Can He be trusted?

Dear Agatha,

I have been dating this guy for two months now though I have never seen him. We are only communicating by phone. The whole thing actually started this way. I met his brother on africhat and we started talking. He asked me to be his girlfriend, but I declined on the ground that I don’t love him.

He later gave me his brother’s number to reach him since his phone had a problem. I started talking to his brother and we became good friends. In the process, we became attracted to each other. So, when he asked me to be his girlfriend, I wasn’t surprised. I accepted his proposal. This led to both brothers having a disagreement but my boyfriend says he doesn’t mind. He says he loves me and I know I love him too.  But my problem is how can I fall in love with someone I have not seen? How can I be sure he isn’t cheating and won’t cheat on me? 

It happens that guys seem to be attracted to me a lot and from what he tells me, girls also fall at his feet. I know that I can be faithful to him, but I am not sure of him. Agatha, despite the fact that I have not seen him, I really love him.  I don’t know what to do.

Please help.

Onyeka.

Dear Onyeka,

First things first, you owe his brother certain explanations. Granted, there was nothing you could have done to stop the way you feel about his brother, whom you have never met. You must do everything within your powers to ensure both brothers get back on the friendly lane.

The younger brother has every right to feel bad because he gave you the link. If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t have met his brother through the phone.

Yes, you may have told him of your disinterest in him but how do you expect him to react to you and his brother, one you have not seen, dating? As a woman, wishing to be part of the family, your responsibility goes beyond what you feel for your boyfriend. You should be concerned about the problems between the two brothers. How you handle it would go a long way in assuring the younger brother, especially, of your importance to the family.

You must also remember these two are brothers, with history and family ties you don’t have yet with your boyfriend. The euphoria of a new and rather strange love may make him say all sorts of things but when it comes to the bare essentials, don’t be surprised he may not be so vocal against his brother.

And with the strange way you are kick-starting this relationship, you need a lot of supports from within to give you the necessary assurance of the rightness of your choice. Also, he is in a position to put a big damper on your relationship with his brother if he is that sort of persons that see nothing wrong in making up stories about other people. An injured mind is one that has to be courted, smoothed as well as nursed to full recovery.

Go, if there is any way you can get him to talk. You need to explain to him all over again why you can’t date him. He has to know that it takes a different kind of chemistry for two people to feel right about each other. At the meeting, beg him to understand and to give you and his brother the support to be happy together. Solicit his friendship. Make it appear as if you really need his blessing as well as support to make it happen with his brother. At one time or the other in our lives, we always want to be given certain level of recognition. In this instance, do it for the sake of your happiness as well as the harmony of the two brothers.

On the issue of falling in love with someone you haven’t seen physically, well, anything can happen between two people. Love doesn’t have to follow a familiar pattern for it to be established. This is where the mystery of God reigns supreme in the affairs of men. When God means for anything to happen, He does it without apologies to known laws or familiar patterns. That is why He is God. He is unquestionable and unanswerable to you and me.

If this is the way He has chosen for you to meet your ideal man, who are you or I to complain or condemn?

Everything is right and marvelous in His sight, so accept him and learn to trust him, as you would with any other man you are meeting in the conventional way.

To understand your feelings best, ask yourself why him and not the brother you have seen or all the other men throwing themselves at your feet. What makes him different from all the others to have gotten you to consider him at all?

Your reasons for falling for him lies in the mystery of your answer. Most times, love doesn’t happen on the strength of a person’s look, it takes more than that. It takes, most of the time, certain things we don’t even know, something that has no name but which keeps holding us back until it meets the person it desires the most.

His voice must have committed the right signal to that secret force inside of you to make you open up your heart to him.

When things like this happen, the best option is not to fight it but to allow it flow naturally.

But that doesn’t mean you both should not make the effort to grow the relationship beyond telephone conversation. Make arrangements to meet, no matter how complex the logistic of doing so is. Both of you must show a commitment to be serious about each other, support your love to fulfillment through deliberate planning of your options as well as merging your dreams.

There is no way you can merge and grow your dreams if you limit it to just telephone conversation. You must be able to recognise each other physically when you meet on the road. There is still no alternative for inter-personal relationship. Love is a very personal thing and cannot effectively be realised without both of you seeing what the other looks like.

All the fears about unfaithfulness, deceit can only be tackled if both of you get to meet and discuss as two people who like each other and want to make something out of the relationship.

Good luck.

Share a problem With Auntie Agatha - gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626

My stepmother is thorn in the flesh

Dear Agatha,

We lost our mother sometime in March 1975 and our father remarried in 1979. We had what a child would call a difficult childhood, without a mother. My father’s wife never for one day treated us as her children. We were, to her, other wives to my father.

However, when we came of age, I told my siblings never to repay evil for evil, and that whatever happened be regarded as part of our destiny. To an extent, they all agreed with me. Her three children had free access to our homes, finances. Anyone who didn’t know would think we’re all from the same mother. God used us to sponsor them through the university, a fact our father knows and says.

Despite this, she still refuses to give us our due respect or treat us as her own. Being Christians, we ignore her, especially as we all live far from home. While we do not lay claim to being saints, we believe there is no grievance that cannot be resolved.

Going by her children’s attitude these days, it is becoming apparent they too want separation from us. To be honest, it isn’t as if I am afraid of trouble, but not one within the family set-up.

Agatha, how do we handle this situation, so that we can all come together as a family? What role must each of us play and what do we tell our father. He is aged and sad about this development.

Kindly advise me.

Anthony.

Dear Anthony,

The major problem came from your father. Had he from the beginning curbed the excesses of his wife, insisted on all his children functioning as an entity from the same source, the situation wouldn’t have endured to this level.

There is no way you can get someone who doesn’t want to be part of a team to play your game. The wise thing to do is to allow them be. Until they desire it, you will only be wasting your time trying to make them dance to your rhythm. There has to be a corresponding desire from their end for any effort you and your mother’s children make to be fruitful.

Frankly, the only person who can do anything about it is your father. He must be concerned about what happens to his family at his death. If his family were divided when he is still alive, what would happen when he dies?

As the next head of the family, there is the need for you to go to him to impress it on him to call a family meeting of his wife and all the children. At the meeting, he should give everybody the chance to speak out their fears and grievances. His wife should speak first. This is to ensure she sits through the meeting and stop her from accusing you and your father of setting up the meeting to humiliate her.

As the woman of the house, let her tell all of you what her fears are. Thereafter, starting from you, each child should be given the chance to talk.

During the meeting, the issue of inheritance should be discussed. While your stepmother may shy away from telling the meeting her real reason for maltreating your mother’s children, you shouldn’t. If God is blessing you and your siblings so much so you were all able to pay the school fees of her children, you and your siblings should meet to discuss what you all intend to do with your father’s property, if any.

But good wisdom demands that if need be, allow her and the children have their fill, taking into account that life isn’t about the property we live behind, but the peace of mind we were able to enjoy. If her intentions have always been to corner the property for her children, nothing you do for her and her children would ever be enough or thaw her attitude towards you and your siblings.

It is the truth, one you cannot run away from, no matter how religious you have become. So, in the interest of the unity of the family, you must be ready for some form of sacrifices, because with this type of person, only one way is good enough – her own way.

There is no pleasing this type of person, and if her children are anything like her, be ready for acrimony.

Family issues are the most difficult to resolve without the fear and wisdom of God. The issues go beyond your siblings and her. You would be surprised at the many unseen hands behind the issue you are now trying to resolve. A lot of your extended family members, for personal reasons, are waiting in the wings to help all of you remain divided because it is only in a crisis situation that they can benefit. For this reason, you must learn to let go of so many things, including what those who are not close to God term important. If you are all true Christians and have the confidence in the God you serve to do all things, concede to her and her children whatever they want. It will never stop you from reaching where God has ordained. It would instead stop them from executing their evil plans against you and your siblings. Immediate victories are usually not the enduring ones; rather those won after a long period of sacrifices. Give her and her children their victory today and allow God give you the everlasting kind – the type that would see them coming back to you in later years to ask for forgiveness.

That should be your attitude at the meeting with your father and his household. God will give you the wisdom to do what is right.

Good luck!

He says I don’t dress well

Dear Agatha,

Thanks for being there for people like me who may never be able to reward you with any other thing but prayers. I have really suffered in my life. When I married my husband nine years ago, he was without any means of livelihood. 

Despite objections from my people who felt I was marrying below my standard and marrying a liability. The first years were not easy, I gave birth to a set of twins exactly seven months after our wedding. We had no inkling I was expecting a set of twins until the day of delivery.

It meant I had to do another set of shopping almost at once. It ate deeply into my finances fending for the twins and sustaining the family. My people refused to help because they were not impressed by the attitude of him and his family. 

Despite being aware that their son was jobless, they insisted that two of his siblings should come stay with us immediately after the wedding. When I protested, he wondered if it was because he had no job, that if he were employed it was his duty to cater to the welfare of his parents and siblings.

Against sound reasoning, I allowed him have his way. As if that was not enough, his mother brought his sister’s child to come and stay with us as there was nobody to look after her after the death of her parents. When I pointed the fact it was only one income coming in, she resorted to the situation that if the case were to be reversed, her son would have taken care of my family. 

She went to the extent of asking me to use my parents’ money to better the lot of my in-laws, that money was meant to be spent on people and not on building numerous houses like my selfish father. I was very hurt and didn’t know what to make of her remarks but because of the love I have for her son I didn’t bother to reply her and besides my parents would not have supported me being rude to my in-laws.

Whenever I complained about the wasteful nature of his people, to my husband, he would beg me to ignore them for the sake of peace in my house and since they help with the children and house chores; without the prompting of my husband I enrolled them in schools. Overtime, their attitude towards me changed for the better, in fact they confessed that they didn’t know I was nice, that the impression they were given was that I was proud and rude.

They in fact became my trusted allies and helped in changing their mother’s perception of me. It was from them I discovered that they got the wrong impression of me from what people said about my family because of their wealth.

 At a point the mother came to apologise too. We kept managing until my husband who consistently refused help from my father agreed to his help. Through my father, he got employed as one of the aides to one of the South Western governors.

I regret he did this because he changed overnight. In addition to not coming home at all, he doesn’t care about us; he has found new friends who he thinks are now superior to me and the other family members. In the presence of his new found friends he talks down on me, orders me around and sometimes takes to calling me names. Because of the burden I had to bear alone, I have lost touch with modern fashion preferring instead to manage what I have so that the family can be comfortable, the quality clothes I have are from my mother. 

To think my husband now engages in extra marital affairs to the extent he gives lack of my fashion sense as an excuse, hurts. His entire family is against him, I hear his mother has gone to the extent of going to his office to fight him. My parents are disappointed and would have ensured he lost his job but for my interference.

Agatha, I don’t know how to confront this problem, I am hopeless when it comes to prayers. Please help me; I really do have to do something to save my marriage from imminent collapse.

Adebimpe.

Dear Adebimpe,

If you must overcome this situation, you must learn to fast and pray. It is the only way a woman overcomes this kind of battle you are fighting in your home.

In addition, it has to be a habit; a way of life as prayer is the antidote to many marital challenges women go through in life.

A prayer doesn’t have to be lengthy to be effective. It could be a simple one as asking God to pass through the life of your husband. the important thing is to trust God implicitly with your everything; not the hours spent on a particular prayer point.

One thing you must learn is to have an attitude of worship and praise to be in a very good alliance with God.

What you have to do in addition to learning how to pray and fast, is to change that wardrobe of yours. Since he is interacting with people who are fashion conscious and in vogue at the moment, it’s best to upgrade your clothes and mannerism to match them. Continuing to wallow in self-pity will not help you at all, it is important you realize that if you fail to do anything about your looks, another woman is waiting in the wings to take him away from you. So it’s in your interest to look at your wardrobe and look into the areas that need upgrading. While I am not asking you to change your person, I’m saying harmonise your looks with your present status so as to remain relevant in his life. So many factors add up to his present disposition. Sometimes, we have to go an extra mile to mask the challenges we face daily in our lives and families. Your mode of dressing could be a reminder of a time he wants to forget. Allow him to forget it by doing away with the items that take him back to that time.

You are right to have stopped your father from terminating his appointment. He of all people should know that not all of us are equally gifted with the strong will to be our own persons in a crowd of people. A lot of us are victims of the situation and people we meet every day.

Just as you are weak in prayers; so also, is your husband weak in resisting his friends. You would definitely win the battle if you learn how to ask God in fasting and prayers, there is no marriage without problems, the only difference is how we tackle them and a lot of us capitulate early because we don’t know what to do.

What you are experiencing is not anything new, what is, is the technique you apply to ensure victory in your home. Continue to exercise patience and be civil with him. I know it’s not easy giving what you are going through in your marriage but don’t attempt to pay him back in his own coins. In marriages, one party does more of the sacrifices than the other.

What is important is solving the problem, help him with prayers not to fail and help your marriage with prayers to succeed.

Good luck.

She is stubborn

Dear Agatha,

Thanks for the positive changes you are making in the lives of people. I am 35years old and my fiancée is 23. We have dated for almost three years. I’m thinking of fixing our traditional marriage ceremony for December. I reside in Lagos while she stays in a neighbouring state. She is a little bit stubborn. If she makes up her mind to do something, she will, no matter what anybody feels about her decision. She has this attitude that at worse, she will come back to apologise at the end of the day. It has been her way of life and is giving me concern.

The latest incident that really got me angry has to do with a text message she sent to inform me of a bachelor’s eve she and her friends planned to attend in another town.

Despite registering my discomfort  and decision for  her not   to attend the event   she still attended. 

 Following this, I called off the relationship and told her to forget everything about me. She has since been asking for forgiveness. I’m confused. For how long will I continue to live like that? She will always insist on doing things her way after which she will come back to beg for forgiveness. I regard this attitude as stubbornness and this is not the way I want to spend the rest of my life with a woman who has her kind of attitude. I need your candid advice.

Confused Guy.

Dear Confused Guy,

This isn’t a challenge you handle with anger because annoyance has a way of destroying so many things in life.

First you must acknowledge that we are all equally allocated a habit that will always irritate others, especially our loved ones. If you care to look inwards at yourself, you will also discover a side of you that don’t jell with others particularly those very close to you.

The beauty about life is our ability to accommodate our weaknesses and focus on our strengths. She may be stubborn but what about her other qualities, that have kept this relationship going for three years?

This is the time for you to focus on those special attributes you may find very difficult to replace in another woman.

Just as we all have our bad sides, we are also blessed with very positive unique qualities; the kind that will never be available in another person. This is what makes us special and our own persons. Compare her most unique quality with her stubbornness; place these two attributes on a scale; deep in your mind which one affects you the most?

How much happiness and pride has the good side of her given you as a man? How often do  you derive pleasure from her integrity and love as a woman? Is her stubbornness an everyday thing, the kind you wake up to every morning?

There is no ideal relationship anywhere but a perfect determination to make it work. This means, there are no guarantees that the next woman you are going to meet will be perfect for you. Then the question is; how many women are you going to date before making up your mind on one?

At 35, you are 13 years older than her, this means you have more experience than she has. At her age, she is just emerging from that age of excitement and fun. Don’t forget she is still in school; the age of parties and numerous friends. If you slow down a bit, you will recall your own yearnings, dreams at her age.

True some people mature faster than others, but certain things never really change. We are servants to each season of life. There is no way a child of three will ever act like that of 10. Just like a child of 11 can never act like that of 21. Every season has an identification tag.

The memories of her restrictive teenage years are not too far from her mind. She wants to have a feel of life before she settles down with you. Understandably at 35, your years are counting, hers at 23, is just beginning. If you push her too hard, you may lose her because what you consider her stubbornness may just be a desire on her side to enjoy some level of freedom, an intoxicating substance that requires patience to defeat. As the more experienced one, you must also understand the danger of using too much force to pass across your message or position.

Her attitude too could be a way of registering her displeasure at the way you treat or talk to her. Not everybody likes to be ordered around. Perhaps you should verify the way and manner you address her generally. For instance, why didn’t you want her to attend this party? Is it out of concern for her safety or simply because you don’t want her to attend? Even babies become more stubborn when parents daily apply the use of force in putting them under check. Appreciate that she is first and foremost a human being, her own person before being part of your life. You cannot overnight want to structure her to fit your own ways without expecting to meet certain resistance from her end. In school, she is among friends, those that keep her company for now. There is no way she would have been able to tell these friends that you asked her not to attend the party they had long planned for. In her shoes, what would you have done? Peer pressure is a factor which you have to contend with at least until you marry her. Living with friends and in school would make the kind of order you gave her difficult to adhere to.

If she gives in to everything you want her to do, she will lose her personality to you and that will  make everything very boring for you as the years roll by. Unless of course you want the kind of woman who won’t be able to challenge your orders, meekly submit to your every desire, a marriage needs the contradictions of our individualities to remain relevant.

This is the woman you plan to spend the rest of your life with. Ordering her around will not augur well for your relationship. Respect begets respect.

However, there is the need for her to recognise that she needs to respect you especially in the presence of her friends. There is the need for you to invite her over to your base for a heart to heart discussion on the way forward.

In dialoguing with her, do the mature thing of hearing her out; listen to her grievances against you. Don’t try to stop her from saying what she has in mind. Give her through your patience every hope that your relationship is based on equal partnership and that you intend to be a leader and not a boss.

Seeing the efforts you are making will give her that assurance to completely go with you. It will resolve some of the nagging issues that are making her misbehave.

Every woman wants the assurance that she is special to her man. What force cannot achieve love and understanding can.

Bring out the woman in her by being her friend, champion, supporter and worthy leader. These are attributes you can use to change and structure her into your kind of woman.

When a woman is in love with her man, there is nothing she won’t do for him. So get her to fall in love with you first before attempting to change her.

For now, give yourselves the chance to be happy together by accepting her apologies. But  it is important she realises that patience though is elastic can snap when pulled beyond its limit of flexibility. That while you will continue to support her to succeed and be happy, it also behoves her to accord you certain level of respect. That by being stubborn is evidence of her lack of respect for you.

Once you are able to manage this aspect of her personality, you may come to find out that she is the best thing to happen to you. But you won’t know if you don’t go this mile to confront the situation instead of pointing her at the door of exit in your life.

Good luck

Can I still go ahead with the marriage?

With Auntie Agatha

gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626

  Dear Agatha,

I am in a very big fix. My wedding is only three weeks away but I am finding it very difficult to concentrate on the arrangements or stimulate the necessary excitement towards my bride.

It all started at about a month ago when I ran into my ex girlfriend. When we were in school, I wasn’t too serious about her. Despite everything she did to demonstrate her love for me, I wasn’t too enthralled by her.

A lot of my friends didn’t like the way I was treating her back then, I recall my best friend telling me one day, after she came into my flat, met another girl left in agony and embarrassment at my treatment of her, that I would one day regret my treatment of that girl.

Although she came back after that, I knew something had changed in her. It wasn’t something you can pinpoint but she was not the same woman I knew.

For a while she disappeared. I didn’t bother to look for her because I was glad somehow was at least off my back. A year after, she came to see me in the office to inform me she was getting married. Strangely, I didn’t feel excited at the news. I didn’t like the idea of her getting married or any man coming near her. The feeling was so powerful and strange. I couldn’t explain where it was coming from or the reason for it.

This is a woman. I have never felt a passing interest in a good mate nothing more so why should I have this intense feeling of hatred for the man I don’t even know.

Casting away my gloom, I pretended to be happy for her. I took her out to celebrate but it was a mistake because the food tasted more like ashes in my mouth.

Needless to say, I didn’t attend the wedding. When I told my friend what I was feeling, he didn’t have any sympathy for me. He instead reminded me of my callous treatment of her.

It was a while, four years precisely before I got her picture out of my mind. Once I did, I proposed to the lady I had been dating. It was while shopping in one of those highbrow boutiques I ran into my ex girlfriend.

The moment I saw her, I knew my marriage plans were moribund. I wanted her like I have never wanted any woman. It was then it dawned on me that I have always loved this woman and the only one who has been able to touch me something very deep within me. I realized all that time I wanted her out of my life was because I was afraid to love and fighting my feelings for her.

Hugging her that afternoon did something to me I didn’t know when I planted a big kiss on her lips, which strangely she returned with the same measure of thirst.

We ended up in a fast food outlet where she told me that her marriage packed up six months after it was contracted. She said, she should not have gone into it in the first place. She refused to go further, especially when I asked why she went into the marriage. The man she said has since re married.

Somehow I didn’t want to know I was planning to get married. I was very afraid the information would make her disappear again into thin air. But I didn’t want to lie or hurt her should she get to know after she leaves me. Reluctantly, I told her of my wedding plans. She wished me well but she said she would not be able to make it since she would be out of town that weekend.

Agatha, I have lost interest in my marriage plans. I realize that she will forever be the only woman I love and want. I want her for keeps. My best friend says I should not get married feeling this way for my ex that it was better to disappoint my wife to be than to make her and myself unhappy forever.

My parents have given me go ahead to stop the arrangements if I am sure she is not the right woman for me. My mother says she would rather face the embarrassment now than to have me unhappy. 

Agatha, I am a bundle of confusion now. I can’t think straight. Is something wrong with me? Can I still go ahead with the wedding or do you think I should terminate it and marry the woman I am very sure would make me a very good wife. I love my ex with everything in me. Please help me. The wedding with another lady is fixed for Saturday, April 8. I don’t have much time to take a decision.

Edward.

Dear Edward,

Love is one emotion that makes the most wise of us act foolishly. True love can be very humbling. As you have found out you don’t choose love most of the time, instead it chooses you. When you had her at your side, you never appreciated her because you were trying to select whom you fall in love with.

Thank God you discovered each other again before you make another mistake of marrying the wrong woman. Since her ex-husband has re married, she is free to marry.

But before you contact your ex, call the woman you are about to get marry and explain your feelings for her. Don’t expect her to pat you on your back because, the timing is very wrong. But it is better than leading the poor woman to the altar and making her life very miserable.

Doubtless, she would be bitter, dejected and pained by whatever you have to say. You need to beg for her forgiveness because she does not deserve this treatment.

You also owe her family a lot of explanations and apologies. It is not easy to be view the picture of ones daughter getting married and having it extinguished hours before it becomes reality.

Since she would be going through a lot of anguish, be mindful of what you say and how you use your words presentation. Much as you cannot help your feelings, you can help lessen the pains by what you say and how you say it. The situation you find yourself in is very precarious so be careful how you go about it.

Don’t for now flaunt yourself with the other woman out of respect for the feelings of this woman. Knowing that you ditched her few days to her wedding day because of another woman could lead into harming herself or acute depression. You owe it to her, if nothing to be discreet so that she can heal faster.

If you can afford it, relocate to another place where your parts would not readily cross. Although she may never want to see you again or read a letter, follow up with a letter detailing her good qualities and how you wished you found that unique feelings with her. Tell her she would understand one day, why you did what you had you had to do when she truly finds that special man who would give her what you would never be able to do for her. It is extremely important she forgives you.

While you pray God blesses your current relationship, don’t forget to pray God finds her a perfect replacement for you.

Good Luck.