My wife lied about everything

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, My marriage is barely six months old but, I am already finding it very boring having sex with my wife. Although I don’t want to go into details of what transpired during our courtship for decency sake as well as out of respect to the vows we took but, suffice to say, my first night with her was a huge disappointment. I discovered she lied to me about almost everything. I won’t lie, I have had my fair share of experiences before meeting her. I can tell when a woman has been around or has had a baby. From what I discovered that night, a lot of water has passed under her bridge. Being from a strict Catholic home, coupled with the fact that my mother’s favorite aunty introduced her to me, I know without being told that divorce is out of it. I have therefore decided to bury my disappointment and go on with the marriage. But it hasn’t been easy because each day, I stay with her, I discover more and more lies. I am finding everything about our marriage very irritating. I told my father everything. He said, he would respect any decision I make given the fact that she lied to me. Despite this, I still think I should give the marriage a chance; to discover like you often say on this page, her inner qualities. Six months on, it is one disappointment after the other. She is dirty; so dirty that she doesn’t bother to flush the toilet after using it. I have scolded her without any results; I had to relocate to another room because I wasn’t brought up that way. Since the house was beginning to give off offensive odor, I had to employ the services of a house-keeper to take care of the house. Until the house-keeper came, I couldn’t go near the kitchen for fear of throwing up. Agatha, I waited until 39 years to get married. Now it seems all my waiting has been in vain. I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t feel any excitement for her as a man. I thought my marriage would end all my years of night crawling but it seems it won’t. Although I haven’t gone outside my marriage, I fear that if things continue like this, I will. I am asking for help on how to end my nightmare. I have refused to discuss anything with her since that night of our first intimacy. Please Agatha, help me. Alex. Dear Alex, Obviously, trust has been bridged somewhere. It is not always easy to overlook the fact that one has been lied to. It is more painful when that person is someone close and dear. Often than not, the pain of such betrayal, never goes away. I can only guess she lied to you about being a virgin. She may have told you that when she met you to earn your respect but became extremely difficult for her to change the story when you showed signs of staying permanently in her life. While not trying to find an easy bed for her to fall on, the reality is, she was afraid to tell you the truth after all she told you at the beginning of your relationship. Unfortunately, the truth came when it was too late for you to do anything about. Therefore the issue now, is not how to undo the lies she told you but, how to move your marriage from the position her lies have stationed it. To help you come to a realization of how to proceed, ask yourself these important questions; how did you feel when you thought she was a virgin? Deep down was it one of the major considerations you pushed forward when making the decision to marry her? Having played the field and with the kind of experiences you admit to concerning women, wasn’t it possible that deep down certain things about her behavior and mannerism told you she lied about being a virgin but, which you decided to ignore because you wanted to marry a virgin? In retrospect, don’t you think you deliberately ignored those signs that broadcast her experiences because you wanted to believe her lies? Isn’t it possible too that the many things you are complaining about now wouldn’t have mattered if you met her a virgin? Would you have been patient to teach her how to maintain your home and warm your heart? Are your grievances not mere excuses to pave way for whatever future plans you may have to end your marriage? Sometimes we magnify situations more than they really are when angry, upset, disappointed or determined to have our way. Your wife may not really be as bad as you have painted her but, being very disappointed with her, angry at the series of lies she told you, you could have blocked your mind against all her efforts and positive sides. Until you are ready to bury your disappointments, you will never have the clarity of mind to properly tackle the issues in your marriage. Knowing your church will never support or approve of you divorcing her, why not address the issues in your marriage like a man instead of hiding under your disappointment to find faults with everything that your marriage represents? Given the kinds of lies she told, you have every right to be angry with her. But what you don’t have the right to do is to keep quiet about your observations; the law of justness kicks against it. Every issue that comes up in a marriage must be discussed irrespective of whether it is palatable or not, to enable the offending party know where the error is. Ideally, you should have discussed the matter with her the moment you discovered that she wasn’t a virgin. Refusing to discuss the matter with her meant you accepted her claims as true. Six months after living with her as her husband, there is no way you can convince anybody that you didn’t meet her a virgin. It is her words against yours if the matter ever comes into the open. The question she and others will ask is, why didn’t you point out the obvious that night? Whatever your reasons were for keeping quiet that night are wrong. And since you didn’t bother then to confront her, it is either you forget it completely and give your marriage a chance to move beyond the point you have placed it through your own cowardice to act as the man when you should have. If you choose to discuss your observations with her, be bold enough to come clean with everything you think is wrong. For instance, if you suspect she has given birth to a baby before, ask her and let her explain everything to you. To get her to open up to you, don’t be confrontational. Begin by asking her why she lied to you about being a virgin. From there, go into other things like her poor housekeeping and attitude. There is no marriage without a problem or that is perfect. Perfection comes with a lot of sacrifices and difficult choices. There is nothing stopping you from making this marriage a happy one as long as you can let go of the pains of your discovery. You won’t be the first man to discover his wife lied to him about being a virgin. A lot of women are doing that these days, telling men what they want to hear. It is bad, callous and deceptive but how are you sure the next woman won’t be worse than the one you are leaving? Life is a gamble. Who knows, by the time she is through with her story, you may have forgotten to be angry? Once you are able to forgive her, all the other things wrong with her attitude and manner will be sorted out by the two of you. Your marriage needs forgiveness to heal. Ask God for His help. Good luck.

Re: lion’s share of my father’s property.

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I stumbled on your piece and admire the manner with which you handled the issues that can jeopardize the future of Ese. Thank you for the counsel. What you told her is the truth. I wish I can reach her for us to share experiences. We have similar stories. My late father’s brother at the death of my father appropriated the building he jointly built with my father. He didn’t stop there, he went ahead to allocate their family’s only piece of land to his son. He also seized their mother’s building, jointly shared to him and my late father. He re-allocated the property to his children leaving us completely homeless. It was indeed a very difficult situation but I left everything to God not withstanding, the kinds of advices people were giving me. To the glory of God, the story is different today. I have built my own house. My siblings are also property owners; both developed and undeveloped in very choice areas of Port-Harcourt. They are also doing very well in their various endeavors. It is a thing of joy that we didn’t allow my uncle’s action stop us from seeking our dreams. We were focused and pursued our aspirations. We are today all graduates, pursuing for second and third degrees respectively. His children on the other hand are wayward. Maybe if I had pushed too hard, he would have eliminated me like he threatened to. Ese should leave them and move on with her education so that she can be a formidable force after graduation. My uncle today is impressed by our success and has been finding ways of reconciliation. I have forgiven him but we don’t need him or anything from him. So Ese, should run for her dear life and listen to what you advised. Lawrence.