She drops no dime to run our home, abhors creative lovemaking

With Auntie Agatha,gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com,Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, First of all, I would like to thank and congratulate you that through your kind, gentle, firm and wisely advice, so many homes and families have been saved, and many young couples like me have been prevented from making mistakes that might have resulted in destroying our homes. May the Almighty and Everlasting God continue to bless you beyond your imagination and may he continue to guide and protect your family from all problems. Amen. My questions bother on two issues that are beginning to affect my very young and dream home. We have known each other for a decade. We courted for six months and have been married for over a year. The first issue has to do with money. While my wife insists I should declare what I earn and my financial position, she refuses to declare hers. While she expects me to be dedicated to the growth of the home, she cannot be bothered. She doesn’t think she has obligations to contribute all she earns to the family purse. We never really had any issue on finances during courtship, because most of the time, I was the one making most of the financial contributions for all our activities. Please it would go a long way in reducing the tension in my home if you could explain and give us pieces advice on the best way of handling our finances as we prepare for new additions into our home. The second issue has to do with sex, which, as I have noticed in our society today, people don’t like talking about. We never had sex until we got married, my friends that got married three or four years ago, still find it difficult to talk about sex and how couples can improve their sex life. When it comes to issues of sex, I am very adventurous and liberal minded, whereas my wife is more of the conservative and reserved type. Is it wrong for a couple to engage in oral and anal sex? While some people have said that oral and anal sex is wrong, because it causes pains and sickness, others have said it is another form of enjoying yourself as a couple. We have read so many articles on these issues and my wife still believes that oral and anal sex is bad and causes some forms of sickness. Your wise advice on these issues will definitely assist and help us in building our home just as it would also assist other couples in similar situations. Faithful Fan. Dear Faithful Fan, Marriage is a delicate balance of every human experience. The thing is not to allow the scale tilt too much in favour of all the other factors that make a home ideal. More than anything else, I am glad for your interest in protecting your home. God will see you through. Finance has always been the blight in most marriages especially with young couples, who are still to understand the dynamism of marriage. This is why you should not blame your wife too much. Don’t forget that while you were dating, you single-handedly shouldered all the financial responsibilities without asking for her input. You did this for six years without complaining; therefore she has gotten used to you spending the money in the relationship. The only thing, in her opinion, that has changed is that you are now married to her, the more reason for you as the man to continue to provide for the home. Change is something people find very difficult to do. Being a woman too, she has been brought up to think that men alone shoulder all the responsibilities in a marriage. Take it from me, it would take time for the scale of idealism to fall off her eyes. Experience remains the best teacher, until she gets to the bus stop of reality. You simply have to patiently keep explaining why you alone cannot bear the burden of the family. If you use force, you will lose the battle. Your option is to appeal to her. Good enough, she knows your monthly take home pay. Gradually outline the limitation of your resources to her especially as the baby is on the way. Let her know how far you can go as well as the need for you to keep something little away in case of emergency which could be baby taking ill suddenly, increased house rents, school fees, faulty car or important family members requiring one form of assistance or the other. There are of course the necessary things like cloths, fuel, electricity bills and upgrading the home equipment. Put a price against all these needs, deduct the important ones from the money you earn and let her see how much is left if you indeed have anything left at all. The beauty of marriage is sustained when the wife offers her unconditional support to her husband. Sit her down for a serious talk. Take her back to when you both started and how you willingly took on the challenge of providing her needs. Assure her that you are not about to abandon your responsibilities to her, but asking her to appreciate your limitations. It is something that has to come from within her, a deep concern for the peace and progress of your home. She has to know that unless you have access to the nation’s treasury or extremely rich through wise investment, there is no way you alone can provide the family’s entire need. So many things will suffer neglect, which will invariably affect the quality of your home and marriage. Remember you are in this forever. So stop pretending to do what you know you cannot do. It is time you made her face reality regarding your abilities. Sincerely, you made a mistake from the beginning, which I hope men in your situation will learn from. From the beginning you gave her the impression that you can do it alone while she is left to spend her money the way she likes. If you had during your courtship years, gradually allowed her to participate financially in the sustenance of the relationship, what you are asking now won’t be so strange to her. She is reacting this way because she has never been made to contribute financially to anything by you. It is like a baby whose mother is trying to introduce to other kinds of food, the child will naturally at the beginning resist such attempts. You will have to patiently win this battle for the sake of the peace in your home. Another way to do it is to agree on a monthly allowance for housekeep. Once you agree on an amount, make it clear it is what you can afford for the entire month. The only time she would object is if you on your own take the decision to fix the monthly allowance. As long as you discuss it with her, she would have no choice but administer the money judiciously to the point of supplementing it. Once you are truthful with her, there should be no problem. At every point, come clean with her. Don’t hide anything from her or insist on how she spends her money. By the time you give her what you can afford at the end of the month, she would have no choice but to assist you in some areas. Women do these things without the men insisting on it too much. It is a lesson life teaches in the many classrooms it provides us with. On the issue of sex, sincerely, it is an individual thing. Both of you must agree on comfortable positions to get the best out of it. But you must talk about it with a free mind. Not talking about it makes a marriage dull and emotionally stagnant. Sex is very important to peace and happiness at home. And it isn’t just a man and woman coming together for the sake of it, but because it is the important tool of creating the nectar of profound intimacy and exceptional bond in a marriage. Not to talk about it is to retire the marriage before it has the chance to walk. But given the attitude of your wife, you might have to gradually introduce these changes without her being aware. A lot depend on your expertise and sense of adventure. Some of the lessons of sex come during the act itself, not before it. Delight her to a very romantic evening to break her down while you plot your moves. In the bedroom, use more of your fingers at the beginning, taking special note of her erotic zones. Once you are sure where her weakest spots are, apply the pressure aimed at making her ask for more. By then, she will be willing to experiment if it means more pleasure from you. No woman is frigid, only a lousy man who doesn’t know his left from his right. Oral sex and whatever position you want will be a matter of time. As long as you are both faithful to each other, there is nothing to fear in whatever positions you assumed in your quest to find the ultimate satisfaction in your marriage. This is because what works for one person may not work for the other person. The success of marriage is encapsulated in our sense of adventure and honesty with ourselves and situations. Good luck.