I don’t know what to make of her

I am one of your fans. I read your column everyday. I am a 34 year old man and having some challenges in my relationship. There is this lady I have dated for seven years. She is presently 25 years. She is my first and only lover. I fell in love with her the moment we met. 

Much as l love her, I noticed she tells a lot of lies and cheats on me as well. 

Despite being her boyfriend, I treat her as would my younger sister through giving her well intentioned advices. I have tried all possible ways to stop some of those bad traits but to no avail. She would go and come back to me but will always take her back on account of the love I have for her. 

She is forever talking about marriage and has asked me to marry her but I’m afraid she will take those bad traits of hers into marriage. 

Early this year, she had a three-month Facebook relationship that ought to have led to marriage but the guy dumped her. She keeps telling me she has changed. 

Please. I’m confused. I need to settle down. I have met other girls but my heart keeps coming back to her. Please should I go ahead with her? I need your advice concerning how to proceed with her and my life. 

Saul.

Dear Saul,

Love is a strange chemical whose contents are not known to man except God who has the patent.

True love is a struggle against the tide of time; a challenge to make the one who has stolen your heart to conform to your way of thinking and doing things.

Often than not, it isn’t perfect and comes with heavy challenges that require one to be both patient and understanding.

It also requires absolute honesty to make it serve its purpose in one’s life. a love not properly cultivated, tended to, can turn out to be one decorated with strong thorns and pines that can pierce one’s heart out of the body. True love and responsibility are a twin voyage that must go hand in hand. One cannot be left behind else, the other becomes forlorn and very lonely.

Therefore, given what you know about this lady, do you think you can cope with her and that your love will change her if you eventually get married to her?

This is the busstop you get off fantasies and embrace reality.

If you started dating her when she was just 18, you cannot escape the blame for some of her behavior. The fact that you haven’t been able to impact positively on her or change her behavior after seven years of dating her, underscores your weaknesses as a man.

A man, irrespective of how much he loves his woman must be able to define what he stands for at every point in time to help the woman in his life moderate her excesses. Like babies, a woman, is prone to taking her man for a ride if he is unable at every point in the relationship to state in clear terms his dos and don’ts.

This has nothing to do with chauvinism but being clear about who is in charge in the relationship. Two captains can never be on a boat. Being in love isn’t the same thing as being weak and lacking in leadership qualities.

This lady is who she is because she discovered, she can always manipulate you to take her back whenever she misbehaves.

Having affairs and coming back should never be part of the bargain a man enters into with the woman in his life. This you must address immediately else you will never be completely happy in your marriage or choices.

Being too careful in a relationship doesn’t pay at the end of the day. Risk taking is necessary to gauge how far a couple can go in accommodating each other’s shortcoming.

She is misbehaving because you have made it absolute to her that no matter who she has been with, what she does; her place in your heart is unshakeable. To help her come to full realization of what she wants, let her know you are also capable of being resolute. When next she misbehaves, allow your heart to be bruised by resisting any attempts on her part to have an easy walk into your life.

You cannot continue to protect your heart from being hurt by always looking the other way when she comes back to you. Your life and heart aren’t hotels guests can walk into at anytime of the day without consideration whether it is convenient or not for the staff and management of the place.

By explaining to her that you have reached your limit of endurance, you force her to X-ray her lifestyle and make choices that are beneficial to her.

At this point, you also must be prepared to accept the inevitable if that is what it would eventually boil down to.

This is because by the time she realizes that you aren’t ready to tolerate her excesses anymore, she might want to move on to another man who is docile and lay back for her to manipulate.

Baring you teeth once in a while will show her that you too can bite if the need be.

Chances are, she is constantly going out of your relationship for something different because deep down she finds you boring and very predictable. Being unpredictable has its usefulness in building excitement into a relationship. It keeps the other party guessing at what to expect. That is why suspense filled films or books hold so much excitement for its readers or viewers; the reason, they rank among the best sellers.

Being so predictable makes a relationship so boring. By the time she discovers you are no longer ready to tolerate her, she will be forced to do some serious thinking that will see her either shutting down this relationship permanently or reinvigorate her passion for you.

Besides, she is now a grown woman; no longer a teenager. She has to be taught how a woman should conduct herself in a relationship. Therefore the next time she talks about marriage, let her know your concerns about going the whole way with her.

Be bold enough to share your fears relating to her person with her. Explain to her, that there comes a point in person’s life when love isn’t enough stimulant to marry a certain person; that, there are a whole lot of things that make marriage workable. The first being faithfulness. Under this comes trust. Let her know that trust is priceless and necessary not just for both of you but also for the sake of the children the marriage is going to produce. Make it clear that if you are unable to trust her ways, it would be difficult for you to ever completely accept the paternity of the child the marriage would produce.

This is particularly necessary because a woman who is fond of dancing in and outside a relationship can easily import another man’s child into her marriage.

If you have never considered this, do so now. It is a reality that would help you look at the bigger picture, rather than the isolated picture of her attitude on the canvass of your life with this woman.

By the time you are ready to be your own man, make decisions concerning who you are and what you actually want from a woman and life, gathering the strength to address the present challenge in your life will be easier.

The chemistry of love is one that has to be properly pegged to make it one of life’s most cherished gifts.

Don’t on account of what you feel now; mortgage your happiness in life.

Good luck.

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

It is also so confusing

Dear Agatha,

I’m 29 years old and a senior staff in one of the Federal Government agencies. There is this guy in my life who, according to my mother, is related to her side of the family. My elder brother helped him and I to secure our present jobs and lived in the same house with my brother until he got a place of his own.   We’d always been close and knew about the persons in our two lives but we never ceased to be there for each other.

When he moved into his own apartment, I was always visiting him and would cook and help him with some domestic work.

One day, he called me to our relaxation centre, as was his habit. 

Astonishingly, he offered me drink but refused to offer me a glass with which to drink. He told me he won’t unless I took the one in his mouth which I didn’t delay in collecting from him after which we both left for his house. After sometime spent on discussing with him, I told him to see me off to my brother’s place. 

On reaching my brother’s place, he wished me good night but came back to kiss me. 

I felt weird, but I reciprocated and before long, we got used to it. From there we became an item, so much so, I couldn’t live without him. Since we were always together, at times he would stop me from answering my guy’s calls. 

He got to the point of asking me if we could get married as well as angry any time my boy friend visited me. He is very attracted to me.

I can honestly say we both love each other but the problem we both have is, my boy friend who has already proposed to me will die if I leave him. 

His girlfriend too is always on his neck as she wants him to marry her by all means. Could it be that we both made a huge mistake? I love him and he doesn’t want any guy around me. What can I do? I don’t want to lose my friend neither does he want to lose me too.

Worried Lady M

Dear Worried Lady M,

Given the way you feel about your friend, it would be unfair to continue with your boyfriend irrespective of whatever he is saying about killing himself.

It is best you hurt him now than later when both of you must have gotten married. The truth about this situation is, you will eventually leave him since you have given your heart to someone else. You cannot marry one man while another one has your heart. It is either you give up this man now and learn to love your boyfriend all over again or be bold enough to confront him with your feelings for the other man.

Sincerely, you are not protecting him from anything by playing along with him. The situation you are trying to prevent now will certainly come to play if you refuse to be honest to yourself and this man.

When it comes to matters of the heart, there is no mercy killing. Being blunt about where one is helps to prevent a greater tragedy.

Also the issue at hand transcends your feelings for this other man. It has to do with your person. Not being able to resist the temptation of the other man calls to question the depth of your feelings for your boyfriend. Had you been married, what would have been your reactions to the invitations of your friend to drink from his mouth?

The speed of your acceptance of his request shows that deep down you too wanted it.

This is the crux of this whole challenge. Granted that the two of you don’t live in the same town but having given your heart to your boyfriend, you had no right to be involved with this friend of yours or given room for any kind of feelings to grow. That you willingly went into his embrace means your feelings for your boyfriend isn’t as strong as you think.

Also, being constantly in the company of the other man could induce feelings that are not really love. The situation you both find yourselves in can be really tricky for a man and woman who aren’t so focused on their own relationships. A man can be easily stimulated to like a woman no matter what but a woman who is determined to protect her relationship and self respect, will finds way of bluffing way through such slippery terrain without harming the friendship she is trying to build with the other man.

The point, he told you to drink from his mouth was when you could have put a complete stop to any attempt on his part to take your relationship to the next level; when you should have reminded him in clear terms of your commitments to other persons.

That you didn’t, make whatever attempts you are making to protect your boyfriend from emotional pains is deceptive.

A woman should never put herself in a position to be compromised by either a friend or stranger.

To avoid you making a greater mistake than you have already made, use the opportunity of this incident to scrutinize your feelings with a view of knowing which of them really has the staying power over you.

Remember you don’t have time to be sentimental but to be truthful to yourself because at the end of the day you are the one who will be living the decisions you have made. You are the principal in this situation hence you must take steps to protect your future at all cost.

If you are not happy, you will never be able to give any form of happiness to any man at the end of the day.

Once you know, be bold enough to take the appropriate decision. Explain to who you are leaving, the reason you are doing so.

Follow this by moving clear of the man to allow the other relationship progress. But, to help you come to decision that you will not regret, you may need to take a break out of town to avoid any of these men influencing your decision in any way.

While at it, ask your mother about the strength of your relationship with each other.

Ask the pointed question of whether the relationship between the two of you allows you both to proceed beyond the point you are in now. The essence of this is to address the issue wholesomely rather than in piece meal. Once you are able to clear out every area of this entanglement, you have unwittingly placed on your shoulders, what you should do would become more defined.

Above all, learn to be more transparent in future. The mess here is you getting involved with another man without first settling outstanding issues in your previous relationship.

It is also imperative you factor the hold of the other girl on her man. If this man is serious with you, by now he should have told his girlfriend about his disinterest in their relationship. This is the point you have to be careful. From all you have said, your life is being dictated by what he wants; this isn’t healthy for you or the relationship.

Be very careful you don’t end up being the loser at the end of the day.

Good luck.

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

My mother is making life unbearable for my father

Dear Agatha, 

I really love your impact on people’s lives. I am the first and only son of three children in my family. My father has been the best father to us but my mother has sworn never to see anything good in what he does. 

My mother is fond of calling him names and insulting her in-laws. She has even tried on so many occasions to convince us to hate our father. 

As a result of her treatment of our father as well as the shame she has brought to our family, he developed stroke. Nobody wants to come to our house for fear of what she will do to them.

I know it is my duty to put things right, but I really need your advice on how to go about it. I am a graduate and presently serving my fatherland. 

Thanks in anticipation of your response. Keep up your good works. God bless you.

Chibuzor.

Dear Chibuzor,

I really admire your courage in facing the truth about your mother’s character. It shows courage.

For you to help both your parents out of this impasse their relationship has fallen into, you must first understand why your mother is this way.

Granted you grew up with her, but the mind of a woman can be very complicating and concealing. She maybe reacting to an issue that happened long before you were born or that happened after their marriage. Remember, it isn’t everything that happened between them that are known to you and your siblings. Certain things will always remain secrets between them; perhaps the reason your father and his family are unable to quit your mother from the marriage.

As her first son, it behooves you to step into the matter to avert the greater tragedy of it, destroying you and your siblings’ views on marriage.

This is the important issue you have to present to your mother when discussing with her.

But you must first of all get the consent and agreement of your siblings so as to prevent a break in rank in your agenda to reconcile your family.

To get your mother to even listen to you, bury your bitterness, resentment and sentiments before approaching her. This is important because you won’t get her to talk if she thinks you are coming with a preconceived verdict of guilt even before she has the chance to explain her actions.

Besides, this isn’t a matter you handle with an over-boiling anger. Despite being their son, these two people are first and foremost a couple hence deserves the right to their privacy on certain things between them. You must learn to appreciate the complexity that is a marriage. If your father wanted help to drive his wife away, he would have long done so despite his health challenge. The fact that he is enduring your mother’s perceived nastiness means there is more to this situation than you can understand.

Furthermore, the woman in question is your mother. You may not really like her attitude now, but she still deserves some respect from you nevertheless.

Importantly, the secret of a marriage is known only to the initiates.

If necessary, get her a nice gift; the kind that will mellow her to give you her time.

Begin by asking her if she loves her children. Doubtless her answer will be a resounding yes. Do a follow up question of what extend she will go to make sure her children are happy.

These questions are to force into considering the happiness of her children.

Arresting her attention and getting her to put the interest of her children above everything else will certainly make her open up on issues you may not know about her marriage.

Gently worm information from her by taking her back to the early days of her meeting with your father.  This is to jog her mind to remembering the reason she married him in the first place. Obviously buried in all her bitternes, is the real reason she married your father. He couldn’t have been the only man that approached her for a relationship but agreeing to marry him among the men that wanted her hand in marriage then meant both of them had something special going for them back then.

The fact that things are not too good between them now, doesn’t mean they weren’t in love once. Forcing her through your subtle questioning will force her to remember all those things she is struggling to bury. Helping her to exhume those feelings long buried in her bitterness, disappointments and resentments will also reduce some of her current antagonism to your father, his family and marriage.

For whatever it is worth, having three children for him shows that certain things clicked between them. One child can be a mistake but not three.

Also, ask her what kind of marriage they had. Sometimes, women can feel cheated if the man didn’t perform all the rites he is supposed to perform on her. If he did, ask her the important question of what your father did to her to make her this bitter.

There is every chance that she might want to withdraw from further conversation as a result of this question, but help her go on by making it clear, that you love her irrespective of what is happening.

By helping her reopen every page of her life with your father, you are psychologically helping her to question the rational of some of the decisions she has taken so far.

If she is proving stubborn, a little bit of threat children use in getting their parents to factor their interests into whatever decision they want to take will make her talk. No matter how terrible a woman is, she doesn’t want to be tagged a bad mother.

Let her realize that if she is unwilling to discuss with you, you and your sisters might be forced to eject her to protect your father’s health.

However, this approach is only necessary if she proves stubborn and unreasonable in your quest to find lasting solutions to the tension in your family.

End your conversation with her by explaining your feelings as well as those of your siblings to her. Don’t hold anything back, let her know your concerns, disappointments, embarrassments and helplessness at the situation in your family.

Before going to your father with what she said about him and his people, ask her if she is willing to make things work for the sake of her children.

Go to your father too for his side of the story. Listen to what he has to say, his regrets, the mistakes he has made, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

Let him say too if he is willing to make his marriage work despite all the pains and shame he has suffered in the process of all these.

You may also have to discuss with your extended family members from both sides. There must be elders in your father’s and mother’s families you can talk to and who has the respect of your parents.

Getting all parties to a round table conference will go a long way in getting all involved parties to air their views and collectively find a panacea to this challenge.

Once there is enough sincerity, resolve and love to overshadow this challenge on the part of everybody within your family circle, a solution will be worked out.

Most times good decisions are difficult to make but if it comes to taking that tricky decision once it is apparent to all that peace maybe far fetched, in the interest of your father’s health, the family should not hesitate even if it is temporarily.

In addition, learn to pray for your parents. Every marriage needs prayers to succeed.

Good luck.

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

He can’t satisfy me anymore

Dear Agatha,

I married at the age of 20 and I’m currently 41 years old with six children. 

My husband is 53. When we got married, I didn’t have urge for sex but since I turned 39, my sexual urge has increased. I now lust after men. 

My problem now is that my husband ejaculates even before we start sex.

Please what can I do? 

Confused Wife.

Dear Confused Wife,

As we grow older, we acquire not just experiences but liberty to interpret our desires and needs at any given time.

What has happened is, you are no longer under fear to explode in your desires to be pleased in the bedroom.

Unfortunately, this freedom has opened your eyes to the inadequacies of your husband. At 20, you were young and naïve. You didn’t have the experience or guts to know what you wanted or desired as a woman.

The fact too that you didn’t know better made you to accept the package that came with your marriage. Back then, you thought you were the sole problem as a result of your attitude towards sex.

Now that you have come of age sexually, you have discovered that it would take much more to draw you out of your shell and give you the kind of satisfaction that you crave for.

The fact too that you and your husband have gotten to your middle ages, means your marriage needs overhauling to suit your present demands. There is no way the technique  you both applied in the early days of your marriage can continue to work effectively in your middle ages.

First, you now have a more matured outlook; which means everything about you and your husband has changed dramatically. Long gone are the fears and insecurity of the early years. Especially for you, who got married at 20, your body is now demanding for the years of excitement you buried in marriage and raising a family.

With the children no longer as demanding as they were years back, you are increasingly having more time on your hands to remember you are a woman with needs of her own. The emotions you buried in your task as mother, nanny and home keeper are now coming to the fore.

To ignore them is to deny the reality and gravity of the issue at hand.

What worked perfectly for both of you then may not be so perfect anymore. This is why you are feeling this inch to have more, to enjoy yourself better. Deep down, you are feeling cheated and if care isn’t taken, you might find yourself doing things against your conscience.

Sadly, the inability of the woman at the centre of it all to look her husband straight in the eyes to complain has led many women to go outside to find solutions that ended up boomeranging on them.

The fact too that a woman’s body reengineers itself sexually when she begins the 40 years climb, is another reason you should cry out to your husband to help you stay faithful to him.

If you take a statistic of married women having affairs, they fall within this age group.

According to a doctor friend, just like the hormones play havoc with young girls at the start of their menstrual years; the same thing applies to women approaching the menopausal years.

While some women are turned off sexually, the majority of women becoming more intense sexually. This is the time she has to be very close to her husband who she must make to understand the changes in her body.

This explains why some women go out of their homes to have affairs with younger men who have the energy to give them what they want.

A good reason you must talk as sincerely as possible with your husband. You must be able to make him understand and accept your need to be pleased by him.

You must conquer your inner fear of what he would think if you push him too hard. Honestly, given the attitude of our society to demands by women to have more sexual satisfaction from their partners, this could be a little bit tricky as he might come to the often wrong conclusions that you might have started having an affair outside your home.

It is to prevent the danger of you doing so that you need to initiate a discussion to this effect with your husband.

Sex is the most delicate aspect of marriage. The fact that you are not getting the kind of satisfaction you want exposes your marriage and emotions to; a very dangerous thing considering that such emotions could take you outside your home for solutions that will consequently destroy your years of toil.

In discussing with him, appreciate his love first. Assure him that he is the best husband and father any woman can ever have.

That if you have to do it again, you would still have him as your husband. This is to relax him and give ear to the topic you want to discuss with him.

Begin your story of lack of sexual satisfaction by painting the picture of how more and more married women  are going outside their homes for sex.

Make it clear this is what you are trying to prevent by asking him to help make your love life better.

Before, you go to him, read up books on how to improve your sex life and also watch adult films to get knowledge of what you really want from him.

The reason for talking to him about it; is to get his support for all the new things you want both of you to do as a couple.

Also, by now you should be able to say if this is a new development with him or the way he has always been. If it is a new development, it could be an age thing, hence he would readily welcome your suggestions for other ways of finding sexual fulfillment.

But if it has always been like that with him, don’t expect him to immediately buy into your idea. You may have to introduce your reforms gradually like delaying the process of the actual thing until you are ready.

This you can achieve by urging his fingers and tongue to areas of your body you know are your most vulnerable zones. This is also assuming you know the areas of your body that set you on fire. If you don’t, get on it immediately as it would help your case.

You too must know the areas that make him go wild; bring back not just his old exciting memories but also his energy to take you to that special height you have never been before.

It is all a matter of you and your husband changing your attitudes to sex and its essence in your life.

Furthermore, marriage must always be overhauled; just like manufactures do with their brands from time to time. This isn’t just a matter of having sexual satisfaction; it is that of rebranding your marriage entirely.

What this has brought to fore is that you and your man aren’t communicating at all. If you both were close, are friends to each other, this matter wouldn’t have become such a bother. If you were friends, it wouldn’t even have gotten to this stage because you would have on the spur of the moment communicated your needs of each other.

It isn’t too late to start all over again. If you deal with only the sexual side, it wont last because all the other things that make for sexual harmony and compatibility must be addressed too.

Being friends alone with your spouse is enough to ignite a whole array of exciting emotions. So, give your marriage the right injection to serve you better by paying special attention to your husband, his needs, comfort and welfare. This way, you would be paving the way for your own wholesome happiness.

Good luck.

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