Passion for marriage is threatening our relationship

With Agatha Edo, Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, I’m an ardent reader of your column and I must say you have touched and saved lots of relationships through your work. May God bless you. I have a girl I have been dating since high school. I’m 25 years of age while she is 22. Right from the beginning she has always nurtured this passion for wedding ceremonies. She practically attends all wedding ceremonies in her church because it makes her happy. After high school, I left the country to study abroad. In fairness to her, she remained a good lady and was always there for me. Our communication remained efficient. December 2009 was the first time of coming back to Nigeria since l left. Back in school she told me she was a virgin. Deep in me, I didn’t believe and anytime I tried making love to her, she would allow me touch her but she won’t allow sex. I couldn’t force her but when I returned to the country after two years of being away, she allowed me. I was shocked to discover she was still a virgin. I’m in my final year now and hoping to further my studies. I know she misses me so much and I do too. I miss my family so much too. By God’s grace, I should be through by next year and return home. The problem now is whenever we talk on the phone, she would bring up the issue of marriage. At first, I told her I wish to have her as my wife but right now, there are things I need to achieve before settling down. I told her everything without holding back anything. I won’t be ready until about four or five years from now. She told me she wants to get married before she turns 25. I know it’s the dream of every woman to get married and start her own family but she is making it appear as if husbands are on sale in the shop and that a woman simply walks in there to buy one when she desires to marry. She doesn’t seem to appreciate that people need to date and plan for marriage and the days after. There was a certain time she got upset over something I knew nothing about. I tried but she wouldn’t tell me the cause of her anger. I thought she was fed up with elling her that since she won’t tell me what her problems were and has decided to keep to herself, I was freeing her of all obligations to the relationship so that I can try someone else. I told her it would give her the opportunity of understanding herself better. She called immediately she got the message to declare her acceptance of my proposal. After a month without calling each other, she called and we continued from where we stopped. After sometime, she told me her friend informed her, that I have a girlfriend I intend to marry. To be honest, I never discussed such a thing with any friend of mine. I immediately knew she believed the story because the friend mentioned is more like a brother to me who knows so much about me. Agatha, she has started again with her marriage talk. Recently she told me she would accept another man into her life if he is right for her. I was hurt by this statement and asked her how she would feel if I said such a thing to her. She didn’t answer but apologised. In my opinion, it seems she is just keeping the relationship until she finds her so-called ‘right person’. We have been talking, but I don’t want to be an obstacle to her since she sounds very desperate and I don’t want any pressure from her about getting married when I’m not ready for it. I have been thinking and have decided to tell her to move on. I thought I could make up for her patience and support for the five years I was away but she is bent on me getting married at all costs. Her deadline isn’t just right for me. I have talked to her and I do honestly love her very much just as I know she loves me. But her passion for marriage is threatening to tear the wonderful relationship we built for the past seven years. I really do need your help on how to handle this situation because it is tearing me apart. Concerned Friend. Dear Concerned Friend, There is no knot true love cannot untangle in a relationship. As long as both of you are ready to shift grounds and arrive at a workable compromise, there will always be a way out for both of you. You are having all this tension because none of you is willing to move an inch. Both of you are rigid in ensuring only your way is the right one. Relationship doesn’t work out like that. If you are fair to her, she has been the one making all the sacrifices for the survival of this relationship. You must also make the effort to see things from her angle. She has never hidden her passion for weddings from you. If you knew you weren’t ready for immediate marriage, you should not have bothered sleeping with her. Doing so meant you were ready to marry as soon as possible. For her kind of person, it meant you were ready for the final step, which was why she held back when she felt you were not in a position to marry her at the time you first demanded for it. From your own account, she waited for you while you were out of the country. Not many women would keep their virginity for a man they are not sure would come back to marry them. That she kept herself for you, even when you doubted her claim shows a properly brought up woman who has very deep feelings and respect for you. That you met her intact underscores her value as a woman. I am sure, while abroad, you had one or two flings. A lot must have gone into keeping her promises to you. Granted, her current attitude can be very frustrating and annoying, both of you need to go beyond telling each other what you want to what would work. She needs marriage urgently while you want it in five years time. Your challenge is simple as long as you both have the maturity to overcome the stalemate you have both imported into your lives. And the earlier you face this personality defects in your natures the better for the relationship. From what is happening, you both have the same attitude to life – having things done your way. Despite being together for seven years, your relationship is still wrapped in egoism. No relationship survives if a couple is unable to make the essential sacrifice for the sake of the other person. If there is a will, there is nothing stopping you from changing your plans a little to accommodate her plans. Both of you can marry but not have children immediately to enable the other plans have proper roots. No plan is unalterable. Frankly, this is a true test of your compatibility as a couple; your individual ability to go the extra mile for the other person to be happy. One thing is to be in love, another challenge is to have the maturity and right attitude to make it work. Situations like this will always come up from time to time in your relationship even after you get married. Unless you find the right key to unlock gridlocks like this, early in the life of a relationship, it often gets to a point when it becomes almost impossible for this kind of differences to be resolved. This is because selfish tendencies not addressed early in the life of a relationship soon become like a dreadful cancer eating at the life giving values of the union. Even if both of you part, if you don’t individually work on this aspect of your natures, finding a person to live or accommodate either of you may not be easy. Relationship is about living your life in the body of another person. Until both of you make the other person’s passion yours, nothing would work. Try putting yourself in her shoes; in five years time how old would she be? What if you decide not to marry her or suddenly realise that you still have certain things to accomplish before marriage and want more time, what would have been her gains? Like women before her, she is scared of the unknown. If she is anxious, she needs your assurances and one of the ways is to shift grounds a little bit for her. Another mistake you are making is refusing to hear what her real fears are. Yes, you have been honest enough to tell her about your plans but what about encouraging her to share her real fears with you? The missing link is trust. Insisting you have things done your way cannot earn her trust. Once you are able to earn her trust, a lot of the tension you feel now from her pressures will disappear. Good luck.