He forbids me near my stepchildren

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, My marriage is 14 years old. My husband had been married to two other women before I met and married him. I didn’t meet any of these women in his house. According to the stories I heard, he didn’t actually marry any of these women. They were just his live-in lovers who had children for him. Even during our early days, beyond telling me about his children from these two women, he didn’t answer any question I asked about them. But he warned me on the night of our wedding day never to get myself involved in any fetish thing because that would end our marriage. He also warned me never to allow the children or their mothers into his home or near me. As time went on, I tried to reconcile him with the children at least. Again he warned me to allow sleeping dogs be. One day, the house-help mistakenly admitted one of the children in and that marked the end of her job and me, the beating of my life. After that incident, I stayed away from any matter that would bring about any problem between us. But of recent, I have reasons to wonder if I am doing the right thing. At least as his wife, I have the right to know what the issues are because should anything happen to him; I will be blamed by the family. Sometime last year, his eldest daughter had a terrible accident that has kept her at the hospital since then. At first I didn’t know but when I eventually found out from his sister, I pressured her to take me to the hospital. She delayed until my husband traveled to Abuja for an official assignment before taking me to visit my stepdaughter. I was shocked at her state and made up my mind to ask my husband to fly her abroad. Unfortunately, I had an accident on my way from the hospital. Fortunately, I wasn’t injured but that brought to the open all the issues he has been sweeping under the carpet. After tongue lashing me for defying his orders, he told me about the incidents that made him drive away the women from his life. According to him, the first and second wives belonged to a cult that wanted to kill him. They tried and when they couldn’t get him, they killed his third wife during labour. The woman died with her child prompting him to seek spiritual help from a deliverance pastor. After deliverance, he was warned by the pastor never to allow any of the women and children come into his house and that whosoever he marries should keep her distance from them all. He said my disobedience almost cost him my life because they wanted to use me to buy back the life of his ailing daughter. I honestly would have dismissed him but in recent times I have been having some terrible dreams concerning me and my first daughter. In the dream, some forces would be trying to pull my first daughter and I away from the grips of my husband. My elder brother, a pastor recently called to warn me to be careful as well as to be very prayerful. I am scared and don’t know if I should tell my husband about all these. I fear his temper more than anything else. He can be very unpredictable. Please help me. Worried Woman. Dear Worried Woman, Which do you think would be more terrible for him? You and your daughter dying; or telling him about the dreams? No matter how terrible his temper is, he has the right to know the spiritual battle that is brewing in his family. Besides, you need him to stand in gap for you and your daughter. That dream is self explanatory. Your husband has the ability to withstand the forces from getting to you and your child. One way he can defeat the enemy is to be on his knees in prayers. If he isn’t aware of what is going on, how can he be of help to you? Besides, fear is a weapon the enemy uses effectively to cripple a victim from seeking the assistance of God in this kind of situation. From your dreams, God has equipped your husband to be your protector so why run away from him? It is not your fault that they are waging war against you. There was no way you could have known what the matters were since he didn’t tell you. In addition, you did what every reasonable woman would have done in similar situation. Whatever the father feels or says, the lady on that hospital bed is his daughter. Even if one’s enemy is involved in such a grave accident, sympathy must be expressed. This girl’s condition warranted your visit her at the hospital. You did right which is why the evil meant for you didn’t happen. God is a jealous God who watches over His own with everything that makes Him God. What you need in your marriage and life is the Spirit of God to make you bold. There is nothing anyone can do to you as long as you are confident in the ways of God. After telling your husband about your dream, both of you should cultivate the habit of praying together as a couple. Praying as a couple, builds a wedge of fire around the family. Once you and your husband agree on anything, it will come to pass. There is also the need for your husband to come clean with everything in his past life. This battle won’t end just like that. You must know the powers you are up against as well as the reasons he is having problems with them. What kinds of things did he get into in his past or did he do to these women to make them join forces against him? He has to learn to trust you with details of his past since you have been dragged against your wish into the mess of his past. The fact that the war is spreading to your children makes it imperative for you to stand your ground on having the full details. Let him know he isn’t protecting you by asking you not to allow them into your home or come into contact with any of them. Whether he likes it or not, all of you will come into contact someday. Adults can avoid each other but children can’t. This is why your husband has to find ways of settling the matter before it is too late. Two innocent lives have gone over this matter why risk more? In addition to asking for the assistance of your brother in this matter, ask your brother how he can be of help to your family. You must also go on your knees to seek the face of God to intervene in every area of your family life. Being a pastor, it will be easier for him to do. In the interim, don’t relent on your oars at all. Make sure you are not far from your knees praying endlessly for your family. There is also the need to let some of your in-laws into what is happening in your home because this matter is clearly beyond you. It is far more complex than you alone can handle. Also, you have to exonerate yourself from the decisions of your husband to protect your children later in life. The reason being, his line of action will at the end of the day produce more bad blood between you and the others. People who are unaware of the orders he gave you will wonder and generally accuse you of monopolizing him to the exclusion of his other children. God forbid, anything happens to him, you will not find it easy at all. So, use this opportunity created by the accident to tackle this problem once and for all. One thing you should make clear to him is that those children are part of him; the house he refused them entry today, will be opened to them when he dies. So, wisdom demands he tackles all primary and secondary problems associated with his relationships with their mothers. The children are innocent parties to whatever atrocity their mothers committed. They will never understand why your children are enjoying the attention of their father while they are made to starve for his affection. Since he can get close to them, encourage him to arrange a meeting of all of them to explain the reasons behind his actions. With the way he is going about it, he is unknowingly laying a very bad foundation, one that will not augur well for all of you. Ask God to show you how to handle this challenge once and for all. Good luck

After rejecting me; they now desire my forgiveness

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I don’t know how the world would perceive me but I have nowhere else to go but to seek help from you. I have two children from my failed marriage and since then, I have been solely responsible for the up keep of my children. My parents though well to do turn their back on me for marrying outside their choice for me. This provided my husband the perfect background to maltreat me and even invite other women into our matrimonial home. When I couldn’t take anymore of it, I packed out and since then have been on my own. The beginning was really rough for me since I couldn’t take up any job that will take me far from my children. Severally, I tried to go back to my parents for help but, they wouldn’t listen. My mother especially was very hostile because all along she wanted me to marry her best-friend’s son. My younger sister eventually married him and today she is dead as a result of a domestic accident she had when they were fighting. From what I heard, the boy is on drugs and was at one time in rehabilitation home in England. This fact was unknown to my parents until the incident that killed my sister. Not even my late sister looked my way. Although it was just she and I, she supported our parents’ decision to turn their backs on me. There is this incident I remember clearly; when my son was five months old, I couldn’t raise the money to take him to the hospital for his immunization because all the money I had went into paying for an accommodation. I took my daughter and son to see my parents, my mother called them bastards and instructed the gateman to lock the gate against us. It was our neighbor that eventually gave me money and told her driver to take us back home. Since then, this woman has been a pillar of support; always sending money to me as well as food. At times, she would send the driver to give me money for children’s fees. I don’t know what I would have done without her help and assistance. She actually introduced me to the business of buying and selling. She would give me clothes on credit to sell. Eventually through this assistance, I was able to open my own boutique near the house. Now I have three of such shops. Till date, she still gives me things on credit at the cost price she buys. It was through her I got to know about my sister’s death two years ago. I immediately went to see my parents but my mother accused me of coming to mock her and warned me never to come again into her house. Since then, I deleted all their numbers, tore up every picture I have of them. It was more than I could endure. I must have succeeded because I didn’t know my mother was seriously ill or that my father had a family outside us. But before Christmas, our neigbour requested I followed her to see an old friend of her family. I didn’t hesitate at all. By the time we got to the place, I recognized the house as belonging to my aunty, my mother’s younger sister. I didn’t want to go in but our neigbour urged me in. I met my mother looking very old on the sofa. She wanted me to sit by her but I declined and instead sat by the chair nearest the door. She wants me to forgive her and take her back as my mother. According to my aunty, everywhere they took her to, she was told to reconcile with me and my children if she wants to live. My father too has been calling me but I have refused to answer his call. He sent a text message that I should see him urgently; that he would have come if he knew where I was. Please help me because I am confused. I made a vow never to have anything to do with them. How can I reverse the curse I placed on myself not to ever call them my parents? I don’t want to die. What do I do? How can I and my bastards forgive her? Erinayo. Dear Erinayo, Under the laws of our land, there are no bastards. Besides, your children have a father who has not denied their paternity. So the issue of you and your bastards forgiving her doesn’t arise at all. Your children are legitimate and must be taught by you to forgive their grandmother or anyone who offends them. This is the principle of God. Nothing will happen to you because God Himself ordained this moment. He is a God of mercy and allows certain major occurrences in our lives, for us to appreciate Him the more. What you should do is to forgive your parents. God simply wants you to understand His person and reasons for your creation better. Placing a curse on yourself was needless; something you did in ignorance because you were never in charge of your life in the first place. God whose plan your life is knew where the pendulum would swing even before it started undulating. Your parents thought they knew it all; had everything wrapped up in their blinded determination to play god in your life. They didn’t factor in God’s plans at all in their reactions and treatment of you. Perhaps your sister would still have been alive if they hadn’t pushed her to marry the wrong man. Had you agreed to their plans, you won’t be alive today and certainly not in a position to be begged by anybody. That you are alive, doing well and being begged by the same people who didn’t want to have anything to do with you, are enough reasons for you to forgive them. The woman that helped you didn’t have. She could easily have fallen into the trap of being judgmental like all those who didn’t bother to look for you. I am sure if you had the kind of support you got from her initially, you wouldn’t have had the need to go to your parents for money to care for your child. The God that is sending your mother back to you to beg for forgiveness; sent this woman to assist you and your children to be alive and stable. God wanted to teach your parents the lesson of humility and patience to those around them. If they could treat you in such a despicable manner it goes without saying that they must be very harsh and uncompromising in their dealings with people around them. They too must have learnt one or two things from all these. Furthermore, they are your parents irrespective of what they did to you. If she dies before you are able to forgive her, will you be able to forgive yourself? How will that woman whose shoulders carried you when the whole world turned its back against you; judge you? Anybody who pays evil with evil is equally guilty of the same offence the other person is being accused of. The curse you placed on yourself can be reversed by you. God knows you said it out of pains and is willing to erase it from his records but what He won’t ever forget is for you to disrespect your parents. Don’t forget His instruction that we honour our father and mother so that our days on earth will be long. More than ever before, your mother needs you. You are all she has left having lost a daughter and her home to another woman. You and your children are now her only candle. Bring her to your house; teach her what true love is; allow her grandchildren become her balm of recovery. She needs a reason to live again and to be happy. No mother prays to experience the death of a child. Being a mother you should understand her pains and agony. Even if she didn’t come to you, your duty to her now is to look after her. As for your father, go and hear him out. This isn’t the time for you to play the victim but to be the rally point of strength for the family. Your father and mother are hurting deeply and no matter how many children your father has, you will still be his daughter. This is the time to get your father to talk about his marriage to your mother, his disappointment as well as the way forward for all of you. it is also the time to get your mother to have another look at her life with a view of drawing close to God. It is the only way to justify the goodness of God in your life as well as show appreciation for all the love your parents’ neighbour showed you. Good luck.