With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
Many thanks for your free public service; for the help to many in affliction. May Allah continue to guide you aright through Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
Please, I would like to marry any widow between below 38 years who is really a servant of God from any faith; Christian, Islam or any other religion.
Such woman must be educated and hardworking. I don’t mind if she has children previously or not. Her tribe or nationality is not a problem, but let any woman who will reply first seek the face of God.
I am happily married with children but needs this widow as a wife so that her children could be raised to God’s glory. Let such woman write me. capitalgen@yahooo.com.
Israel Umar.
Dear Israel Umar,
Ordinarily, I should ignore this mail but I decided to publish it to enable me respond to the content of your letter as well as correct whatever wrong impression you have of our work here.
First and foremost, it is important you know that we take our work here very seriously and that any problem brought before us is considered serious to be entrusted to God solutions which makes the content of your letter rather confusing. In the first place, marriage is a lot more serious than you think. Being married you should know this fact that marriage isn’t just about what a man or woman feels, but about its workability as well as the feelings of the other person.
What do you hope to achieve by advertising for another wife when you have an existing marriage? Importantly how do you view marriage? Do you consider it as just one of those things adults do without planning for it and knowing the implications of an action?
You ask for a woman from any kind of religion. Meaning you aren’t bothered about the kind of woman you bring into your home or her mission in your life. While we are not in a position to determine the kind of life you want, it is important however since you have involved us in your desire to point out to you that certain challenges in life are best avoided.
No matter what you think of your current marriage, it is a choice you made hence must have the necessary patience, tolerance and right attitude to pilot it well.
Marriage is a journey of thorns and sweetness. These two go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other hence a man bringing a woman into his life must have considered so many things before embarking on the journey.
Marriage is also about contentment as well as honesty. The same reasons you are asking for another woman to come to your life will always present itself from time to time. Would you on account of that decide to marry another woman?
And, aren’t forgetting your responsibility to your children? Do you have enough to care for your children before considering taking on another man’s burden? What are the kinds of investments you have to care for another man’s child or children? What if the woman you are planning to add to your life has more than the number of your children, how do you plan to cope?
Besides, if you are a Christian like your name, Israel, suggests, you should know that the Bible frowns at polygamy. Even in religions that favour polygamy, the women really don’t cherish the idea of sharing their husbands with another woman.
And if a man must bring in another wife, the consent and approval of the woman at home must be gotten.
Whatever religion you are, it behooves you to put the fear of God before any other consideration.
Good luck.
Friday, January 20, 2012
I’m not ready; can she go for another man?
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
Thanks for your immeasurable advice and solutions to people with relationship problems, I pray God will also help you in solving your own problems.
I have a problem that needs your attention. I have a girlfriend; we have been together for four years now and thanks to God, have been able to abstain from sex all these years.
I just graduated while she is in her final year, even though she is a year older than I’m 23 years of age. We love each other very much that people around us think I am very much older than she is because she accords me my due respect as a man. But the problem now is, she does not want to accept the many suitors coming her way, because of me. I love her and would want to marry her but the reality on ground may not favour this. What if after national service I am unable to procure a job to provide the right financial platform for me to execute my plans to marry her? Would she be able to wait for me to be ready?
The issue is, do I advise her to marry one of her suitors? I will appreciate your advice. Thanks and wishing you compliment of the season.
Worried Lover.
Dear Worried Lover,
If you both have been together for four years, this is an issue you can both discuss as frankly as possible.
You have to make her understand your fears for her future, putting special emphasis on her age and the biological lifespan of a woman’s life. While at it, be honest enough to also tell her what your own fears are as well as the details of what your real plans for the future is. For instance, let her have the idea of when you really desire to marry as a man. This is because as a man you have things you must put in place before thinking of settling down. And unless you come from a very rich family and pressure is on you to marry urgently, at 23, you are still very far from being ready to marry as a man. Whereas, at 24, she is almost ready for marriage. One thing is to be in love another thing is to be realistic about certain things in life. Once she graduates and serves, pressure would be on her to marry.
It is when she gets to that junction, that she or you would know if she has what it takes to wait for you or go with another man who is ready.
This is because, the journey of marriage goes beyond what both of you perceive it to be. It is a long journey of ups and downs, of choices, sometimes very critical and tough ones; it is also about doing the right thing at the right time.
Even though marriage begins with the seed of sentiments, it becomes a journey of reality as the days go by.
At 24, how long can she afford to wait for you? What kind of sacrifice is she ready to make for the relationship? This is one choice she has to make on her own without any help from you because it is more about her happiness than yours.
By laying the cards face-up before her, you give her the rare chance of choosing the path she is most comfortable with.
Beyond this, you must also ask yourself this question; how do you really feel about the age difference between the two of you? It may never have bothered you as boyfriend but now that you are at the juncture of making the relationship permanent, how do you really feel about marrying a woman older than you? You may not have on the surface considered it important, but deep in your heart, it may be.
This is because no man, no matter how bleak the future appears to be would willingly encourage the woman he claims to be in love with to consider the proposal of another man.
In all these, both of you have to be truthful about your desires as well as your plans for the future.
If at the end of the day, she feels she cannot wait for your plans to mature, lacks the necessary patience to appreciate the situation you both found yourselves in, let her go. But if after having this talk with her, she agrees to wait for you to be ready, allow her be.
Once she makes up her mind to wait for you, don’t try to persuade her against it in order not to hurt her and insult the love she has for you.
There is no risk a woman in love cannot take, as long as the man in her life is very honest with her. Discussing it is to ensure both of you don’t feel the pains of regrets later in life.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
Thanks for your immeasurable advice and solutions to people with relationship problems, I pray God will also help you in solving your own problems.
I have a problem that needs your attention. I have a girlfriend; we have been together for four years now and thanks to God, have been able to abstain from sex all these years.
I just graduated while she is in her final year, even though she is a year older than I’m 23 years of age. We love each other very much that people around us think I am very much older than she is because she accords me my due respect as a man. But the problem now is, she does not want to accept the many suitors coming her way, because of me. I love her and would want to marry her but the reality on ground may not favour this. What if after national service I am unable to procure a job to provide the right financial platform for me to execute my plans to marry her? Would she be able to wait for me to be ready?
The issue is, do I advise her to marry one of her suitors? I will appreciate your advice. Thanks and wishing you compliment of the season.
Worried Lover.
Dear Worried Lover,
If you both have been together for four years, this is an issue you can both discuss as frankly as possible.
You have to make her understand your fears for her future, putting special emphasis on her age and the biological lifespan of a woman’s life. While at it, be honest enough to also tell her what your own fears are as well as the details of what your real plans for the future is. For instance, let her have the idea of when you really desire to marry as a man. This is because as a man you have things you must put in place before thinking of settling down. And unless you come from a very rich family and pressure is on you to marry urgently, at 23, you are still very far from being ready to marry as a man. Whereas, at 24, she is almost ready for marriage. One thing is to be in love another thing is to be realistic about certain things in life. Once she graduates and serves, pressure would be on her to marry.
It is when she gets to that junction, that she or you would know if she has what it takes to wait for you or go with another man who is ready.
This is because, the journey of marriage goes beyond what both of you perceive it to be. It is a long journey of ups and downs, of choices, sometimes very critical and tough ones; it is also about doing the right thing at the right time.
Even though marriage begins with the seed of sentiments, it becomes a journey of reality as the days go by.
At 24, how long can she afford to wait for you? What kind of sacrifice is she ready to make for the relationship? This is one choice she has to make on her own without any help from you because it is more about her happiness than yours.
By laying the cards face-up before her, you give her the rare chance of choosing the path she is most comfortable with.
Beyond this, you must also ask yourself this question; how do you really feel about the age difference between the two of you? It may never have bothered you as boyfriend but now that you are at the juncture of making the relationship permanent, how do you really feel about marrying a woman older than you? You may not have on the surface considered it important, but deep in your heart, it may be.
This is because no man, no matter how bleak the future appears to be would willingly encourage the woman he claims to be in love with to consider the proposal of another man.
In all these, both of you have to be truthful about your desires as well as your plans for the future.
If at the end of the day, she feels she cannot wait for your plans to mature, lacks the necessary patience to appreciate the situation you both found yourselves in, let her go. But if after having this talk with her, she agrees to wait for you to be ready, allow her be.
Once she makes up her mind to wait for you, don’t try to persuade her against it in order not to hurt her and insult the love she has for you.
There is no risk a woman in love cannot take, as long as the man in her life is very honest with her. Discussing it is to ensure both of you don’t feel the pains of regrets later in life.
Good luck.
Dad divorced mum, even all her children…
With Auntie Agatha,gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I’m an ardent reader of your column and have garnered so much wisdom from it.
My parents have been separated for quite a long time, as a matter of fact, over a decade ago. I’m the eldest of my siblings and over 40 years of age. I concluded my degree in History and International Studies; made a second class lower, contrary to my expectation. I had expected a first class because I have always shone it to the envy of fellow students.
My daddy has gone away with another woman, though they are also separated now. But before this woman came into the scene, my father has had several women in his life while married to my mother.
You see my father happens to be the domineering type. Because I am very quiet, my father considers me as upright. My siblings are bursting with envy. On the contrary, my mother and siblings are at a loggerhead with my father. Most often, the source of their squabbles comes from my immediate younger brother’s obduracy as well as his refusal to go to school. While staying with our eldest sibling, not only became unmanagable but also started selling off some of their belongings. He also refused to be educated even though my eldest sister was willing to send him to school. At the end of the day, she put him into Police custody. He has also gotten many women pregnant.
He isn’t the only one giving the family problems. While another brother of mine is as reckless as he is, one of my sisters married herself, without the consent or knowledge of my father, to a pastor who is separated from his wife.
All efforts by me to reconcile all parties have proved abortive. For reasons best known to my siblings, they don’t like me; they make cutting remarks about me that really hurt. Sincerely, I would have preferred to stay with my father but it is no longer feasible.
I tried to make peace with my father but ended up in him inviting the Police and warnings that I should stay away from him. I tried to get his elder brother involved, but that too didn’t go well as he too warned me to stay away from his brother and the family.
Recently, I went with some non-relatives; a family friend and pastor, but it also didn’t work. Despite my father’s age, he is still very strong. He kept shouting that I am a thief who has come to rob him of his property.
He subsequently packed out of the house when my younger brother sold off his bus, motorcycle and other things. I am worried because most of my siblings are really behaving badly.
I’m keen on making peace with him before he dies. I used to be nearest to his heart. I don’t know what manner of reconciliation to appropriate. He has an unforgiving spirit; my mother has developed hypertension.
Bernete.
Dear Bernete,
We get hurt more by those we consider closest to us. Your father is deeply hurt because he invested so much faith in you more than the others. His disappointment comes from the attitude of your siblings; their attitude as well as resolve to be reckless. The fact that you appear to be in their support left him on his own, underscores his pains and rejection of you.
Try putting yourself in his position, how would you feel if after working so hard in your life to acquire certain level of comfort, your children waste them through careless and criminal living?
No matter what your father has done, it is wrong for your brothers to sell of his belongings.
The fact that all your mother’s children are following a certain way of behaviour underscores the kind of training your mother gave you all. It is one thing for a father to be bad but another thing completely for a mother not to know her onion at all.
A wise woman doesn’t allow the inability or defect of her husband stop her from moulding her children right. Her inability to perform her role effectively is the reason you are all suffering.
That your father left her to marry another woman isn’t enough excuse for her not to give you all the right bearing in life. At least from your explanations, your father didn’t stop caring for you all. His interest in your education paints him as a father on the look out for the future of his children.
If it were only one of your siblings that were misbehaving, your mother would have been excused but almost all of them? It can only mean one thing, that your mother through her behaviour drove your father into the arms of other women.
The pains of your father comes from the thought that at least one of you, especially you, should have seen the contributions of your mother to the breakdown of the marriage; called your mother to order and insist on her doing the right things. The fact that you all appear to be on the side of your mother actually went with her and making him appear as the problem in the marriage hurt him more than you all realised.
It couldn’t have been easy for him at all. His attitude towards you could also come from the things you said or didn’t say. For his brother too to be hostile towards you underscores something terrible you may have also done. It couldn’t have been easy for him to bear the guilt and blame of the two of them.
Honestly, there is no one that can settle this but you. Being close to him, you must find a way of getting him to listen to you, of making him open up his heart to you all over again. If it means staying at his doorsteps everyday, do it. Let him understand that whatever mistakes he thinks you made was done with a child’s mind. That at the time he left your mother, you too were hurt at the lack of his presence in your daily life.
No matter how hard hearted he is, there must be one person somewhere in his life who can talk to him. Get that person to talk to him or his brother who he seems close to. Explain the urgency you feel in making peace with him. Tell them that while you are not wishing him to die so soon, your desire however is to ensure that you make peace with him before he answers the final call. This explanation is important for them to understand why you are suddenly interested in making peace. Your father must know that your interest is not in his property but in his well being and relationship with you. because of his experiences with your siblings, he may be naturally suspicious of your motive in wanting to get back into his life. a man that has been disappointed severally will find it difficult to recognise a good gesture when he finds it. the thing is for you to go all the extra miles to make him see how you really feel.
There must be a reason for the decision you took to follow your mother. Let them know why you didn’t immediately go with him as well as your own pains too as a child.
For a man like your father, you must also learn to pray. When a heart is as hard and pained like his, only God has what it takes to bend him. by praying for him, you are helping him make amends too. Just like you need his forgiveness, he also has to make peace with is God and every other person.
It is also necessary for you to get your mother involved in all these. Don’t forget she laid the foundation for all these mess. She has to be involved in its cleaning. Both of them go a long way back and know what it takes to get the other to listen.
When some men hate a woman, they automatically hate her children too. She has to make that essential sacrifice to ensure that your father doesn’t take his hatred of you all to his grave. This is very important because other interests are also involved in his life.
It is the only way to ensure whatever bad seed she has planted now doesn’t go into the next generation. She must be ready to make that important sacrifice that would insure the rest of your lives.
Going to her husband and in-laws to plead would make it easier for you to have access into your father’s life.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I’m an ardent reader of your column and have garnered so much wisdom from it.
My parents have been separated for quite a long time, as a matter of fact, over a decade ago. I’m the eldest of my siblings and over 40 years of age. I concluded my degree in History and International Studies; made a second class lower, contrary to my expectation. I had expected a first class because I have always shone it to the envy of fellow students.
My daddy has gone away with another woman, though they are also separated now. But before this woman came into the scene, my father has had several women in his life while married to my mother.
You see my father happens to be the domineering type. Because I am very quiet, my father considers me as upright. My siblings are bursting with envy. On the contrary, my mother and siblings are at a loggerhead with my father. Most often, the source of their squabbles comes from my immediate younger brother’s obduracy as well as his refusal to go to school. While staying with our eldest sibling, not only became unmanagable but also started selling off some of their belongings. He also refused to be educated even though my eldest sister was willing to send him to school. At the end of the day, she put him into Police custody. He has also gotten many women pregnant.
He isn’t the only one giving the family problems. While another brother of mine is as reckless as he is, one of my sisters married herself, without the consent or knowledge of my father, to a pastor who is separated from his wife.
All efforts by me to reconcile all parties have proved abortive. For reasons best known to my siblings, they don’t like me; they make cutting remarks about me that really hurt. Sincerely, I would have preferred to stay with my father but it is no longer feasible.
I tried to make peace with my father but ended up in him inviting the Police and warnings that I should stay away from him. I tried to get his elder brother involved, but that too didn’t go well as he too warned me to stay away from his brother and the family.
Recently, I went with some non-relatives; a family friend and pastor, but it also didn’t work. Despite my father’s age, he is still very strong. He kept shouting that I am a thief who has come to rob him of his property.
He subsequently packed out of the house when my younger brother sold off his bus, motorcycle and other things. I am worried because most of my siblings are really behaving badly.
I’m keen on making peace with him before he dies. I used to be nearest to his heart. I don’t know what manner of reconciliation to appropriate. He has an unforgiving spirit; my mother has developed hypertension.
Bernete.
Dear Bernete,
We get hurt more by those we consider closest to us. Your father is deeply hurt because he invested so much faith in you more than the others. His disappointment comes from the attitude of your siblings; their attitude as well as resolve to be reckless. The fact that you appear to be in their support left him on his own, underscores his pains and rejection of you.
Try putting yourself in his position, how would you feel if after working so hard in your life to acquire certain level of comfort, your children waste them through careless and criminal living?
No matter what your father has done, it is wrong for your brothers to sell of his belongings.
The fact that all your mother’s children are following a certain way of behaviour underscores the kind of training your mother gave you all. It is one thing for a father to be bad but another thing completely for a mother not to know her onion at all.
A wise woman doesn’t allow the inability or defect of her husband stop her from moulding her children right. Her inability to perform her role effectively is the reason you are all suffering.
That your father left her to marry another woman isn’t enough excuse for her not to give you all the right bearing in life. At least from your explanations, your father didn’t stop caring for you all. His interest in your education paints him as a father on the look out for the future of his children.
If it were only one of your siblings that were misbehaving, your mother would have been excused but almost all of them? It can only mean one thing, that your mother through her behaviour drove your father into the arms of other women.
The pains of your father comes from the thought that at least one of you, especially you, should have seen the contributions of your mother to the breakdown of the marriage; called your mother to order and insist on her doing the right things. The fact that you all appear to be on the side of your mother actually went with her and making him appear as the problem in the marriage hurt him more than you all realised.
It couldn’t have been easy for him at all. His attitude towards you could also come from the things you said or didn’t say. For his brother too to be hostile towards you underscores something terrible you may have also done. It couldn’t have been easy for him to bear the guilt and blame of the two of them.
Honestly, there is no one that can settle this but you. Being close to him, you must find a way of getting him to listen to you, of making him open up his heart to you all over again. If it means staying at his doorsteps everyday, do it. Let him understand that whatever mistakes he thinks you made was done with a child’s mind. That at the time he left your mother, you too were hurt at the lack of his presence in your daily life.
No matter how hard hearted he is, there must be one person somewhere in his life who can talk to him. Get that person to talk to him or his brother who he seems close to. Explain the urgency you feel in making peace with him. Tell them that while you are not wishing him to die so soon, your desire however is to ensure that you make peace with him before he answers the final call. This explanation is important for them to understand why you are suddenly interested in making peace. Your father must know that your interest is not in his property but in his well being and relationship with you. because of his experiences with your siblings, he may be naturally suspicious of your motive in wanting to get back into his life. a man that has been disappointed severally will find it difficult to recognise a good gesture when he finds it. the thing is for you to go all the extra miles to make him see how you really feel.
There must be a reason for the decision you took to follow your mother. Let them know why you didn’t immediately go with him as well as your own pains too as a child.
For a man like your father, you must also learn to pray. When a heart is as hard and pained like his, only God has what it takes to bend him. by praying for him, you are helping him make amends too. Just like you need his forgiveness, he also has to make peace with is God and every other person.
It is also necessary for you to get your mother involved in all these. Don’t forget she laid the foundation for all these mess. She has to be involved in its cleaning. Both of them go a long way back and know what it takes to get the other to listen.
When some men hate a woman, they automatically hate her children too. She has to make that essential sacrifice to ensure that your father doesn’t take his hatred of you all to his grave. This is very important because other interests are also involved in his life.
It is the only way to ensure whatever bad seed she has planted now doesn’t go into the next generation. She must be ready to make that important sacrifice that would insure the rest of your lives.
Going to her husband and in-laws to plead would make it easier for you to have access into your father’s life.
Good luck.
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