He wants pregnancy before marriage

Dear Agatha,

I am three years older than my boyfriend and we have been dating for the past six years. Recently, he travelled out of the country, but we talk almost everyday. He informed me during one of our discussions that he desires I get pregnant immediately he comes back home. According to him, my getting pregnant would hasten the process of our getting married.

But I don’t want to hurt my parents by getting pregnant. Besides, I want to get married in the church and not the way he is planning the whole event.

When I told him I wasn’t ready to get pregnant or do as he wished, he said I wasn’t ready to get married.

Please advise me on what to do.

Betty.

Dear Betty,

This is the juncture in your life you get real with yourself. The more you pretend to be who and what you are not, the more complex and complicated your life would be later in life.

One thing you have to get right here is, this is your life. Your parents, friends, siblings all are living their own kinds of lives. If at the end of the day you are unhappy with the choice you made in your bid to please others, you will have nobody but yourself to blame.

If your major concern is what your parents would say about the proposal of your boyfriend, the real question here is, are you not ‘sleeping’ with your boyfriend? When a man and woman ‘sleep’ together, what happens? Is that not itself contradicting your so-called current position? You want your parents and the church to think you are still a virgin when in actual fact you are not? What you are trying to do is deceive the church and your family into thinking you have remained faithful to their teachings when in reality you have failed them by having pre-marital sex with the same man you don’t want to get pregnant for now. Is that a bit hypocritical?

God sees our most hidden secrets; nothing is ever hidden from His omniscient eyes. So you are not deceiving anyone but yourself at the end of the day.

Many marital challenges women face in their later years would have been avoided by being truthful from the beginning. You stand to gain more from life by being honest with yourself. This is important if you want to enjoy marriage.

Your objection to his suggestions would have been understood if you had refrained from sleeping with him from the beginning of your relationship. He would have understood where you are coming from. The fact that you have both been sexually involved gave him all the right to make this suggestion.

After six years of being together, dreaming and planning a life together, your answers to his suggestions should have been measured, not immediate as you told him.

Transiting a relationship into marriage requires a lot of wisdom and prayers. Definitely, you have the right to be angry at his suggestion which presupposes that you either have problems getting pregnant as a tool of bargain with his family to accept his decision to marry you.

If it is the latter reason, you should commend him not fight him for suggesting it as a water-tight option for both of you to be happy together. The wise thing would have been for you to wait for him to come back to the country before voicing your objections.

Sensitive issues like this are best discussed when both parties are together. You would have been able to argue and iron out all the rough edges without provoking a crisis in your six-year-old relationship.

As it is now, unless you take the step to re-open discussions with him on the subject, this relationship is on very shaky grounds, especially as he is out of the country. Anything can happen; a tiny distraction with a woman down there may see him deciding to stay there forever. Because he is angry at you, he may not bother to rethink his hasty decision over until too late.

Honestly, what you should have objected to isn’t what he said; many men in his shoes would have done the same, but his lack of absolute commitment to the dreams you both share.

Asking you to get pregnant before he marries you is like asking for insurance against barrenness. This is what you should have protested against, not what your parents and church would say to you being pregnant before the wedding day.

He had no right to ask this of you unless he isn’t comfortable with three years age difference between the two of you as well as the kinds of risks you have taken with him.

If you weren’t too wrapped up in your own anger, you would have been able to read between the lines and deduce what his real fears are. Though you didn’t give your ages, but if you have been together for six years, you are in your prime now. Men don’t think the way women do when it comes to the issue of a woman’s reproductive years.

Rightly or wrongly, he may feel that being three years older than he is, you may have challenges getting pregnant, unlike a younger woman. This has nothing to do with the way he feels about you. He must love you enough to have stayed with you for six years despite knowing he is younger by three years.

But he is a man with some responsibilities to himself and family. Every man desires to procreate himself someday. Deep inside of him, he is afraid of what would become of him later in life.

As one who has shared his space for the past six years, you should have recognised what his real fears were and taken steps to assure him. You could with good wisdom dispel his fears and gotten him to do your bidding without him being aware of it.

Every man has an ego that has to be constantly massaged by the woman in his life. All you needed to do at the time is to patiently plead with him to come back home first. Once home, a combined effort of your maturity, understanding and respect for him would have made him realise what he would be missing in you should you decide to leave him.

The bottom line of all these is that you haven’t really been able to grow the relationship beyond that point you both started with. If you had, you would have been more sensitive to the ways of your man and taken steps to avert a major disagreement like you are having now.

But beyond your anger are the issues of what you want and the importance of the relationship to you. Should he make good his promise not to continue with the relationship, how would you really feel? What would you be missing about him? Would your parents’ presence be enough to erase him from your mind and memories?

From my experience, there are certain things prayers alone cannot achieve; you must act to make it work.

There is no success without pains. No perfection without sacrifices. What are you willing to do to save this relationship from the abyss? What would be more pleasing to your parents and you at the end of the day? Having children or having a virginal wedding?

Some things are meant to last forever. Would pretending to be a good girl to your parents and church on your wedding day give you the melting warmth of a baby’s soft cuddle or the winning smile of a naughty teenager?

How will you feel if you hear he is married to another woman? Would you be glad at that news or cry at the folly of your decision?

This is the point you have to be very clear about what you want from him and life. He has told you what he wants from you. Are you ready to? How much do you really love this man? What kinds of sacrifices are you willing to make for this relationship to work?

Once you are clear about what you want; call him if he is still abroad and ask him one question aimed at helping you resolve the issue finally. The question is; what would happen to the relationship if you are unable to get pregnant? This way, you will be transferring the burden of guilt and decision to him.

His answer will definitely point you at the direction to go.

Good luck!