Thursday, April 3, 2014

She is threatening my life


Share a problem With Auntie Agatha,  gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha, 
I live in a compound that has many tenants. It is always one problem or gossip. Because of my experiences at my former place, I have learnt to mind my business. 
Besides, my job as a sales representative didn’t give me much time to be idle since I live on commission. If I don’t meet my target for the month, I won’t go home with anything.
But even the little I was making from that effort, I lost as the company, went under due to recession. 
The little money I made, I invested in my own business resulting in my inability to  pay my rent. To avoid embarrassment from the landlord who lives upstairs, I decided one afternoon after I came back from selling some of my items, to go to him to explain my situation. That was my second time of going there. After knocking on his door severally without getting a reply, I thought nobody was at home; but on my way downstairs, I heard the opening of a door so went back only to be confronted with the sight of the landlord with my neighbor’s wife coming out of his apartment. The landlord had a towel tied around his waist, while the woman was adjusting her blouse.
I didn’t need anybody to tell me what had just happened between them. 
On sighting me, the landlord asked with irritation what I wanted while the woman made her escape. After explaining my mission to his apartment, he said, he would allow me stay six months free of charge if I didn’t tell the woman’s husband what I just witnessed. 
I didn’t say anything because in addition to my disgust with him, I was disappointed with the woman I thought was an epitome of womanhood. She is this kind of woman who doesn’t adorn jewelry or make up. To make matter worse, her husband is an assistant pastor and the head of the fellowship we organize every month in the compound.
Although, I didn’t intend telling her husband about what I saw but her subsequent conduct is making me have second thoughts. She has been to my apartment to beg and even offering her body to buy my silence. 
I drove her out of my room and warned her never to come near me. The issue now is, she has been going about telling people that I became hostile to her after she rejected my advances. 
This is where I need your help. How do I manage this woman? I don’t want to get myself involved in any issue with anybody in the compound. At the same time, I want to put an end to this woman’s damage of my reputation.
A friend of mine, I shared my dilemma with, advised  I tell her husband my story before she frames me up. To think this is a woman I considered to be righteous and very religious makes me want to throw up whenever I see her. I feel like beating the day light out of her.
I don’t know what to do. Please help me. I have plans for my life beyond them all.
Uche.


Dear Uche,
No matter what she has done or is saying about you, don’t give in to the temptation of beating her. In the first place, she is someone’s wife and also a woman. What if something terrible happens to her when and after beating her? What would be your story? How many people would believe the stories you will tell of her conduct and provocations? How would you explain to her husband, the reason for beating his wife? Not only would it mar your friendship but would make you the topic of discussion in the neighborhood as both the woman and landlord can easily capitalize on it to rope you into something you didn’t do. Given the stories she has been carrying about you, she could turn it  to you wanting to rape her. It would be a difficult task for you to prove your innocence as she has alibis in the landlord and other people she has been carrying tales about you to.
Many innocent people are today wasting away in prisons due to their inability to bridle their temper.
Besides, undue display of temper would present you as a man desperate to cover his tracks. Since your conscience is clear, continue to resist her by always being on your guard against whatever cunning plans she may be conceiving to nail you.
If the house is the kind that has a communal bathroom and kitchen, ensure you have your bath when activity at the bathroom is at its peak and your cooking, when others are also around the area.
Limit your activities to when others are around because there is no telling what her kind of person can do. A woman who has no qualms sleeping with another man in the compound she lives with her husband can do anything to ensure her secrets remain just that. Offering you her body in exchange for your silence should by now tell you what kind of woman you are dealing with. Such women need tact and unusual way to put in check.
Given her conduct so far, she is definitely spoiling for war; don’t fall for her ploy. One of the ways you can deal with her behavior is to walk up to her husband in her presence to plead with him to tell his wife to let you be. If he asks you what the problem between the two of you is, tell him to ask his wife as you cannot recall ever having any issue with her and that you have come for the sake of peace.
Leave the matter hanging. Let her be the one to find reasons to give her husband for her hostility towards you. The boldness to come to her husband as well as the suddenness of your visit will communicate the need for her to be careful on how she proceeds with you. The fact that you didn’t say what she has done orbeen saying about you would make her think twice about engaging you further in any form of hostility.
In addition, it would remind her of her vulnerability and how easily she can lose her home and family if she doesn’t begin to re-order her priority.
Without you saying anything or lifting your hand against her, you would have told her that you are not an easy opponent and if pushed to the wall, you have poison in your fangs and shall not hesitate to use them if the need arises.
However, you have to consider getting an alternative accommodation if you value your life. Between this woman and your landlord, you are in a very dangerous situation; one that could lead to your death if you don’t act fast. If you have any friend or relative that can board you until you are able to gather enough money to pay for rent somewhere else, do sourgently.
You will be naïve to think she is alone in all these. Whatever she is saying has the backing of the landlord. There is also the issue of how far she may have gone to blind her husband, spiritually to her atrocities. There is the possibility that others too know and that her husband is also in the know of her relationship with the landlordbut, could be hamstrung by whatever power is giving her the guts to do what she is doing.
There is also the angle of her not having controls over her action. The landlord for reasons best known to him, could also have charmed her into what she is doing. Either way, your life isn’t really safe in that house. Go before it is too late to do anything about this situation and keep your destination to yourself for security reasons. Most men would kill to have a woman just as most women would do same to protect their secrets.
Always commit your ways to God to avoid getting involved in this kind of situation.
Good luck

She has become a stranger


agatha

With Auntie Agatha
gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
In the last couple of years, I don’t know what has come over my wife of 14 years. She used to be mild tempered, always ready to please me even when not auspicious for her.
Back then she lived to please me. However something happened about five years ago when I capitulated to my mother’s pressure to get another woman pregnant all because my wife couldn’t give me a male child.
Unfortunately, the woman too produced two girls forcing my mother to give up. 
I was out of the country when my mother without informing me took the other woman and her children to my house. 
My wife in her characteristic manner didn’t fight or alerted me of the development at home. She waited for me to come. I was very angry with her, my mother and the other woman.
Despite knowing that I was being fair on her given the shock of her discovery, I went ahead and called her all sorts of names-including being stupid.
Something obviously snapped inside of her immediately I said that. She slapped me so hard I lost my balance momentarily. When I made to slap her back, she grabbed the side stool and would have hit in on my head but for the quick intervention of my mother and the other woman.
By the time she was through for that day, my mother and the other woman decided to leave for Ijebu that very day. 
Since I wasn’t ready to marry the other woman, she didn’t go with the children. 
Although, she took the children in, didn’t complain or treat them differently from her own but, she changed dramatically from that day. She does only what she wants and now what I want. As God would have it, we had a son on the 1st of January this year.
During the naming ceremony when my mother made to take the baby, she refused and only agreed to give the baby to my father.
Since having that child, she has further transformed to a complete stranger. She nags me when I make any observations, doesn’t talk except I initiate a discussion. 
She stays mostly in her bedroom with the children.
I don’t know what else to do to bring back the woman I married. I love her so much and miss the loving and caring woman deep inside her. 
I hate the coldness of her eyes these days.
What do I do?
Bamidele.


Dear Bamidele,
Given the kind of things you have done to her, you say you don’t know what has come over her? What do you expect from a woman you and your family betrayed in such a cruel manner? If she were your sister or daughter, what would have been your reactions to what you and your mother did to her? Would you have been happy seeing your sister or daughter in the condition you and your mother planned for her?
Be truthful to yourself: would you still have reckoned with her as your wife if the other woman had produced a male child? I’m sure your mother would have driven her out of the house had that happened.
Her pains are manifold. In the first instance, having all daughters isn’t her making. A man influences the gender of the child he gets. You are the one with the X and Y chromosomes. What you give her, is what she produces.
In addition, you appear to have written off your daughters as failures. The gender of a child doesn’t determine the success of that child. Look around you; both men and women are making exploits in various fields of endeavors. Even if your mother had such myopic idea of what tomorrow holds, it was your duty to educate her on the usefulness of your daughters to you.
Of what use is a son who ends up as a tout, armed robber or ritualist to his family? What family wants its name associated with such a child? I’m sure your mother has daughters too. Would she be happy if another woman does to her daughter what she did to your wife?
If it were that easy, why didn’t she or the woman go with the children of the other woman? It takes a woman with a heart of gold to do what your wife is doing: looking after those children as her own.
Another woman would have thrown them out with their mother. She is doing that, inspite of the way you treated  her because of her love and respect for you.
She isn’t talking to you because you have not done the right thing. You offended her hence must do everything to apologise to her properly.
Infact, your whole family owes her an apology.
Not apologising is like sweeping massive dirt under the carpet. In other families, your in-laws would have demanded for apology at the way their daughter was treated by you and your mother.
What you did is a severe breach of trust. You not only humiliated her, but also betrayed her in the worst way any man can be disloyal to a woman. You got another woman pregnant not once but twice. What if she didn’t give you a child at all? Worst still, you didn’t have the guts or decency to inform her.
She only got to know when your mother unfeelingly brought the other woman and the children, evidence of your betrayal of your marriage vows to her home.
That was stretching her patience and love for you too far. The fact that she always went out of her way to please you, meant she wanted her home to succeed at all cost.
Another man would never have agreed to such plans from the mother. That you agreed could only mean one thing; your so called love for your wife is premised on having an heir to your name.
A man who marries for love wouldn’t mind if his wife is able to give him children or not.
For this reason, you need to bring your mother and other members of your family to make restitution to your wife. The agenda should be to beg for forgiveness so that you two can begin to live in peace and harmony again.
If possible, get the other woman too to come. She has no right to abandon the children for her. Even if you changed your mind about marrying her since she couldn’t give you the desired son, you should have discussed your desire to keep the children with your wife first.
She isn’t a nanny. She deserves respect.
I’m sure you wouldn’t have liked it if she had taken out her frustration and bitterness out on those children.
Truthfully, you are taking this woman far too much for granted. There are not many women  like her.
The deep wound inside of her can only begin to heal by not only begging her but changing your selfish attitude.
She has more than demonstrated her willingness to make this marriage work. You should also do the same by becoming her friend and offering her support around the house.
Her refusal to give the child to your mother shows she is very angry with your mother which is natural given the role your mother has played in your marriage. Your mother too has to come on her own, to beg your wife.
Importantly, be careful, your mother doesn’t destroy your home. Limit her to her husband’s home until your wife’s attitude thaws towards her.
Also, make it clear to the other woman, you don’t have anything whatsoever to do with her especially as the children are with you hence would appreciate her not calling or coming to the house with the excuse of wanting to see the children. If the children were of much value to her, she wouldn’t have readily abandoned them for another woman to look after.
It is only when your wife sees the efforts you are doing to make her happy; that she can smile again.
Above all, learn to pray with her. It is the only way to keep temptations at bay.
Good luck

Is love real?


Agatha
Dear Agatha
Does true love really exist? Isn’t it all an illusion? I say this because of all the confusion happening in our relationships. How can anyone be in love and be sleeping with another person? It is all so confusing.
Peter

Dear Peter,
Without love, there is no life. The world derives its origin and strength from love.
Love is evident in all relationships of the world. It takes an element of love for two people to even become friends.
What the different are, however, the different hues love comes in as well as our understanding of what it is all about. However, for it to make meaning to us, it requires a thorough study as well as preparation.
Its preparation begins with us. What is our comprehension of love? Love begins by knowing what it is as well as application. There is no way you can give what you don’t have or something can come from nothing.
The foundation of a study of love comes from us applying it to ourselves. When you love yourself, know how you want to be treated by people around you, it makes you very sensitive to what others also expect from you. Only people who are ignorant of love and its expectation go around life hurting others.
For love to bloom, it has to be properly founded on certain principles. It has to be enduring, selfless, supportive, caring, patient, tolerating, understanding, accommodating, humble, sensitive, respectful as well as responsible.
There is no way love can make it if premised on selfish foundation. A lot of time, love becomes a shade of pains and ugliness because the person professing it sees it as a self-serving emotion, in which case it becomes insensitive and disrespectful of the other person’s feelings as well as thoughts. Above all the person must understand why God created love. God created love for friendship and companionship. He knows that without friendship, love becomes nothing, but an animalistic urge similar to what lesser animal experiences. This is why love is a spiritual thing. It has to first succeed at the spiritual level before it can work physically.
This is the mystery of love, why we love a particular person and prefers to be friends with another kind of person.
Having given us the knowledge of good and bad as well as ability to understanding our supremacy over all other creations, He gave love to help us relax, shape the world and improve on our environment.
When love is properly applied, it helps create in the environment a deep friendship as well as a deep feeling of selflessness. This is why a person really in love is a very happy and contended person to deal with. The patience and tolerance to listen comes from the confidence of knowing that out there is someone who is very supportive as well as caring.
Love brings the baby in all of us out. It reminds of our dependency on others to make us whole. When true love exists it takes us back to our early happy years, those years when the support and presence of our parents gave us the confidence to do the impossible.
There is no way love can be celebrated without an accompanying determination to place the interest of the other person first. This is the kernel of love itself because it breeds loyalty and trust. Without both parties first making the sacrifice to accommodate the views and opinion of the other, it becomes difficult for both of them to appreciate why things should be done certain ways to accommodate the feelings of both of them.
This willingness is where the thread of respect comes into play. It has to be carefully patterned to make each member of the partnership relaxed and happy. If a thread is heavily patterned to favour one side, the delicate balance needed to harmonise the different personalities of the two parties becomes very difficult to attain. Therefore for the two persons to have a sensible relationship, both of them must have the humility required to take in the other person’s view without feeling cheated or left behind. So, for you to get the type of love you want, you must be ready to invest into it. You must give it your best by devoting time to the principle governing it.
If your understanding of love is only based on sex and materialism, chances are you would continue to suffer pains and disappointment, because, only the wrong persons would come your way.
To help you appreciate love, first look at what you totally understanding of it. What values are most important to you when you are professing it? If your ideals were superficial, totally lacking in substance, chances of you being able to attract a partner with valuable substances would be slim because likes attracts like minds.
Love only pays those who appreciate that it has a life of its own, operates on a principle of fairness as well as vision.
Before you fall in love again, ask yourself what you want from life, how you want to be treated and who do you think would help you best in achieving your dreams.  Quality love requires you to look inwards and not outwards. It is what we each have inside of us that last forever, not what we look like or have in life. Therefore you must be ready to dig deep by making all the initial sacrifices.
Most important is to allow the spirit of God help you in making the last choice because sometimes what we think is gold may indeed be tarnished object wrapped in golden wrapper. It takes only the grace of God to know who is real from who’s fake.
Good luck.

Infidelity led to my husband’s bedwetting


MarriageClinic With Agatha  Edo,  Email: gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I don’t know how to deal with this problem confronting me in my marriage. I actually came to your office but couldn’t summon the courage to ask of you at the reception. I left without fulfilling the purpose of my visit. 
The issue is that my husband of nine years urinates on the bed in the night. This started a year ago after I fought his girlfriend and made him to leave her. I actually found out that she was pregnant for him. During the cause of our physical exchange, she fainted and was rushed to the hospital. I heard she eventually lost the baby but at least, my husband began to stay at home. 
A month after the incident, she came in company of her elder sister who told me to be prepared for battle; that I would see issues in my marriage that will be beyond me. They said I can keep my husband because her sister isn’t interested in him anymore.
Without giving me the chance to give them a suitable reply, she walked out of my house.
I was glad and closed the chapter but not without warning my husband never to make the mistake of going out with another woman or he would live to regret ever betraying our vows to each other.
He didn’t know who to be angry with; me or the woman who came to threaten me in the house.
But to ensure his friends and family members are aware of the incident just in the event that she comes back to injure me at home; I told everybody including my harmless warning that he will live to regret ever being unfaithful to me again.
I don’t know what happened but about a month after that incident, he started to urinate at home.
The first night, our son slept in our room since he wasn’t feeling too fine so I thought he did it. I ignored it and changed the beddings. My husband didn’t react in the way he normally does if any of the children urinates on the bed. I also noticed that even though it was a Saturday when he liked to stay in bed or laze around in his pajamas, he not only took his bath but washed his clothes as well. 
You can imagine my shock when I discovered that it was my husband who was urinating on the bed. The first few nights, he bluntly refused to sleep in our room. He deliberately picked a fight with me, using the excuse of my son’s purported behaviour as an excuse.
Soon the guest room started oozing urine. To cover up, he will take our last son along with him to sleep there.
But he eventually owned up when the situation became too much for him to handle.
There is no where we haven’t been to; nobody has the answer to his problem. One of the places his family took him to, I was said to be the one behind his predicament. As it is now, his family members are accusing me of being responsible for his situation and are insisting I undo whatever it is I have done to harm their son.
They think I did it to make him pay for dating other women. Agatha, I am innocent. God knows I know nothing about it. Why would I go to that extent to harm him?
I don’t know what to do anymore. I have prayed and fasted but his situation has remained the same. I am fed up with the whole situation. The whole house stinks as a result of it.
I just want my husband to be all right. I love him. 
I am so confused. What can I do?
Mosun.

Dear Mosun,
First eradicate any medical condition.  Be certain that he is not suffering from any medical condition. According to my doctor’s friend, an infection of the bladder may make it impossible for him to control himself especially at night when he is asleep. It is the same reason children urinate on their beds in the night.
In his opinion, it is obvious that the brain isn’t getting any message from that part of the body to wake him up when sleeping. Therefore insist on medical examination before considering other options. If the problem is medical, spiritual options won’t work. God who equipped pharmacists and doctors with the medical knowledge of the kinds of drugs and treatment we need from time to time to help our weak organs, repair them where necessary certainly knows what he is doing so stop applying a medication meant for headache to treat boil.
It is only when doctors insist there is nothing wrong with him medically, and all his vitals are working the way they should, that you should employ the spiritual options since what happened in the past and this incident may just be a coincidence.
But be that as it may, you didn’t handle the matter of your husband’s affair very well. Doubtless, you had every reason to be bitter considering the emotional pains and sense of betrayal involved in knowing your husband had being playing around but going to fight a pregnant woman wasn’t right.
What if they had invited the Police in and you are currently facing murder charge? The fact that the woman lost her baby while you fought her in her state makes you responsible for the death of that innocent child she was carrying.
Even though they didn’t bother to press charges against you, spiritually you have offended God. You shouldn’t have fought this woman under any circumstances. After all, she didn’t get herself pregnant. Your husband did. The normal thing would have been to confront your husband who strayed and betrayed his vows.
Therefore if those you have consulted over your husband’s predicament think you are the one behind his problem, they can’t be far from the truth. Granted, you may not be directly responsible, fighting his pregnant mistress, an incident that led to the death of the foetus, makes you indirectly liable for the condition of your husband. Temper and impatience can destroy an otherwise good cause.
This is where I think you should begin sourcing solutions to your problems from. The fact that the other woman’s family members, beyond coming to issue that threat, didn’t make life more difficult for you by adding legal means to what you did, is very pregnant with meaning.
If you know where the woman is, go and beg her. Even though she ought to be the one begging you, the fact that you acted wrongly, out of impatience makes you the guilty one. Take elders in your family as well as your husband’s to beg her for forgiveness. Life is too deep and complex for what you did to this woman. Besides, nobody can really know the mind of our God. What appears to be right to man maybe injustice in His sight. If the laws of the land do not take kindly to fighting a pregnant woman, how much more God’s laws? The life that was lost was created by God, so it was His handiwork you destroyed. That child could have become the redeemer of your family or a world-class material in his or her chosen field. That child she was carrying was innocent of anything the father and mother did to you.
The act made you guiltier than your husband. By going to beg the woman in question to forgive your act, you make yourself blameless before God.
Once you beg, don’t bother if they agree to your pleas or not. Follow up by asking God Himself to forgive you and ensure that everything that incident put wrong in your family is made right.
If anybody tells you not to go, that the woman got what she deserved, don’t listen or allow pride make you lose everything that gives you happiness at the end of the day.
Wisdom is what governs the journey of life. Don’t allow anybody take it away from you.
You need a peaceful home to train and instill proper values into your children. You need your husband to feel like a man again; to be a real husband to you and not just in a name.
With his challenge, it will be difficult for him to function as a man even though nothing is wrong with him physically.
If it takes asking this woman for forgiveness to restore peace in your home, please do it.
Above all, don’t ever relent in prayers. There is nothing our God isn’t capable of doing.
Good luck.