My mother is kicking against my happiness

Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, Please help me find a solution to my problem. I am 34 years of age. Three years ago, I lost my fiancé to a terrible accident along Ilorin-Abuja road. It was a very terrible time for me because I was three months pregnant at the time of the accident and my wedding five days away. I lost the pregnancy and a will to live. But as God would have it, I bounced back to life two years ago when I met my present boyfriend. He took away all my pains and sorrows. He gave me back my life. Again, I am pregnant for him; actually four months and his people are ready to pay my bride price. This time it isn’t an accident that is trying to rob me of my happiness. Rather it is my mother who is kicking against my happiness. First she says, she won’t allow my boyfriend pay my bride price and that she won’t allow me marry him. According to her, she doesn’t like his family, especially his mother in addition to not liking the appearance of my boyfriend. My father died last year so there is nobody to check the excesses of my mother. My elder sister cannot talk to her because she isn’t married. Each time she tries to talk to my mother about the issue, she ends up being insulted by our mother. None of my uncles and aunties is willing to get involved in this matter because of my mother’s sharp tongue. I would have gone ahead with my decision to marry my boyfriend irrespective of my mother’s position but she placed a curse on me that any attempt by me to ignore her feelings would result in death for me at child birth. She is insisting I terminate the pregnancy to give her the opportunity of looking for a suitable husband for me. I decided to run to you for assistance after the pastor I went to for help said, my mother is behind all my problems; that she swore before her fellow initiates that my elder sister and I would never marry because of the way my father treated her in their early years of marriage. According to my pastor, my mother has never been able to forgive my sister and I for taking after our father’s mother in looks. She also cannot forgive our father for always being on the side of his mother against her. As far as I can remember, my mother has always hated my elder sister and I prompting both of us to ask our father when we were children if she was really our mother. Agatha, I am desirous of your help because all the places I went to say I won’t get another man to marry me if I allow my present boyfriend go; that he was sent to me to take away my pains and sorrow. I am helpless. Please help me because she is making life unbearable for me. My boyfriend is also threatening to make trouble if I do anything to harm his unborn child. He says, he hasn’t denied being responsible for my pregnancy so I don’t have any reason to terminate it. The pressures are becoming too much for me. Henrietta Dear Henrietta, There is nothing or no human being as powerful as God. The God that brought this man into your life will give him the wisdom and determination to stand by you. Difficult as the situation you are in is, learn to trust God. Don’t fret because your life is in His hands. Parents are simply custodians, not the real parents of the children they helped to bring into this world. This is why He doesn’t give any of us the chance to choose our families or the homes we are born into. If it were possible, many of us won’t come through the parents we came through or our homes and families. God who knows our beginning and end, who created us all for a purpose has the prerogative of this choice and His reasons are only known to Him. Surely, He made you for a purpose, which you must achieve before you die. That child you are carrying inside of you also has a reason for coming into this world. Therefore you don’t have the right to terminate that child since you are only a custodian. God could have decided to use another woman as a channel to bring that child into this world; he decided on you for a reason best known to Him. To end that child’s journey on account of your mother’s desires would be provoking God’s anger. Would you rather please your mother and offend the God that created you both; destroy an innocent life to avoid your mother’s unjust anger against you and your sister? What you need now is the confidence and assurance that He is up there and in charge of your affairs. He has the power to ridicule the mighty and elevate the weak. Once you have absolute faith in Him, nothing is impossible for Him to do. If He can change the story of Jabez, who was cursed by his mother at birth, there is nothing He cannot do. As for your mother, continue to respect her because she is the vehicle God used in bringing you into the world. For this reason, she deserves your respect any day. Perform all your duties to her as a child to her. Forget whatever anybody says about her; as long as she didn’t kill you when you were a child, she cannot kill you now. Once you play your part as a good and responsible child to her; accord her every respect she deserves as your mother, you would have conquered whatever negative plans she has against you. But if you allow what your pastor told you to influence your judgment, decision and attitude towards your mother, you may unwittingly damage a situation good wisdom and friendly disposition on your side will remedy. If it is true she placed a curse on you, cry to God. Once you are convinced of His presence in your life, it is only what He permits in your life that will happen. It isn’t normal for a woman to die at childbirth. Remind Him of his covenant of life. There are a lot of women who have faced your kind of challenge but who are today mothers and alive because of the pact they entered into with God. Rather than worry and allow it to bother you, cry to God to put a smile in your life and heart. Losing one man to an accident and about to lose another one to your mother’s position cannot be His plans for you. Therefore enter into a strong relationship with God. Though trials will always come but none will defeat you because He will fight for you. Therefore, surrender completely to Him through prayers and conviction that He is your all in all. No matter how much of a monster you think your mother is, go and beg her. In the history of both of you, even if it is for a second, you must have shared some moments of happiness; this is what you should anchor your plea on when you go and beg your mother for forgiveness. Go to her at the middle of the night after praying to God for divine favour to beg for forgiveness for any real or imagined pains you must have caused her. Go with the kind of gift you know she likes. This is both a spiritual and physical battle. You have to fight it on all two fronts for complete victory. Don’t get up until she tells you the reason for her attitude towards you. To get her to talk, begin by making references to all the memories of your childhood, especially the ones that have to do with your grandmother and how you wished you could have been of help to her then. The idea here is to get her to talk. Often than not, most people operate on the principle of my enemy must be your enemy. If she thinks you are aligned with her against your grandmother, a lot of things will change about her attitude towards you. The important thing is to remove obstacles from your way. Once you are able to get her to talk, half of the battle is won. Cry, beg, cajole do whatever it will take for her to tell you why she hates you so much. Also ensure she prays for you. As for your man, continue to plead for his understanding and support. Assure him you will not touch the baby because it represents the love you both share. Also solicit for his help in winning this battle by telling him of your mother’s position. At 34, you are no longer a child so you need to be more assertive about the things that have to do with your life. Good luck.

My sister-in-law’s alliance with our neighbour surprising

With Agatha Edo, Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, This problem doesn’t concern me directly but it will affect my sister if it eventually blows up. It has to do with the sister to my sister’s husband and our neighbour. About three weeks ago, I came back home from an errand my sister sent me to find our flat locked. I didn’t find the key where we normally leave it so I went downstairs to ask the security man if my sister’s sister-in-law left the key with him. He replied that she hadn’t come down all day. As I was going back upstairs to knock harder on the door; thinking she might have slept off, I saw her and the married man opposite our flat kissing at the top of the stairs. They quickly disengaged when they heard my steps. I pretended not to have seen them in order not to embarrass both of them. Besides, she was a lot older than me. When I tried to question her about what I saw, she shut me up with a slap; telling me to mind my business. She also threatened to deal with me should I tell anybody about her affair with the man. I am however bothered because of the problems that will occur should the wife of the man find out about the affair. Other neighbours may not notice because we live in one of the top flats and share the same passage. Once everybody is out of the house, she moves into this man’s flat. I don’t know what he does for a living, but he is home most of the time. His wife leaves the house as early as 6.00 a.m. and comes back very late. They have only a child, a five-year-old son he takes to school in the morning after which he comes back home. I’m scared. My friend I told about the incident said I should alert my sister about it arguing that I am aiding and abetting her to destroy another woman’s home by my silence. I am so very confused about it. Please help me. I am 16 while she is 22. What should I do? Derin. Dear Derin, This is something you can handle on your own without involving your sister or her husband. Since she has decided to use force and threat, there is nothing stopping you from doing same in getting her to listen to your opinion. But you must get this clear; it is her life hence she has a right to do whatever she wants to do with it. Your interest in her life begins and ends with the implication on your sister and family should the man’s wife discover that her husband is having an affair with her. Explain to her that if the affair had involved someone else, not known to the family, you wouldn’t have bothered with what she does with her life. Make it clear to her that the next time she slaps you on account of her relationship with this man, you will have no choice but to inform your sister and brother-in-law about the affair she is having with their neighbour. Let her understand that you are not trying to pry into her affairs but to stop everybody being embarrassed by her conduct should the affair blow open and becomes public knowledge. Make her understand that it is one thing to be in an affair with a married man and another matter entirely for the affair to be going on in the woman’s matrimonial home. Ask her how she would feel if she is the other woman? How would she feel going out to work all-day and coming back home to the knowledge of another woman sharing her husband right in her home? She may not want to listen to you but make her understand the gravity of what she is doing not just to herself but to the entire family that may be forced to move houses as a result of the scandal that normally follows such a situation. If she fails to listen to you, you may have no choice but to tell your sister about it. Telling your sister will free you from the guilt of not telling her as well as the burden your knowledge of the affair between both of them has placed on you. By then, it would be the decision of your elder sister to confront her sister-in-law or inform her husband about the affair going on between his sister and their neighbor. As for you, mind your business and concentrate on the business that brought you to your sister’s house. To pry too much is to distract yourself from that thing most important to you in life. If at the end of the day, you don’t think you want to be fingered as a gossip in the whole episode, try to ignore her completely. Good luck.

I caught my husband’s mistress on our matrimonial bed

With Agatha Edo, Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, My marriage is less than two years old. It has been very difficult but since I made the choice to marry my husband, I have kept struggling to keep my home. I really don’t want to describe my husband as a lousy and very deceptive man but I discovered this few months after we got married. I dare not go back to my parents because my mother, from the very beginning, didn’t want me to marry him, so will not even listen to me let alone sympathise with me. To complicate things, his family members too don’t like me. Once he beat me up in the presence of his mother and all she did was look on. Her excuse was being too weak to separate us when the pastor came to settle the rift between my husband and I. I have kept pretending to my siblings that all is well with my marriage. My younger sister who is very close to me is the only one privy to what is going on in my home. She is helping me keep my secret because I asked her to. But the recent development is beyond me. I came back from spending a week with my family to discover another woman in my bed. He wasn’t expecting me on the day I came. For reasons I cannot explain, when he called the morning of that day I decided to come home to ask when our daughter and I would be coming back, I told him it won’t be until two days from the day he was calling. However, while I was sleeping that afternoon, I heard this voice that instructed me to return home that day. I had to wait until my mother came back before moving. We got home at about 9 p.m. to the scene of his girlfriend reading on my bed wearing one of his boxers.’ The lady said she isn’t aware of his marital status because he gave the impression that he is single and that he shares our flat with his sister. Can you imagine that he passed me and the baby off as his sister and niece? After apologising for the situation, she packed her things and left but not without heaping curses on my husband for what he did to both of us. Now he is begging for forgiveness and has practically sent the entire Lagos to beg me but the truth of the matter is how can I ever forget the image of another woman on the bed we both share? How can I let go of the knowledge that this man is capable of denying me and his daughter? I don’t know which hurts the most; referring to me as his sister or the woman he brought to my matrimonial home. To be honest, he disgusts me. To think I once loved him beats my imagination. Don’t know how I can handle this. Faramomi. Dear Faramomi, What is love? Is it not a tangle of the intricate and fragile? There is no good love story without scars, sacrifices, pains and frustration. The dance of love isn’t the rose-coloured honey laced images, we see or hear; far from it. The colours are drab and ugly. Only situations like you are going through really bring out the shine and brilliance of it. That is when its true strength and character come to the fore. Yes, your husband is cruel, wicked, insensitive, lacking in respect and honour but the question here is, do you still love him? The truth is, if you didn’t, you would have long left his life. That you took out time to compose and send this email to me shows that underneath all your pains and betrayals is a patient goldsmith willing to endure the extra heat to the most refined gold. Every married woman is a goldsmith. You cannot just walk away from your marriage on account of the challenges you are experiencing. At least, you got to meet your rival; some women don’t get to meet the other women until the products of such unions come of age and are battle ready to claim rights they have been brainwashed by their mothers to believing was denied them by the woman at home. Some women even get to know about their husbands’ other families at his death when the children and their mothers begin to come from different directions. At least, you now know of the possibility of him having a child outside his home so be prepared for the worst. It is the best way to overcome disappointment in life. Because life itself has no guarantees, you must find it in your heart to forgive him and let go of the memories of his betrayal else you risk making a very fundamental mistake. The reason for this is simple; no marriage or relationship is without a price to pay. From what you said, I guess you are a young woman. There is no way you can stay off sex if you leave him now. No matter the grudge you feel against men on account of your husband’s behaviour, a time would come when you would crave for the comforting arms of a man around you. Chances are the men that will be available will be married men. This means you will invariably also be guilty of the same accusation for which you ended your marriage. And if you decide to date only single men, the ones you will come across will not only be younger than you but out to milk you of your money and respect. In addition, you may want to marry again. What assurances do you have that the next man won’t be worse than your present husband? One thing I have come to learn about life is that only the faces of the actors change; their lines and delivery never change. Life is a funny mix. What makes you guiltless today may condemn you tomorrow. Today, it is the turn of your husband to be accused of recklessness, if you fail to apply wisdom to this complex case; you risk denunciation some years down the road. Ask those whose marriages are today being celebrated for the real stories behind their marriages. You will be surprised at the amount of sacrifices it took the women to make their marriages work. The stories won’t be different from what you are going through. Your experiences are what real marriages are made of; not the kind of romantic stories we read in romance novels. What you should appeal for now is sometime away to enable you put things in proper perspective. If you can afford it, apply for your annual leave to enable you distill your thoughts properly. Despite all I have said, you need to heal first. It is the only way to give your best once again to your dream of being together with this man. Look at your reasons for marrying him against the support of your family. Something very powerful must have influenced your decision to ignore your family’s position; you really need to dig that thing up for this marriage to move beyond this point that your differences have stationed it. Once you are able to remember your basic reason for agreeing to go with this man; it will be easier for you to forgive and forget the hurt you have suffered at his hands. Good memories are good balms for every sharp emotional pain. Such memories will dilute the anguish of your present experience. Besides, this is the time for you to negotiate your terms of staying together; ensure his friends and family are part of this agreement. Above all, learn to pray more. God is always able to do all things. Good luck.