I married the father, pregnant for the son

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, There is no name you will call me that I haven’t called myself. I feel so ashamed, but I cannot help myself. My husband of one year is 26 years older than I am, while his first son is two years my senior. His first wife is late. We met when he came to visit the father of my best friend. Through my friend he got my number and since he was loaded, I went against the counsel of my family and friends to marry him. I have always told anyone that cared to listen that, I would marry for money and not love because of what my mother went through in the hands of my father and his people. So when he came with so much money, I didn’t consider the age differences. His children too didn’t support me, but since he was in love with me; they didn’t have a choice but to accept me especially as he threatened to disinherit any child who went against his wishes. As at the time I married him last year, his first son was away in England. Now he is back and I find myself wanting him more than anything in the world. Severally, I have tried to make him sleep with me, but he won’t. I know I am acting shamelessly being married to his father, but I simply cannot stop loving him. This prompted me to seek the help of a spiritualist who gave me something I have been putting in their drinks. The spiritualist gave me two different substances he said would make the son love me on one hand and the father to hate me on the other hand. From the moment they each drank their substances, the son became all over me while my husband doesn’t even care about me or know anything happening around him anymore. Since my husband started taking the substance, his health has started to depreciate so much so he is now a shadow of his old self. He behaves like a baby. He appears to have lost all initiative of his own. About three weeks ago, he suffered minor stroke. His family members are now accusing me of being the cause of his problem. As if that isn’t enough, I am pregnant for his son. When I told him, he sat down and began to cry, denying ever sleeping with me. He said he isn’t a bastard that would attempt sleeping with his father’s wife. Something tells me he has recognition of what took place between us but he isn’t so sure of it. However, he avoids me these days and refuses to come near me. He obviously has regained himself. The friend who took me to the spiritualist says we should go back to renew the charm and that I should keep the baby. But what will happen if my husband dies? From what I am seeing, I would be without anything if he dies. And even if I keep this pregnancy, his son may never accept it from me. The only thing I can do is to pass it off as his, but should they insist on DNA test, will it not reveal who the real father of the child is? Do you suggest I keep the baby? How do I make the son accept the paternity of the baby should the test point him as being responsible? My friend said going back to the spiritualist would undo what he did to my husband, but that would mean having to explain to him how I came about the baby. I am so confused. Please, help me. I need your help urgently. Confused Wife. Dear Confused Wife, Calling you names won’t resolve the issues on the ground. But the truth has to be told irrespective of what you think. You have definitely wrapped yourself in a very tight web, one that will definitely cause more problems for you if not properly managed. Even at that there is no wishing away the permanent injury your selfishness has brought on this once happy family. First thing you should do now is to desist from discussing your problems with your friends, especially the one who took you to the spiritualist. You have done so much harm already. Your going to that spiritualist is mainly the cause of the huge commotion in your life. This is of course in addition to your greed as a woman. If not greed, you should never have married him in the first place, because you knew you didn’t have any feelings for him. Having married him, you should have also have realised that temptations will come from other younger men and prepare for it. Your responsibility to your husband is to remain faithful to him at all times. At the point you said you do to this man, you had no right to be interested in another man, especially his son. Nobody forced you into marrying him. You did of your own accord, so you should have had the reserve to resist the attraction of another man. It was the same greed that pushed you to the spiritualist who did what you paid him to do – to gradually kill your husband all because you desired his son. What did you expect that the son would continue in an affair with you after the charm wears off? He can deny being the father of your child because he slept with you against his will, he wasn’t even aware of what he was doing because your charm blinded him to reason. The simple truth is, all the time he was sleeping with you, he wasn’t conscious of the act. So that part of his brain is completely blank. If you argue with him from today till tomorrow, he will never be convinced that he is the father of your unborn baby. Besides, how are you going to explain to the world that you were sleeping with both father and son at the same time? What moral ground do you have to insist that your stepson got you pregnant? Furthermore, the issue on the ground now goes beyond the issue of your pregnancy to the life of the man who is very ill as a result of the substance you gave him. It would be in your interest to pray he doesn’t die in the process because you remain the prime suspect especially if poison is found in his system. Do all you can to reverse whatever the spiritualist did to put him in that condition. Go back to the spiritualist to undo whatever he did to your husband. What is important now is his life, and not the mundane issue of the paternity of your child. The only offence that man committed was to propose and marry you. He sincerely doesn’t deserve to die on account of that. So, if you felt anything for him at the point you agreed to marry him, please do it to save his life. Even if you don’t need him, his children do. He married you because he wanted company in his old age following the death of his wife. You really don’t have to stay married to him if you don’t want him anymore, but allow him the grace to his health and life. How would you feel if he eventually dies as a result of the things you have been putting in his drinks? If despite the charms you have been lacing the drinks of the son, he still manages to regain his senses it is only a matter of time before your husband becomes aware of what you have done or who got you pregnant. At least from the age of the pregnancy, he would know if he is responsible or not. The knowledge that you are pregnant with another man’s child is enough; getting to know that his son got you pregnant will definitely kill him. So the responsible thing is for you to bow out of their lives, because you lack the qualities this man needs in his woman. Marrying for money is one thing. It becomes frightening when you become desperate enough to go to the length you had gone in order to achieve your aim of charming both son and father. Marriage needs commitment, loyalty, sacrifices and selflessness to make it work at every point. Once a woman cannot give it to her husband, there is no basis for the marriage. If you were talking from the point of regret at what you have done to this family; it would have been a different story but that you are more bothered about your baby and person means given the opportunity to do what you did all over again, you won’t hesitate. Self-discipline makes a whole lot of difference in life. You lack it. Since money is your motivation, you may get something out of him if you insist on divorce while he is still alive, but if you stay until he dies, you will never be able to get anything. As for your pregnancy, you knew what you were doing when you made the choice to sleep with your son-in-law therefore the choice to keep it or not is yours. Even if the DNA result remains inconclusive since father and son share the same gene, in your heart you know who the father is. This issue is a matter of conscience. If you have one, you will know the right thing to do. Good luck.

He says I’m not romantic enough for his liking…

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com., el: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, Please help me. My husband keeps describing me as being very unromantic. I have done my best but he keeps complaining. I don’t know what else to do because he is the first man in my life. I don’t have any friend to turn to. This isn’t something I can discuss with my mother, and since I don’t have an elder sister, only an elder brother whose wife isn’t very friendly, I want you to help me. How can I become the kind of woman he wants? He is the kind of man I also cannot talk to. He is very distant from me and any attempt to ask him what it is I am doing wrong could turn into a misunderstanding. Although I am shy asking this question, is it true that when a woman puts to bed, her person expands? After the birth of our set of twins, my husband said I have expanded to the extent he doesn’t get any satisfaction from me anymore. I am pregnant again and so afraid if this birth will further deteriorate my person. I so much want my husband to be happy, but the more I try the more problems I rake up. Agatha, I am very unhappy. At 30, I am beginning to grey so much so my pubic pair is completely white. In our four years of marriage he has never complimented me on anything. I am beginning to suspect he doesn’t love me and that he just married me when he found out I was a virgin and naïve. He is 12 years older than I am and at the time we met, he was dating this woman he told me is his age mate and very worldly. Although I don’t have any evidence, but I think they are back together because of the kind of perfume he comes home bathed with and the kind of cars he brings home. Whenever I ask where he got the cars from, he barks at me. My parents will never take me back, hence my decision to stay in this marriage and find ways of making him happy. Do whatever you can for me; I beg you in the name of God. Ronny. Dear Ronny, First things first! Relax and begin to believe in your own worth as a woman. This is important to your health and your unborn child. The naked truth is; your children would suffer the most should anything happen to you. This is because your husband would eventually remarry to a woman who may not like your children at all. Forever, they would remain motherless so it is in your interest to be alive to care for them yourself. No matter what you think is happening to you now would be nothing compared to their everlasting pains and sorrow should you worry yourself to death. It is only when you are alive that you can worry about marital problems, so must strive to stay alive first. Every other thing is secondary. There is no marriage that hasn’t its challenges. The difference is the kind of attitude deployed into resolving marital conflicts. If you are determined that this time is a learning period in your marriage; a time to sow, you will definitely come out of this smelling roses. On the other hand, if you see this as a cul-de-sac, there is nothing anybody, including you, can do to make it work. The key to the success or death of your marriage lies in your heart. There is nothing a determined heart cannot achieve. Foremost, be rest assured that there is nothing wrong with your person. The woman’s body is divinely constructed by God to stretch at childbirth and contract thereafter. Unless you went through a badly done episiotomy or had a bad tear that was badly sown, there is no reason your body shouldn’t snap back into form. Even if this is the case, rather than make an issue of it, the right thing your husband should have told you is to go back to your gynecologist. That he didn’t but elected to make an issue out of it to hurt or spite you, pay no attention to what he is saying. It is a game some men play to justify affairs they are having outside their homes. He is using the psychological approach to make you either quit or mask his affairs. The intention is to make you take the blame for whatever he is doing outside; to make you feel guilty as a means of defending his actions. The decision to leave or not is yours to make but it would help you a great deal to put things in their proper perspective. What is your marriage worth? How much do you love your husband and home? What kind of sacrifices are you willing to make in the process of keeping your home? Finally do you have the emotional strength to weather this storm? If you are already going grey all over, it means you may not have the kind of emotional toughness required to fight this kind of battle to a logical end. Frankly, this is the point in your life you become so unbiased about the kind of step to take. You need to sit down to think with a crystal mind. Being real about yourself and marriage is the only way you can win this battle. If you elect to stay; then be prepared to ignore so many things; including the kinds of perfumes that follows him home, the kinds of cars he brings home, the number of times he bothers to come home, the kinds of names or things he says to you as well as his general attitude towards you. Doubtless, these things can be extremely difficult to ignore but for your sake and determination to stay put, you must. The grey hair all over would disappear once you make up your mind to be happy, let go of all the tension inside of you. Life is a choice so is everything that has to do with it. At every point, no matter the situation, we must learn to appreciate and thank God because life is a huge canvass. What we become in life is what we leave on it. The moment you stop making an issue of whatever he is doing to hurt you by ignoring him and pretending you are unaware of his motives; the battle would have been half won by you. A simple change of disposition makes a whole lot of differences in the battles we fight for in life. Besides, nobody can make you feel inferior or worthless if you don’t allow such retrogressive thoughts. Even if he doesn’t notice anything you are doing now, be resolute in making the little changes on your own. Remember you are no longer the naïve girl he married. You are now a woman and a mother. Since he likes the sophisticated, up grade your look. If there is a way you can spy the kinds of cloths the other woman likes, do, and copy them. Everything is fair in a war game. You are fighting for the heart of your husband and home. The other woman is an outsider. He married you because he saw something she doesn’t have. Even if that thing was your virginity, he still married you and not her. You may not like the kinds of cloths but since you husband appreciates them in another woman, wear them. Another thing is to stop exhibiting fear in his presence. He is after all your husband. Respect him, but don’t be timid in presenting your views to him. If you can go to God with freedom, nothing should stop you from going to your husband too. Some men like women who stimulate their intellect. Coming home to a woman who doesn’t know how to discuss with him, is obviously afraid to approach him let alone voice her opinion on an issue may not be his kind of thing. Such a man may really find you boring. But if you begin to engage him in intelligent discussion on the economy, social and political situation of the country, he is bound to be curious. There is no way sex can be fun between two people who don’t have a clue as to what makes the other person happy. Sex is supposed to be fun and intimate; a tool of communication and bond between a couple. This is the time to give freedom to all your fantasies. No matter how strict your upbringing was, you must at one time or the other fantasised about your marriage, husband and sex. Drag out those secret dreams and give them wings to fly. Invest on sexy nightgowns, perfumes and a good book that teaches the A-Z of quality sex. Work on your firmness by cutting off the flow of urine midway. Hold for about a minute intermittently until you are through. It helps to firm up the muscles inside the wall of vagina. This is something you can do at anytime. At first, it may be difficult but with patience and determination, you will eventually win the battle as long as you place all your trust in God. Importantly, go on your knees and ask God to bring him back to you. Also pray the things you don’t want in him and your marriage out. In addition ask for wisdom in your dealings with him. If you are persistent in your resolve, he will eventually come back home, no matter the attraction the other woman presents to him because he married you and not her. Good luck.

Dropping two of my three dates is taxing

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, I have three dates and love all of them but I have got to a point where I want to choose one of them. But it is impossible. Please help me. Jane. Dear Jane, Why is it impossible for you to settle for one of them? Is it that you cannot do without all three of them in your life or that you really don’t know what you want in a man and from life generally? When a woman has her own dream, where she is going and what she needs to succeed become clearer. The fact that you are in three relationships concurrently underscores your own lack of a clear-cut ambition in life. So, your problem isn’t just about not knowing the right man for you from the three men you are dating, but with your own placement of your future. Honestly, your choice would become clearer if you begin from now to think about your life more seriously than you currently are doing. First, you need to sit back and plan your life. What have you always wanted to be? As a matter of fact, do you have a dream at all? As a young girl just starting out in life, it behooves you to help yourself become successful later in life by laying the right kind of foundation for yourself. You need to do this to get going in life because a time would come when you would become less attractive and the number men interested in you would cease. It is only when you do this that you will be better informed on the kind of man you need to help you propel the engine of your life. In the meantime, you need to appraise yourself, your worth as a woman. If you don’t act quickly and all the three men find out that you have been triple dating, you stand to lose them all because they will regard you as a lady with very little moral values. Besides, have you sat to think of the consequences and the needless stress you put yourself through trying to divide your attention between all these men? Have you ever considered the possibility of getting pregnant and none of these men willing to take responsibility? Would you really blame any of them if they decline? A woman is worth the value she places on her body and person. No matter the attraction each one of these men presents you, you have to learn from this stage of your life to depend on one man. The danger of continuing in your kind of lifestyle lies in your inability to remain faithful to one man. No matter the reason or excuse you have for keeping three men; it goes against all normal norms. A woman who has respect for her body stays with one man. There is no way you will not be confused because the time you would have devoted in a day getting to properly study one man, you deploy into the study of the three men. The result is bouquet of emotional confusion because you haven’t given yourself the opportunity to even know who any of these men is. Every relationship needs attention, understanding, and honesty to survive all the attendant issues that come with two strangers coming together. None of these relationships has character due to your inability to invest the substance, definition, value and loyalty into any of them. The essence of a relationship is to prepare us for the stormy terrains of marriage. If your relationships are characterised by unfaithfulness and lack of trust, what kind of wife would you be to your husband? Would you have the kind of enduring abilities to assist him to weather the storm when they come in full blast? Would you ever grow the kind of patience needed in every marriage to succeed? Would you ever be able to stay in your marriage without having the temptations to look outside for some exciting moments? In addition to all these, you also risk ending up with the wrong man at the end of the day. One way to cure your confusion is to keep your distance from all these men. Take a break. You sincerely need it to make a very good decision for yourself. It just could be none of these men is even your Mr. Right. You may not have noticed the man because you are so caught up in your own games to be real with yourself. There is no way you can really be happy unless you aid yourself to be happy. Good luck.

I can’t understand my wife anymore

With Agatha Edo,Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com ,gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com ,08054500626 Dear Agatha, I got married almost six years ago and I’m blessed with two wonderful kids. I have a problem understanding the kind of wife I married. She is so unbearable and picks up quarrel on every little thing. She lacks respect for herself as well as I, her husband. The most annoying thing is she appears oblivious to the fact that she is married. She uses her time in discussing irrelevancies with my cousin to the extent she does not notice when I come into the house. This is a woman I have tried very hard to make happy even though times are very rough for me due to economic recession in the stock market. She hardly can apologise for anything. I am not a drunk but her excesses make me hot when I am fed up by her attitude. I am tired of her and don’t feel anything for her anymore. The feeling is mutual as she also doesn’t feel anything for me too. What can I do? I wanted to leave the house for her but can’t because of the children who will suffer, as she is not doing anything. She is currently schooling and learning hairdressing. She does not tell me anything she does and I hate that with a passion; she also hates correction. I am crazy and don’t want to commit murder. Please counsel me. George D. Dear George D, Obviously there is a huge problem in your marriage; the kind that requires a lot of thoughts, wisdom, honesty as well as sacrifices to change. You also require a reason for this marriage to succeed. Thank goodness, you have a valid one; the children who will really suffer if you make good your threat to abandon home for her. This, itself is a positive sign that your marriage can survive the storm if properly guided and managed. One thing you must first understand about every marriage is the imperfection of it. No marriage is perfect because it involves humans; two people with different ideologies, cultures, attitudes, upbringing, values and outlook. To expect anything less than imperfection is to delude oneself about the entire concept of the institution. Often than not our partners are mirror images of our deficiencies. The more you dwell on the flaws of your wife, the more you destroy the chances of the survival of your once happy home. This is because she too will refuse to take her eyes off your own faults too. The essence of marriage is companionship. And in the process of it, lots of compromises must be negotiated to achieve its main function of offering friendship in our adult lives. No matter how much you each love your parents or kids, a time would come when you would need each other; the grey and brittle days when the dimness of the eyes reflect all the pains, sacrifices of all the years and when the laughter web tell the happy moments in life. That is the age when the consequences of certain decisions taken in haste come back with all viciousness of a nasty ghost to haunt. By then, the children would be in their homes managing their affairs. Then it won’t matter so much who was at fault to the children in the beginning; their attitude would be, “you should have stayed for us.” It is this time you in particular should think of. How would your children view your decisions now in later years? Would they forever condemn you, making it impossible for you to enjoy their comfort later in life or bring them closer to you? Frankly, if you hope to solve this problem substantially, you and your wife must be ready to tell each other some basic truths at every point in your marriage. First, you must realise that no woman respects a man who is violent. Your wife is a grown up woman, an adult; hence to hit her, someone you vowed before the world to protect in the presence of her children is devaluing your integrity and position as the head of the house. You must know that feelings are not like taps that can be turned on and off at will. For every hand you raise against her, you kill something deep and valuable right inside of her. So if she is rude and very disrespectful, you asked for it by your own conduct of hitting her. As a father, how would you feel seeing another man batter your own daughter? Any man who is unable to control his temper has no right to label his wife as being insolent. One of the first things you must do is to divest yourself of that foul temper. Even if you leave this woman to marry another woman, you will still have problems if your way of establishing your authority as a man is through physical use of force. Every man knows that women generally exhibit very little restrains when it comes to the application of their tongues. It is the nature of a woman to talk before thinking. Sensible men have since come to realise that reacting to every word the woman says in her moment of agitation will make them appear very insane to a world that is ignorant of the genesis of the situation. This is because, when a man beats his wife, it is her cries and pains people get to hear, not the reason for those cries. Therefore, do what some men do, walk away if you aren’t strong enough to ignore her or stop eating her food for a while to drive home your anger. No woman is always comfortable when her husband ignores her food and person for too long. Trust me this works better than hitting her. Over time, she will begin to respect your approach and person better than when you were hitting her. She will begin to exercise some restraints in her attitude and disposition towards you generally. A mere glance from some men is enough to make the woman think twice before saying anything. The reaction of a woman to a violent husband is like that of a child. When a child is subjected to frequent beating, the child soon develops a thick skin; making correction very difficult to impact. No matter how bad your wife is, you have erased all your advantages by being physical. By beating her you not only expose her to the ridicule of neighbours but yourself too as a man unable to control his temper. Nasty neighbours and friends cash in on such situations of make fun of the woman; call her names in the process causing her to be more determined to make life a living hell for the man for exposing her pains to all and sundry. Her attitude of insolence is to make you too feel her pains and embarrassment; to let you know how it feels to be humiliated. Even if you cannot apologise, let her know you are willing to change through your attitude towards her. But as the man, it behooves you to take the decisive steps of growing your home into an ideal one by initiating a dialogue aimed at getting to the bottom of your problems in your home. There must be something you saw in her that tilted the scale in her favour during your days of searching for the right woman. Dig it up from wherever you kept it. Such memories are what you need now to help pull your marriage off this abyss. To get the full picture, encourage her to talk about all her disappointments. By so doing, you will get the benefit of her thoughts, likes and clues on the way forward for both of you. Always remember that just as it takes two to tango, it also takes two to create a situation in a marriage. She cannot, on her own, have brought about all the pains and distress in your marriage without your help and inputs. Where you are wrong, be humane enough to apologise and where right, insist on it with love. Marriage is compromises and sacrifices. Both of you must learn to shift grounds a little bit for the sake of yourselves and those children who for now need your presence and care. All you need is determination to make it work. As the head of the home, you can stand in gap for your wife. Pray out what you don’t want in her. God is very much in the business of making right what has gone wrong. Good luck.