Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Jilted man’s love for ex still strong


Dear Agatha,

I thank God for the solutions you keep proffering to the many problems people bring to you. I am a regular reader of your column. In fact, it is what influenced my choice of the titles of Independent Newspapers.
 I have a friend who was involved in oath taking with his former girlfriend. It all happens that they have been in a relationship for quite sometimes and anytime you see one of them, it means the other one is right behind. Along the line, the lady now decided they take an oath to keep them together irrespective of what comes their way.
 Subsequently they both took an oath, but she later left him to marry another man in a traditional way. After the birth of her first child, she and the man went their different ways and the child was taken to the lady’s mother, but later died.
At present, she and her husband live separately. My friend still feels for her and has asked for my advice. Please what do I tell him on this particular issue?
The lady too has been unable to have a settled relationship since then.
Expected Friend.


Dear Expected Friend,
Advise them to go for deliverance, if they hope to be free of the covenant they entered into with each other.
Any oath that involves blood exchange is considered very serious. To God, blood is life. To have exchanged blood means the oath goes beyond the ordinary. It becomes a spiritual bond, which only the power of God as represented by the blood of Jesus Christ can neutralise. Hence the essence of going for deliverance in a church is to ask God to direct them.
It is important they seek the face of God in this because churches these days come with different agenda and callings. While some are absolutely deliverance ministries, some focus more on salvation; others on praise worship, while others are merely after miracles. If you go to one founded on miracles, the deliverance may not be complete. Deliverance isn’t something every pastor is anointed to carry out.
Bringing in the presence of God will also save them from fakes who could capitalise on this to make unnecessary demands on them.
If they don’t do it, they would continue to have problems in their other relationship because, spiritually they have a bond, which makes it difficult for anybody outside the two of them to have a normal life. This is why the woman couldn’t function in the life of another man and until she goes through a comprehensive deliverance.
The issue of your friend still carrying a touch for her in his heart doesn’t arise. She is married even though she and the man are separated. As a good friend and one interested in her happiness, what you should do is to encourage her to go back to her husband. Go to the husband if he lives very close to both of you, to try to see if there is a possibility of the two of them coming together. Chances are that the issue with them is spiritual and once she undergoes a deliverance programme, she would have the peace of mind to live with her husband.
Explaining to her husband what the possible problem is with her as well as their marriage could resolve the disagreement between them. If for nothing, it would help him appreciate the issues at stake as well as inform him on what sort of help and understanding to offer her.
As for your friend, let him move forward with his life. This woman doesn’t love him as much as he thinks. If she did, she wouldn’t have married the man she got married to. That she left him to marry another man despite the covenant between them shows that she doesn’t love him as much as he thinks.
Life is a gamble and most times things do not always turn out the way we planned them. Life goes up and down and whatever God has ordained will never cease to happen. Your friend and his former girlfriend didn’t wait for the direction of God at all. They wanted things to happen the way they wanted without putting the will of God into it. By taking the oath to stay together, they wanted to enforce what God didn’t plan for them hence the problems they are both facing.
Asking God for forgiveness as well as an effective deliverance will ease whatever emotional problems is coming from this woman breaking the oath they both took. He also has to learn to let go of the memories of the two of them. Whatever happened between them should remain in the past because that is the only way the future can have meaning to him. When we refuse to leave the past, it has a way of impeding our progress, preventing us from X-raying the future and giving it the needed attention to make us move beyond the point the past has left us.
His inability to let go of the memories of his relationship with this lady, even after she got married to someone else is one the reasons he is having problems in his own life. You cannot hold on to a dream about one person and expect to see anything good in another person. This lady has to vacate his life for another woman to find space and peace in his heart to exist.
Even if he goes through deliverance and still refuses to let go of her memories in his heart, he would still continue to have problems.
Tell both of them to have faith in God because that is the main key to a successful deliverance.
Good luck.

Tell me how to approach her


Dear Agatha, 
How do I approach this woman who has all the qualities I want in a woman? I am 29 years of age. She lives opposite my house but due to our closeness, I don’t know how to approach her. 
Terfa.

Dear Terfa,
First you have to identify why you are hesitant in approaching this lady. Does she have better economic power than you or better education?
Once you are able to identify why your approaching her appear to be a burden, it makes going to her somehow easy.
Besides, everyman needs a measure of confidence to approach a woman for a relationship. Also, you must be clear on what you want from her. This is where a knowledge of the kind of person the woman is, is important.
For instance, while a man could get away telling one woman, I just love you: for another woman, it is the height of insult and insincerity. Even if it is love at first sight, a man should never tell a woman he is just meeting such things.
By now, you should know why you are so taken by this woman. Is it that you just want a feel of her body or that there is something compelling about her you want to explore, get to know with a view of sharing a future with her? Being honest to yourself will make it easier to convince her to be your woman. Most men get off on the wrong footing because they cannot even persuade themselves on why they want a particular woman in their lives.
Yours is made easier because you have known her for sometime. It is knowing what you want from her and telling her why your life will be dull without her to lighten it up.
Whatever it is you are telling her, please mean it. You don’t have to promise her marriage like most men are fond of doing in their quest to get a particular woman into their lives.
Be truthful to her. let her know that while you like her enough to desire her in your life, the future is what both of you must want sufficiently to negotiate.
Since you are practically neighbours, nicely ask her out to an eatery or any tourist site like a beach where both of you can be alone yet surrounded by other people who really don’t have business with the two of you.
This way, you would be protecting her from gossips that come from familiar people seeing a man and woman together; thus shielding her from unwanted pressures. It is also a way of building a memory bank that would kick start whatever it is you have in mind for her.
Once you are able to break the initial barrier of knowing what to say and how to present it, the rest will simply flow in.
At times too, fear of being rejected prevents most men from pursuing a particular relationship to its logical end. If this is the case, perish such fears. It is the prerogative of a woman to play tough, sometimes exhibit rudeness to the man who wants her heart. If your focus is on rejection, then you aren’t ready for the tough game of the heart.
Persistence is the name of the game so go for her.
Good luck.

Carrying his baby months after I left him!


Dear Agatha,
I am in a very difficult position. One I would find extremely difficult to explain to my former boyfriend. I honestly don’t even know how to explain it to myself let alone any other one, because it is a very strange thing.
My ex-boyfriend and I went our different ways about five months ago, and since then I haven’t slept with another man on account of the way we separated. I caught him with one of my very good friends. For me, it was the height of it all. Prior to that time, we have had issues concerning his ability to keep his pants zipped up.
Because I have always been told that relationship takes time to form, I kept enduring the situation for four years. But catching him with my friend was more than I could endure. I didn’t give him the chance to explain anything and told him in clear terms that I don’t ever want to see him. Even when some of his friends came to beg and explain that I should give him a chance to explain what really happened, I ignored them all. My parents also tried to speak on his behalf, but backed off when I made my stance very obvious.
 I honestly thought I was rid of him until I discovered that I am about five months pregnant. The shock isn’t the pregnancy, but the way my body concealed the knowledge from me. Like I said, we have gone our separate ways and I am carrying his baby inside of me. How do I convince him that the child is his? How do I present the case to him and his family after telling him I am through with him? Will he believe me? Will he ever accept the child as his own? How do I bring a child whose birth would be clothed in controversy into the world? How do I explain the whole matter to my parents or his for that matter? Would he believe I didn’t know about the pregnancy until now? At 32, who would believe I didn’t know I was pregnant till now?
 The few friends I told are divided in opinion. While some think abortion is still possible at this stage of the pregnancy, some think I should go ahead and have the baby on my own, since I have a good job without telling the father. Yet others think I owe myself and baby the responsibility of informing the father. And that even if he denies, at least, he would be aware of the existence of the baby.
I am in a very tight corner. Please help me. I love to have a baby, but not in this controversial manner. A doctor I contacted said it was too risky to abort the child at this stage. He also explained that some women don’t experience the usual signs and agrees it is inexplicable. I am so confused because even if he accepts I don’t want to marry him again. There is no way I can marry a man I don’t trust. And I don’t want to be a single mother either.
 Iremide.
Dear Iremide,
I don’t subscribe to you aborting the baby whatever the situation. A child is a gift from God and only He has the right to touch a life. He takes and gives as He pleases. It isn’t in your place to do that. The fact that He didn’t allow you the pleasure of experiencing the natural signs a woman notices when she gets pregnant shows that this child is meant to be.
What this means is that this child is very determined to come and any attempt by you to terminate its life could result in your death too. So, be careful. At any rate, have you bothered to consider God’s reason for making all these happen? Naturally, when a woman takes in, her flow is expected to stop even if she is one of those lucky women who don’t experience nausea, spitting and discomfort associated with the early days of pregnancy. That none of these happened shows the benevolent hands of God at work.
Rather than worry at what this man would say, why not begin by thanking God for this special gift? I know and understand all the different shades of feelings you are going through as well as the attendant confusions, but going first to God would help you put things in their proper perspectives.
First, you have to accept the reality of the baby growing inside of you. That is not negotiable. You must have the calmness of mind to accept that no matter what happens between the father and you, this baby has come to stay and for a while may be your sole responsibility.
Once you have the grace to accept the baby as part of you, the attendant strength to face the hostility, condemnation as well as all the other negative attitudes from people around you would come from nowhere. This will help you know what advice to take and those to ignore. For instance, you will learn to shut out from your life those friends asking you to terminate this pregnancy. This is particularly necessary, because you caught your man with one of these so-called friends. Only the spirit of God can tell you the truth at all times.
Those urging you to abort a five months old pregnancy don’t mean well for you. A lot can go wrong even if you entrust your life to the best doctor in the world. What would be your story if you end up having damaged womb? Would say you lost your womb due to fears of raising a child alone? Would any of these friends give you any of their children to call your own? At 32, are you not old enough to be a mother or make your decision?
Besides, have you stopped to consider the viability of your biological clock? What about the spiritual angle, the destiny of the individual? What if God reveals to you that child is meant to be your only child in life? Would you still be ashamed to care for it or make excuses for your reason to get rid of it?
If you have never given him cause to suspect you, lied to him, he would believe you. Only a man who doesn’t trust his woman or running away from responsibility would deny a woman he has slept with. Don’t judge or condemn him even before giving him a chance to defend his honour as a man. Yes, he may appear irresponsible to you on account of his behaviour, but when it comes to the issue of knowing that he is about to be a father, don’t deny him his rights. Your body may be incubating the child, but he is the father. Hence he has the right to know because you didn’t make the baby alone.
Even if he doubts the paternity of the baby, modern medicine has made such thing so simple. A DNA could be conducted on the foetus to determine the paternity or on the baby after birth.
Telling him doesn’t mean you have to go back to him if you don’t want to, but it would give both of you the chance to discuss the well being of this child God has graciously given to the two of you.
Overtime, it would also give you two the chance to re-assess your relationship. This child could be God’s way of forcing you to listen to the wise counsel of all those who tried to talk you out of your decision. There is no way you both won’t talk about the past if both of you plan to play prominent roles in the life of this child.
Until you listen to him, you won’t know how your friend ended up in the position you caught both of them. Have you ever tried considering the fact that your friend out of jealousy may have planned everything to ensure you broke up with him?
You will never know the true nature of some of your friends or motive of their friendship unless you hear this man out. Listening doesn’t mean you should forgive him, but knowing what actually transpired that day would go a long way in helping you understand a lot of things happening around you.
Whatever happens between the two of you, the interest of the child should always come first, because at the end of the day that is what would count the most.
Good luck.

I saw a pack of condoms in her bag

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

Dear Agatha,
Thank you very much for your wonderful contributions to matters of the heart. 
Please advise me on this. There is this young girl I love so very much but each time I ask her to tell me if she is dating another guy, she nags and tries to make me feel she isn’t cheating.
Recently, she visited me after series of me pleading with her to come over to my place. To my greatest surprise, I discovered a pack of gold circle in her bag but she denied its ownership insisting it belonged to her roommate who went out with her bag a day before she came to visit me. She went on to say, she didn’t even know about the existence of the condom in her bag.
I also discovered that she is keeping another relationship in her school. I still love her.
Please what do you advise?
Worried Lover.

Dear Worried Lover,
Lesson number one, don’t search through the contents of your girlfriend’s bag if you don’t have the heart to handle whatever mystery the bag holds. Any man who does that is opening himself up for pains and disappointment. Only a man who wants to be lied to, exposes himself to that situation. The bag of a woman is as mysterious as the heart of a woman. There is no limit to what it holds. So if you want to be happy with yourself, resist the temptations of prying in your girlfriend’s bag.
Doing so also underscores the insecurity of the man involved. Every relationship must first be premised on trust and respect for it to go anywhere. Going through her bag is an indication that you don’t trust her.
No woman wants to operate under the heavy scrutiny of a man especially if she is innocent of the charges against.
The fact that you found a pack of condom in her bag, doesn’t automatically translate to her cheating on you. Her explanation could just be the truth because it is a common thing among young ladies, especially in a hostel setting to exchange fashion accessories. Although, that doesn’t make her less liable because she should have checked the contents of the bag because if her friend had left something incriminating like a gun or hard drug; the kind of things that can get her into trouble with the law, there is no kind of explanations that would exonerate her from the mess.
In this regards, you have every right to be angry with her and question her motives or moral as no decent girl is expected to go about with a condom in her bag. Even if she has a reason to, our society is one that doesn’t take kindly to women flaunting their sexual autonomy.
For the purpose of growing this relationship, allow this to pass because you have no concrete evidence to nail her. She has told you that her friend left in her bag; if you insist, a friend would definitely turn up to own up to its ownership. At the end of the day, you would be the one looking like a fool and a jealous one at that.
No man can successfully track a woman or put her under check. Only a woman can make the decision of wanting to be responsible. Without your girlfriend deciding on her own to be faithful to you, there is nothing you can do to make her. Sincerely, you will be wasting time trying to monitor her.
At this point, you either learn to build trust into the relationship or terminate it to protect your sanity as a man.
Especially, as you are convinced she is having another affair with someone else.
There are some impossible relationships no matter how much you desire it to be real. It is painful that you love her but if she isn’t ready to be stable for now, there is little or nothing you can do to make her.
But, you can go a step further in your quest to nurture this relationship to maturity by making the attempt to sit her down for a heart-to-heart discussion. Sometimes when you lay bare your heart to the one you love, you help that person to realize how important it is having you around. The fact that you are constantly nagging her and displaying your suspicions of her could influence her decision to have another man in her life as a kind of security to your mistrust of her in the event you decide to end the relationship midway.
Opening up to her might have the right impact on your relationship by making her realize how important she is to you. Knowing this for a fact might just make her want to stay with you and appreciate your love for her.
Sincerely, the decision is yours to make but give her the chance to defend herself before you take a decision that you might end up regretting later in life.
This is because there are certain things that might appear right now but may turn out not to be as important as it was years back.
Don’t be confused because there is really nothing confusing about your relationship. Your answer is right in your mind. Do what you feel good about in this situation.
Good luck.

I need help
Dear Agatha,
I’m using this opportunity to see whether I can appeal to any well meaning Nigerian who can help me  get a good job. 
I have an academic deficiency and this has not given me an opportunity to get a good job but I’m good at managing businesses because I can prepare operations manuals, business plans and other documents like minute writing and the rest of them. My greatest wish is to own my own business and publish my book on money and magazine.
Also I want to use this opportunity to appeal to any good looking woman who must be a plus size or  full bodied living in Lagos who wishes to be married to contact me. 
I’m a good Christian and hope to become a pastor one day. My number is, 08122351449.
Cheta

Dear Cheta,
What do you want? A job or a woman? These are two major desires, you cannot combine for now.
If you are thinking of becoming a pastor, you must know how to apportion time to everything; else you end up achieving nothing at the end of the day.
This is because a new job or business requires initial attention to make an impact so also is a new relationship. To combine two heavily demanding issues is to jeopardize your chances of succeeding at any of them.
It is either you concentrate first on building a relationship with the woman after your heart or get a means of livelihood first.
On the issue of getting the right education; it is never too late. You can still go back to school when you have a stable means of income. You don’t have to go for a full time; go for part-time to allow you do other things in life.
Another way you can market yourself is through your church. There will always be one or two persons needing your kind of services. Let your pastor know what you can do and how good you are at it by offering to do one or two things within your area free of charge for the church.
Not many people would want to invest blindly on a person whose service or integrity they don’t know unless those whose minds are made up that they just want to help irrespective of the character of the person they are investing in.
Even if you are not in a big church, there will always be a need for the services you listed above. Every church needs someone to organize its activities, meetings and related programmes. Someone would definitely notice and recommend you to people who are looking for someone to trust with their businesses.
I’m sure, there one or two persons who after reading this, may be moved to help you.
To get this right in your life, learn to trust God implicitly by asking for His directions as well as help in arriving as His planned destination for you.
If true, you have been enlisted by God to be a worker in His vineyard, you may not go far if you are working outside His desires for you. This is why you must settle things with Him before moving on to prevent an exercise in futility.
Good luck. 

They called me seed of evil and now they wants me


Dear Agatha,
My mother was the only parent I knew. My father abandoned her when she was pregnant of me. According to her, her parents also turned their back on her because of their Christian beliefs. She had to struggle with the help of a kind neighbour who offered her shelter to bring me up on her own.
After she had me, the neighbour who was childless took me away from her so that she could improve her lot in life. It was at this point her parents once again took her in.
Her parents refused to have anything to do with me insisting I was the seed of the devil. It was this neighbour who trained me despite the harassment she was constantly subjected to by my grandparents.
She kept telling my mother and I that I was a gift to her from God and that she didn’t care what my grandparents thought of her or me.
When my mother left for east in pursuit of better education, she didn’t make me feel her absence. Every month, she would take me with her to see my mother. It was a huge sacrifice but one she made with all happiness.
After her graduation, my mother met and married an Ibo man. She didn’t hide the fact that she had a child from the man. As a matter of fact she came to see my foster mother and me with her man. We also attended their wedding even though my grandparents refused to allow me into their sitting room during the introduction. We stayed outside all the same.
Her visits after her wedding became far-spaced when she got pregnant. But she kept calling and sending us money to feed. From what I gathered from my foster mother; the pregnancy was a difficult one so also was the birth of the child.
I was in my final year in secondary school when my mother died at childbirth. The love and support of my foster mother helped a great deal during the dark period. She left behind two sons.
Despite the death of my mother, my grandparents’ attitude towards me didn’t change. As a matter of fact, they said my mother’s death has something to do with me, that she died because of the sin she committed with my father.
Today through the grace of God and my foster mother, I am a medical doctor. I have reunited with my brothers who are also doing fine.
Now I am about to wed. My grandparents whose other child died five years after my mother are now desperate to have me. They want to be part of my life, going to the extent of trying to accuse my foster mother of stealing their grandchild and poisoning my mind against them.
When that ploy failed to yield any result, they have since taken to begging my foster mother to help talk to me. Strangely, my brothers don’t like them and are solidly behind my decision not to invite them to my wedding.
But my foster mother is against my decision. She says I owe it to the memory of my mother to be polite to her parents even if they treated me badly. She wants me to forgive them and give them the honour of hosting the traditional wedding ceremony. I have told her, it would take place in the only home I have ever known throughout my life but she still persists that I invite them. I cannot bring myself to forgive or forget how they have treated me all these while.
Would they have come if I were a beggar? If my foster mother hadn’t taken me in, given me the best of education would they have acknowledged me as their granddaughter?
I don’t want to disobey my foster mother, but is it right to associate with people who never cared about me? Who from day one rejected me and at every opportunity called me the seed of a devil?
It doesn’t make sense to me. Please help me because I don’t know what to do.
Morenikeji.



Dear Morenikeji,
Long before we were even conceived, God has outlined the pattern, colours as well as texture of our lives. We don’t have a choice in the matter of who our parents are, or the process that give birth to us. These things come from God.
That you came through the woman that carried you in her womb or the seed of the man you don’t know, are part of His plans for you. They didn’t happen by chance. He knew your grandparents would reject you from the womb and that your mother would die early in life hence stationed a childless woman to foster and provide you with a home.
When He also created the woman, He knew she would not be able to have a child of her own, hence planned for you to come the way you did to give her complete control over you.
You wouldn’t have been able to stay with her if your grandparents had shown you love and accepted you whole-heartedly. If you had a father, he too may not have allowed the situation of his child staying with someone he considered a complete stranger.
Doubtless, God planned your destiny and that of this woman to function as mother and child.
This is why you must listen to her and forgive your grandparents and give them the honour of being present at your wedding. It is the least you can do for the memory of a woman who gave you life and showered you with love while she lived. Despite their attitude towards you, they gave birth to that woman who never for once displayed any regret or shame at having you when she did. She was willing to put her life on hold to have you all alone when other young girls would have considered taking their own lives or terminating the pregnancy.
There is no contesting the fact that your grandparents were really off the mark in their attitude towards you but God knows best. Who knows if you had grown with them, their resentment of you may have prevented you from achieving the height of success you have attained now.
Would they have been able to fund your medical education? Would you have been able to endure their bitterness at close range? Who knows they, through their attitude, may have pushed you into a life-style, which would have effectively terminated your God given destiny.
A lot of people we today brand failures, urchins, armed robbers, drug addicts were not created by God to be any of these. They too came with the same promising future you came with but got derailed by the situations they found themselves in. Many of them were meant by God to be doctors like you, captains of industry, successful politicians, money bags but never got close to any of these dreams, the environment they found themselves in were hostile to such lofty dreams.
Had you grown with them, the level of hatred your grandparents displayed for you would have driven you into the waiting hands of any man, making the same mistake your mother made. That God gave you another home to enable you grow up into who He desires you to be should make you forget whatever wrong these two must have done to you.
Inability to forgive them places you under unnecessary spiritual constraints. It is pointless trying to do God’s work for Him. You had no hand in what you are today so why now being the one to insist on doing things your own way?
You got to where you are through the mercy of God so why not extend the same mercy to these old people who have little time to live? Why do you want to contribute more to their misery? Burying all their children in their lifetime is more than any parent can bear. Although they appear to be normal but everything inside of them has stopped beating. What you see are empty shells. Only your forgiveness as well as showing them love can put some flesh on the hollow of the emptiness they are now facing.
They made their choice to be bitter and resentful of you; you also have it in your hands to make the choice of being happy and free of guilt in your life.
Look at them; in all honesty, do you want to end up like them? Unfortunately, if you refuse to forgive them, you risk ending up like them because their inability to forgive their daughter and show you love brought them to this end. If you also refuse to forgive them and show them love now that they desperately need it, you are also like them in more ways than you realise.
Take your brothers and go to them. Judgement is for the Lord. Together with your brothers, fill their hearts and lives with love. It doesn’t make you less of your foster mother’s child, or less appreciative of her role in your life.
Going to them would only serve as the icing on the cake as well as showcase the good work she did for you. She must have a pure heart to have done all she did for you and your mother despite the attitude of your grandparents. If you refuse to listen to her, you would be failing in your responsibility towards her as a loving and respectful child.
As a mother, she has given you a commission to go and make peace with them. Obey her so as to continue to enjoy her blessings as well as the mercies of God.
Good luck.