricks they played on the men in their lives. To be candid, there are one or two things you have done as a woman you wouldn’t want any girl to do to your child or brother. If you view the behaviour of your in-laws from this angle, you will have a better understanding of the behaviour of your in-laws. In Africa, once a man is old enough to marry, members of his family wash their hands off him because he now has a partner to share his burden with. The reason for this is simple, his wife and children will be the first beneficiaries of his riches, success and achievements. Therefore, the wife and not his family members; should stand by him during difficult times. If you are truthful, how many times have you joyfully offered help to your married male relatives? The assumption that only the wife and her children benefit from his success makes it difficult for in-laws to fully offer financial assistance to their married sons when in need of help. This also has to do with the attitude of so many wives to their in-laws when the man is comfortable. So many women make it impossible for their husbands to offer assistance to members of their families. Therefore, this behaviour isn’t peculiar to your in-laws. It is also happening in your own family. Severally, in our own families, we have sat in judgement over the cases of our brothers and their wives; most often, condemning the wives as being the reason our brothers are misbehaving even when we are aware that our brothers have never behaved otherwise. Likeness is relative here. If they have issues with you, they are bound to let it reflect in their attitude towards their brother to drum home the point that they are not happy with him. Doubtless they love their brother but are not happy with his choice of a wife. They have left him to his own devices because the decision to marry you was solely his own, hence he should be able to face the challenges that come with his decision without their help. If you want to succeed in your marriage, don’t look too much into the behaviour of your in-laws. Be generally friendly towards all of them. When they come to visit their brother, don’t prevent them from seeing him or offering help to them. Sometimes, help him manage his relationship with them by using your own money to make up for any short fall on his part. It is a way of protecting your children and husband from more problems. The ones you simply cannot tolerate; keep them at a distance by being very civil instead of allowing them get close and you end up exchanging bitter words. As a mother, you owe it to your children to be friendly with your in-laws so they don’t engage your children in needless physical and spiritual battle. Even in situations you know they don’t like your husband, don’t ever join your husband in fighting them. Instead be polite while you pray to God for the protection of your husband and children. Good luck.

At 23, she is desperate to get married

With Auntie Agatha,gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I have been close to you through your column and must confess, your solutions are very useful and well appreciated by many out there. I am a single man of 29 years old; I lost my four year relationship two years ago due to my education. I was in my final year and couldn’t take on the responsibility of marriage. My girlfriend was in a hurry to get married due to pressures from her family members.  After my youth service last year,  I combined resources with a friend to set up a business. I did this because I couldn’t afford the needed capital alone.  I confess, God has been faithful to me in the business. Agatha, I am now in a new relationship which I am very comfortable with. We were a year old last month. But my problem is with her people who are also on her neck to get married because of the many suitors coming her way. She is 23 years old and would be going for her youth service in February next year. Early this year she invited me to their house to meet her parents. I went with a friend of mine but didn’t go with any drink. I just bought present for the mother. She introduced me to them as the man she is interested in marrying. Her people welcomed me warmly. I have also introduced her to my people as my fiancée. Now she wants us to do a formal thing next year. She said we should either do the traditional marriage; where her bride price would be paid or do the white wedding which I am not ready for because of the financial implications. My plan concerning marriage is for 2014. Please how do I make her to understand and wait for me, because I don’t want to lose her to any man or should I impregnate her? Worried Bartho. Dear Worried Bartho, The easiest part of being married is the singing of the dotted lines. A lot of things go with marriage. Impregnating her isn’t a solution you must consider. It would only compound things for you because both mother and child would require money and time which by your own admission you don’t have now. The fact is, if you are buoyant enough to impregnate her, then nothing stops you from going the whole step by marrying her. Even if you succeed in getting her pregnant, do you have all it takes to be a father and husband? The real issue here is, are you ready for the attendant challenges that are concomitant with the institution? Having a baby is just an aspect of marriage. It requires both money and healthy psychology to bring up a child. There is no managing or pleading with a child to endure one’s financial constraints. There is no running away when a child is hungry or outgrows clothes, shoes or is ill. Only an irresponsible man goes into marriage ill prepared for the attendant challenges that go with being a family man. This is why you should call your woman for a heart to heart discussion. She needs to understand that the people pressuring her into marriage will not be there with her when things are not going well in her marriage. Understanding, patience, sacrifices and selflessness are what make a marriage survive the storm, not the pressures she is getting from her family members. Although the foundation of marriage draws its strength from sentimental feelings, the success or otherwise of a marriage should however be premised on reality. Make her know what your actual financial position is now and what it would be in the next five years while you and your partner grow the business. Explain everything in details to her. She has to learn to trust you from this early stage in your relationship. If she has sufficient faith in the future you are building, waiting one more year for you to be ready won’t be a problem. If she is going for her service year, it follows that by the time she is finishing, you will be ready to marry her. Explain to her that, going to pay her bride price doesn’t stop you from misbehaving or discontinuing with the wedding plans. She has to understand that what matters most at this point in time is the love you both share. Trust is what buys the future of a marriage or couple. She also has to appreciate the fact that unplanned marriages often than not, cannot withstand the turbulence of the storm. Urge her to look around her for facts and figures on the outcome of unplanned marriages. As her man, find ways of appeasing the fears of insecurity she has in your relationship. It won’t be out of place to hear her silent fears; the reasons she wants you to marry her at all cost this year. As long as her antenna is hovering around fear and desperation, it behooves you to take extra time to explain yourself and situation to her. Whatever is the cause of her fears; must be dealt with urgently to protect the future you are both planning to share together. This is the time you need to show her the required understanding to sail through this testing time in your relationship. Make the reason for her desperation to marry urgently at 23, your business. This is because it is strange for a young woman at that age to be so desperate. Normally, women at that age want some freedom before settling down. Ask her why she wants it urgently. Her explanation may reveal an ugly incident in her past which you must help her to deal with. Since you have met with the family, go and discuss with her father about your plans for their daughter. Being a man, he will definitely understand where you are coming from. Explain your reasons for wanting to wait till 2014 as well as the kinds of plans you have. Don’t act god in an affair you lack the knowledge and wisdom to pilot. Marriage is one institution where one needs the mercy and presence of God to succeed. To act against His will is to court problems you will never be able to manage efficiently. If both of you are meant to be together, you won’t lose her to any man. No matter how hard you try to keep a person not meant for you, the person will eventually leave you so, there is so much sense in allowing God to conduct your affairs especially when it comes to the issue of who you spend the rest of your life with. The hazard of a young choice is best imagined than experienced as a wrong partner can torpedo one’s whole dream in life. Rather than get frightened at the idea of losing her, focus more on God for His plans for you through prayers. You can be sure if this lady is in His plans for you, nobody will be able to distract her from you. A child needs to be planned for; not used as a tool of selfishness. Furthermore the presence of a child has never been known to prevent break-ups in relationships or marriages. The child and not you ends up suffering when the parents are unable to resolve their differences; you and your woman have to arrive at that crucial point of trust in your love and association. This is the kernel of your differences. Good luck.

Do I become harsh to sustain a relationship?

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I am a single guy of 28 who has developed the habit of being nice to girls I come across. However, these girls soon lose interest in me and my friends are of the opinion that women appreciate men who are harsh to them. Sincerely, harshness is alien to my nature. What should I do? Should I stop being nice to them? I want to be in a relationship because I want to marry at the age of 32. Please help me. Worried Guy. Dear Worried Guy, Discount the opinion of your friends; it isn’t true. Just as men like different things in women, women too like different things in their men. Besides, we are all products of our environments. Out there is a woman who will do anything to have you in her life. No matter how the environment conditions a woman; deep inside her, every woman wants a man to love and cherish her. Though a lot of women are today confused about what they really require in their men; but the norm is for a man who is friendly and caring. However, there is a huge difference between being nice and a weakling. Majority of women don’t like a man they can control; it becomes a problem for women to accord such a man the kind of respect deserving of his position as the head. If you are the kind of man a woman can override, send on cheap errands and control, you may really have problems finding the right kind of woman. Being nice is showing respect, understanding and consideration. This doesn’t mean you must fail to draw the lines when you have to or act stupidly in situations where you have to take the lead. Women appreciate a man who is really in charge. When a man forfeits his rights as the head, not many women will be comfortable having him in their lives. It is important you make the distinction if you want to find the right kind of woman to share your life with. Good luck.

His insincerity got me out of our fruitless marriage

Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, Many thanks for your sincere and unbiased way of advice to the public. I am a great fan of yours and would like to use this medium to seek your sincere advice. I have been with my partner for seven years. We have had our ups and downs, sometimes necessitating us breaking up but we have survived it all up to this point. In all these years, I have never been pregnant. Expectedly, I have consulted so many fertility experts, gone through several tests and confirmed by all these doctors as medically fit to procreate. After each test I would be told to ask my husband do a semen test. On each occasion he has refused to do it, saying it is God that gives children, and that we should be prayerful since it is the enemy at work. At a point I had to plead with his friends to help me persuade him to go and see a doctor. He bluntly refused. In 2008, left with no choice, I went to report him to his uncle who agreed to have a talk with him. He eventually agreed to see a doctor. He was told he has a very low sperm count, the kind that cannot be rectified medically and that the only way we can be parents is to go for artificial insemination. The doctor after his examination and verdict asked him if he didn’t know about his condition since we are based in Europe. Although he declined knowledge of his medical condition but the whole incident brought something up in my memory. I remember he was always saying each time I pressure him on the need to consult a medical doctor on the issue of our infertility he would say, doctors are in the habit of finding faults whenever he goes for complete medical tests. I became convinced that he knew all along that he was the one with the problem. He didn’t display any emotions of surprise or discomfort, instead when we got home, he made himself a delicious meal, eat it all while I was down worry about the piece of news we have just been offered by the doctor. I was worried with how we were going to save up the money for the option we have, but he didn’t seem to care at all. Despite this and other issues, I still decided to stay with him and by June last year, he paid my bride price. Agatha, deep down in me, I’m a sad woman. Mostly he seeks advice from his friends and family members because, in his opinion, I don’t like him by refusing to tell him things he wants to hear. We have lost large sums of money due to his negligence. Mostly his family members are taking advantage of this to siphon money from him. Mostly, they tell him to send them money for one spiritual consultations or the other. They are forever telling him about different messages from various pastors. Sincerely, I am getting fed up of everything. I am in my mid 30s and don’t know what the future holds for us as a couple. In February this year we had a minor disagreement and he almost strangulate me. So I walked out of the marriage. He told his families and friends loads of lies about me but later started pleading when he knew I wasn’t going to bug. I kept our breakup from my family members because I consider it something of a shame. Besides I didn’t want people blaming me for my decision. Recently, I had to confide in my mother pleading with me to go back to my husband that marriage is for better and worse. Having given him so many chances in the past with the hope that he will change what he was I suppose to do? Agatha, was I wrong to have walk out of the marriage? Was it my fault? I can’t stop blaming myself. Please help me, PP. Dear PP, More often than not it is easier to blame others for our own faults and shortcoming. No matter the situation between the two of you now, you made the choice to marry him last year. This is not the typical situation where you would claim ignorance of his attitude and person. You lived with him for about six years before he paid your bride price last year. Therefore you went into this marriage with your eyes wide opened. From the moment you agreed to have him pay your bride price in June last year, you unwittingly entered into an agreement with yourself and God to abide with his manner of person. It would have been a different case entirely if you didn’t know anything about him; wasn’t aware of his medical problem, habit of consulting his family and friends on matters that should ideally remain between the two of you. You knew all about this and still decided to marry him. Violence doesn’t manifest in a day. There is no way you can say this is his first time of violating you physically. It must be one of the things you know about him. If you didn’t protest then why now? Has it got anything to do with your knowledge of his medical problem or the fact that he knew all along and hide the fact from you? Honestly, I feel for you but there are a lot of issues tied to this situation you must critically examine before taking a final decision. The first is the complexity of marriage. As boyfriend and girlfriend, he could tolerate certain things from you, even endure some of your verbal attacks but as your husband, he now expects something more than that from you. He may not be willing to let go of his excesses but as his woman, he expects you to show him more respect. He may live abroad but his roots are firmly entrenched in the customs and traditions of his people. So be careful and mindful what you say to him or how you react. If you really want this marriage to succeed, you just must learn to be the woman while he the man. It isn’t about what you have done for him but what you both have done for each other. This is the marriage creed. This is the time for you to be very, very honest with yourself. Since knowing about his medical problem, how have you felt? Betrayed? Disappointed? Angry? Frustrated? Helpless? Don’t be ashamed to express your feelings because all these are natural. Except you are out to deceive yourself, you have gone through all these emotions and back. You probably have lost every respect for him as a man considering the emotional pains he subjected you to going through all those dehumanising medical examinations when he knew the truth all the while. You are only human if you behave rudely to him, less sensitive to his needs and lacking in respect for him. What you are going through is enough to make one behave out of character especially a woman whose biological clock is daily grinding to a halt. Out of these pains, you could have said one or two things to him to make him feel useless as a man; those things we women say when we are angry can make a man with his condition angry enough to want to kill the woman. Are you sure you didn’t out of the bitterness and seemingly helplessness of your situation say something to remind him of his inability to father a child the normal way? I am not saying it was right of him to get violent, but if you pause, rewind to that incident, can you honestly say you were not the harbinger of what happened that day? Bear in mind that this is also a very difficult time for him. In your presence, he doesn’t feel like a man anymore. He is battling with inner challenges and fear too that you now have a very good reason to leave him should you want to. Though extremely wrong, like a drowning man, he feels it is the only way to assert his authority as the head of the home. The panacea to dealing with this kind of problem in a marriage is first to allow the anger and frustration a free reign to flow. Don’t bottle up what you feel at all. Cry, shout, and allow all your feelings to come in the open. There is no stopping a raging storm from happening. Before you can see clearly, discuss your options with him, allow yourself to divest all those pent-up emotions to avoid you snapping at the slightest thing. Going home and refusing to discuss the results of the tests as well as your observations that he knew all these while isn’t a panacea. Both of you need to talk about all your fears immediately. Your current disagreement is the right opportunity to come out clean with all your anger and emotions. Let them come out. From your mail, it is obvious your disappointment in this man didn’t start today. Go back to the beginning. Don’t use cosmetic approach to solve this problem rather, be very realistic because what you fail to deal with now will never allow both of you have the desired happiness in this marriage. There is too much resentment for this man in your heart. It is only after you have done this, that you both can collectively discuss the future of the marriage as well as the options available to you. In all these, don’t ever forget the place of God, hence the need for you both to pray as a couple for divine answers. Have you also tried investigating his claims that his problem is spiritual? Only a closer relationship with God can reveal the mystery of this. As the woman, it behooves you to stand in gap by asking God to lead you to where help is. If at the end of the day, it is purely medical, broaden your perspective by also considering adoption. Children, either biological or adopted are what we plant into them. As for the issue of whether to go back to him or not, it is your choice but think of all the years of you have been together, the sacrifices as well as the first time you met. There is no perfect person but perfect will to succeed. Make up your mind what is important to you in your life and allow God’s will to prevail. Good luck.

I don’t understand why he suspects me

With Agatha Edo, Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, I am a girl of 20 years of age and I started dating this guy at the age of 16. He taught me what love is and how to love. We love each other very much. I am so comfortable in the knowledge and power of his love that any other man that comes my way seems very irrelevant. I am of the firm belief that he is a divine gift from above to me. However, the problem is that we live in different parts of the country. I am in the eastern part of the country while, he stays in then northern part of the country. The distance between us always makes him suspicious of me. He thinks since we are not together, I am dating another person. My repeated assurances that being so much in love with him makes it impossible for me to love another man seem to fall on deaf ears. He is so unsure of me that when he calls me and hears another man’s voice even though the voice is that of my brother or male colleagues, he instantly becomes very suspicious and demands to know where I am and who I am with. He will also demand to know what I am doing with the male voice. I have tried to make him understand that I can’t love any other person, but he still doesn’t believe me. Please, I want you to help me sort this thing out, because even when I am telling him the truth, he still doubts me, what will I do to make him to trust me in everything? Onyi. Dear Onyi, Getting a suspicious partner to change a conceived opinion about the mate is one of the most challenging aspects in a relationship. Before you can change his mind, let’s’ look at what brought on those suspicions. Are these suspicions only as a result of your staying in different parts of the country? Or because you gave him reasons to be suspicious of you? There is a world of difference between you giving him reasons to suspect you and him being naturally suspicious. If he is naturally suspicious, you must try to prevent any situation that would make him more doubtful of you. The distance between you two can be narrowed by patience, understanding of his fears, loyalty to him and honesty in whatever you do. There is no way he can continue to suspect you if he has the assurances through your behaviour that you can be trusted. It is not just the verbal assurances that would make him believe you, it is all the other things which you haven’t been doing. I know how difficult it is to dispel the fears of a suspicious partner or to conduct a distant relationship for that matter. It is often not easy; it takes dedication, plenty of tolerance and understanding to get a suspicious partner to change. To understand his fears, ask him why he thinks you are being unfaithful to him. Although this type of discussion is best done person-to-person, not on the phone, but if the phone is the only alternative you have, ask him on the phone why he thinks you are cheating on him. Demand to know if you have given him any reason in the past to doubt you. It may not even be the way you relate to people around you but the way you warm up to him. Chances are if you have allowed him make love to you, you may have unwittingly given him the weapon to use against you. Having had access to your body, there is no way he would be convinced that you are also not giving the same privileges to another man. It is natural for him to suspect you of infidelity because in his mind, especially if he recalls the way you responded to his touches, there is no way he can trust you to stay away from the warmth of a male embrace. It is a very precarious situation, but you must find a way of convincing him of your undivided loyalty to him always. From experience, one way to do it is not to get angry when he starts suspecting you. Make light of the matter even if you are very angry and hurt by his constant suspicions. Reserve whatever comments you have on the matter until the time you will meet to trash it out thoroughly. The danger of responding angrily to him on the phone is the risk to the sustainability of the relationship. In growing a relationship, you have to factor suitability of certain situations or reactions to situations. Now that you two are still very dependent on the impersonal nature of telephone technology to sustain your relationship, it isn’t auspicious for you to argue too much to forestall the attendant stress that comes with keeping a free communication line between a couple who live apart. Furthermore, both of you have to make real attempts at growing your relationship to reflect your new experiences, wisdom and maturity. At 16, you hardly know what is expected of you or from a relationship. You are older. Your body chemistry and outlook have matured significantly between then and now. Your maturity, physical endowments and attitude may be so pronounced to attract a lot more attention than when he first met you. These may also be cause of concern and jealousy to him. He is afraid he may lose you to someone else, particularly as he is not around you to stamp his ownership on you. While you may not have control over the way he feels or a say in the way you are filing out, you definitely can help reduce his fears by constantly assuring him of your love. By not trying to deny the avalanche of attention you are getting from other men gives him the impression that you don’t have anything to hide and that you are responsible enough to know that whatever is attracting these men to you isn’t as important as keeping the one whose presence in your life means more to you. The type of company you keep too may implicate you. Who are your friends? What are the moral values they hold supreme? At 20, you would definitely have friends whose values may clash with yours. There is no way you can convince him of being responsible if you surround yourself with friends of questionable moral character. You may not be like them, but it would be hard to convince anybody who sees you constantly in their company that you are different. So be careful of the type of friends you keep since they can make or break you. Doubtless, he too may be influenced by his friends to constantly suspect you, the issue here is for you not to give him reasons to doubt you in anyway. Endeavour to be honest always. He may not appreciate, believe or trust you but by being focused and principled you will convince him of your worth someday. Good luck.

She’s wayward but I love her

With Agatha Edo, Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, I must commend you for the wisdom with which you solve people’s problems. Indeed you’re a blessing to your generation. I write to share the issues in my family with you because I know God will use your advice to salvage the damage done so far. I married my wife against the wishes of my brother, not because she is bad but because she has children from a previous relationship even though they were never married. I saw in her some qualities I needed in my kind of woman hence my desire to marry her. My wife is a wonderful woman no doubt; one that every man will like to have in his life but Agatha, poverty has made me see the other side of her. While I struggle to make ends meet, my wife on the other hand is doing well and I am proud of her. In-fact, the house we call our own was built by her. This I say because she bought the land, and she did majority of the work. I, on the other hand, took a loan from the office when she told me she bought a land; though small, but to support the wonderful ideas she brought about the house. The loan was only able to raise the structure to lintel level. She completed the house from that point. When we moved in, the house was still without windows, she struggled so hard to ensure we fixed windows as well as do some other finishing that has made it a befitting abode. Agatha, before now, I caught my wife with a man and I was so heartbroken because of the pains, I left her but she begged me and I forgave her but it didn’t stop there. My wife can’t leave her phone with me for a minute. Severally, I have seen love messages she sent and the ones she received but each time I confront her, she reminds me that I wasn’t doing anything for her and therefore cannot control her. In-fact we can’t sleep at night because of different phone calls from different men at odd hours; we have had several issues because of this. Sometime last month, she told me she would be on night duty (as a police officer), I didn’t object but each time my wife leaves the house, she hardly picks my calls and when she does, she is either asking why I am bothering her with calls or insulting me, before I even tell her the reason for my call. She will end the call and if I try calling back, she will put off the phone. This has continued for days. Even when I tell her I love her on phone she won’t respond. When she picks my call, she just answers ‘’hello’’ without the pet name she calls me when we are alone. Recently, one Sunday, I didn’t go to church as I was trying to weed around the house. She called at about 10 a.m. that she was on her way. Normally from where she said she was would take about 20 minutes to the house but my wife never returned until 2:05pm. I questioned her and told her I wasn’t ready for that kind of life. She told me she was in a women’s meeting.This was a blatant lie. I was so hurt I reported the issue to her brother who lives few flats away from us. He said he wasn’t unaware of his sister’s behaviour and that he won’t tolerate such from any woman. Her brother and a female cousin of hers came with me to meet with my wife. She refused to listen to them. She told them it was over between us and that I should move out of the house since she built it. Agatha, aside her wayward lifestyle, my wife is a good woman. There is nothing I don’t do for her except buy her expensive wrappers. I’m considering getting an apartment and moving out of the house since she insists on it. Ever since the issue came up, my wife has not been sleeping at home. Even before this incident, we didn’t have a sex life. Please tell me what to do because I’m so confused but something inside me tells me that prayer is the only solution but how do I continue to live with a woman I can’t trust? Is it my fault that I am poor even though we don’t beg for food? I don’t want divorce but what do I do? Desperate Husband. Dear Desperate Husband, The issues in your marriage didn’t start after you both got married; they have always been there but you were either blinded by your feelings for her to notice or by some other things you played up then. There are some women, no matter the qualities they may have, who will never be good wives. Any man who seeks to tame them through marriage risks emotional aches. There is no way you wouldn’t have noticed some of her conduct and attitude during your courtship days. How much does a Police Officer earn to give her the kind of money you claim she has? When you noticed her affluence, did you at anytime ask her how she was making the extra money? Did you at anytime challenge her to know if the money was coming from her salary or other sources? What steps did you take in addressing the numerous affairs you know she was having? Being poor doesn’t mean you should tolerate infidelity in your marriage. To be poor isn’t offensive but when a man is weak; his wife becomes the boss in the house. You gave your wife the opportunity to be wild through your own lack of effective control of your home. There are many women who though are breadwinners of the family, still remember their responsibilities to their husbands. If she hasn’t shared your bed for a while, then what kind of marriage do you have with her? For how long can you endure the humiliation of knowing what she is denying you, she is giving it freely to other men? You may want this marriage but from all indications, this woman is no longer interested in this marriage. She wants the freedom to come and go whenever she likes. She may have the qualities you want in a woman but the question, do you have the qualities to keep her married to you? It takes two to make a marriage work. If she doesn’t want it, has made up her mind to move forward, there is little you can do to keep her in your life. It is unfortunate and painful but you must learn to respect her wishes at least for now. Granted, there is nothing prayers cannot do, but God isn’t a magician. Your case requires more of sincerity on your part than prayers. You have to tell yourself certain basic truth concerning your reason for wanting to stay in a marriage with a woman you say is rude, disrespectful and wayward. Is the fact of her being financially better than you the reason you want to stay on in the marriage? Do you have the emotional stamina to endure the knowledge of her unfaithfulness? You need to be truthful at this important juncture in your marriage. This is because there are certain things prayers will never do. It has to come from either you or your wife. For instance, the decision to be faithful, responsible and respectful has to come from her. You may think you have the ability to cope with all the other men in her life but a time will come when her conduct will make you snap. There is a limit you will get when you will feel like ending it all. This is the time to avert the danger of you hurting her or yourself by facing the situation now as a man. We all come with certain defects from the manufacturer’s table. This includes making the wrong choice of a life partner. You are a man and men generally need their egos to be massaged at all times. Don’t be afraid to admit you didn’t factor so many things into your choice of a wife. Your pride should not deny you of the wisdom required to make the right choice in this matter. Until both of you are able to discuss as adults, pack out of her house because from all that you have said, she isn’t ready to listen to the voice of reason. Accept the fact that she wants her freedom now. If you are both meant to be, something will make her change to become the kind of woman you want but for now, reality demands you allow her go. It is sad but this is what your kind of situation demands. You also need to be a man of your own to be happy in life. Good luck.

I was raped and now pregnant

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, Three months ago, while coming back from an errand for my mother, three boys gang raped me in an uncompleted building. It was horrible. Till date, I cannot make out the faces of the boys that violated me. When I told my mother about the incident, she scolded me as if I asked for it and later advised me not to tell my father or uncle. I felt bad at her attitude but decided it was better I heeded her advice of not telling my father. Besides, I didn’t want my father telling me all those nasty things my mother told me. I was at home about two weeks ago when I fainted; I was rushed to the nearest hospital where I was pronounced pregnant after some tests were carried out on me. Needless to say, my father is now aware of the whole incident and blames my mother for not telling him. He said, if he had been told, he would have insisted I went for medical examinations and steps taken to avert my getting pregnant. Even now he insists I go for an abortion but my mother who is pushing religious sentiments, she is a member of The Apostolic Church insists I should have the baby. According to her it was a sin to take a life one didn’t create. The issue is causing so much problems at home between my parents. I am so confused. I am only 18 years of age; a one hundred student of English. I am not ready to be a mother least of all, the one whose paternity I will never be able to identify. I have tried to make my mother understand that I have my whole life ahead of me; plans I want to accomplish before I even marry; she has vowed to fight me all the way if I attempt to destroy the life she claims is inside of me. It is so painful that my mother hasn’t bothered to ask me how I feel or consider my nightmare and shame of having a child at my early age. it is so painful that what she wanted concealed have been made public by a pregnancy I cannot explain whose precisely it is. Already my mother is treating like a piece of dirt with the way she screams and calls me unprintable names. I wonder how she is going to treat a child she is already referring to as a bastard. The only person on my side is my father. I am so confused about what to do about this child. Please help me make a decision, Agatha. I was at the programme you attended at the national stadium where you talked about women knowing what they want before venturing into a relationship. I want to be useful to myself and the society. Please help me. If forced against my will by my mother and the church to keep this child, I would rather die. It is my body, my future and life that are at stake. None of them is offering me any succor or sympathy. I am fed up. Adewumi. Dear Adewumi, There is nothing I can say or do that, will undo what has been done. I really empathize with you. As a woman, I understand your pains and humiliation at being made to suffer for something you were painfully forced into. As a mother, my heart goes out to you. At 18, you are old enough under the law to make your decision. Abortion is permitted when it has to do with rape. In your case, three men raped you making it impossible for you as a woman to identify whose baby you are carrying. No matter what the church or your mother feels, their responsibility is to you, given the situation under which you got pregnant. To keep the child is to postpone today’s evil till a later date. Every child deserves love and identification in life. Given the history surrounding the conception of this child and your current state of mind, there is no way this child will ever enjoy love and support to grow into a success story. When the story of how its conception would be told the child, chances are the child will become difficult to manage. Frankly, there is no way the innocent child will get love from you or any member of your family or immediate environment. There will always be someone ready to remind the child of its dark past anytime it oversteps what the person considers the normal bound. The burden of shame, denial, unspoken condemnation and cruel gossip will be too much for the child to bear. As a matter of fact, the child will suffer more than you eventually especially if a man. The burden of his paternity will always come to play over his surname. The day your father passes on, will be the day someone in your father’s family will come forward to protest the use of the family’s name by your child. The only way this child can be happy and integrate properly into to the society is to have and give it up for adoption; to a couple who can really invest unconditional love on the child and who is unaware of the circumstances of the conception. Adoption will help you take care of the burden of guilt most women feel after abortion especially if she is unable to have a child in the future. It will also help you deal with the psychological trauma of raising a child with no father as well as the bitterness the presence of the child will always evoke in your heart and mind. But you have to be medically and emotionally fit to go through this. To give birth to a healthy baby requires for the mother to be in a very good state of mind as well as the required stamina to go through all the process of birth. Frankly, you need to be of good health and mind to carry a pregnancy to full term since all kinds of complications can occur. Whatever you decide to go, get a medical opinion first. It will go a long way in influencing what your final decision will be. Sometimes, medical report may even rule out the option of abortion while in other cases, it recommends abortion on health grounds. Rather than allow your mother and church push into a situation that could spell danger to your life, tell your father to take you for proper medical examinations. It is the first priority now. If at the end of the day, you are not keen on having the baby, don’t be afraid to say so because you are the one wearing the shoes and whose future is on the line by this unfortunate incident. Honestly, no reasonable person will blame you if you decide otherwise; the important thing is for you to be comfortable with it. For now, you may have to take sometime off to think properly. It is important you do. Once you are able to make peace with yourself by opting for the decision you feel most comfortable with, the urge to kill yourself will vanish. You are contemplating it because you feel under pressure by the opinions and views of others. The important lesson you must take away from this unfortunate incident is that in life, you are solely responsible for what you become. Don’t allow others make the important decisions bothering on your dreams for you. You are on the threshold being an adult; coupled with this kind of life changing experience others your age or older are yet to go through, it behooves you to safeguard your dreams with the single-mindedness of one sure of his or her destination. Good luck.