With Agatha Edo Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com, 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
Men are very treacherous. How unfair can men be to women! I am going to be 60 this year. I have been married for 40 years. I invested everything I had into this marriage. I am the only child of my parents so I inherited everything they had. When things were very difficult for my husband and I, the only house they had in Surulere, I sold to enable my husband begin his business.
Today, he is quite successful. If anybody had told me that this man I helped to become the success he currently is, would bite the fingers that fed him, I would have called that person a liar.
About two months ago, I went to the United Kingdom to visit my son whose wife just put to bed. While there, one of the wife’s cousin came to visit her. From their discussion, it was obvious that they hadn’t seen in recent time. This cousin apparently lives in the United States with his family.
I really couldn’t say what was so familiar about the cousin but he looked like someone I once met long time ago. I was really curious to know so I asked him about his work, state of origin, his parents and all the things you ask when trying to help the memory recall something from its bank.
My daughter-in-law innocently aided my quest for information as she announced that he shares the same surname as our family name. I was very curious to know so asked him his full name; the same names as my husband’s. I asked him about his mother, who I gathered is Caribbean.
I didn’t know what to do because the face I thought was familiar was actually my husband’s. The boy was the replica of my husband. He was more of his mirror image than my son. When I asked how old he was, I discovered he was just three years younger than my first son while his sister and my third were age mates.
Again, my daughter-in-law provided the information about the sister. When I asked him about his father, he said he was fine and presently in Nigerian with his other family.
Further questions reveal that he has told them about his Nigerian family; and how afraid he was of them coming to visit him because of his wife. He said the mother and father were legally married in the United States. When he asked if I knew his father going by the similarities in our surnames, I told him, I would find out from my husband. It was all I could do at that time not to let the secret out of the bag.
Without explaining my reasons, I told my children I was going back to Nigeria the following day.
In the plane back home, I was praying against the reality of what I just heard but it turned out to be the truth. He didn’t bother to hide the truth from me.
His excuse? I never made him to feel like a man. Right from the very day I married him, I have always made him feel inferior, never lost the opportunity of reminding him I made him.
He said, I kept deriding him in the presence of the children by my recount of how I sold my father’s house to help him. He attributes the attitude of the children towards him to that.
I am really hurt and confused. I know he is trying to justify what he did by all the excuses about my behaviour. Even if I am guilty of all that, is marrying another woman right? Is it his way of repaying me for all I have done for him?
Of his own volition, he personally told the children about his other family. Ironically, my children, especially my sons, I thought would align with me against their father, all appear to be blaming me for the situation in my house. My eldest son, actually told me he didn’t blame his father for sourcing for happiness elsewhere. He stopped short of calling me a nag. My only daughter, though wasn’t as vocal as the brothers, just urged me to take things easy and sort it out with their father.
I have made up my mind to leave and have actually initiated discussion on the ownership of his business since I brought the money for the initial capital. I won’t let another woman reap where she didn’t sow. But I need your help, am I doing the right thing?
An old friend of mine thinks, I am going about it the wrong way and that if I am not careful, I risk losing the respect and support of my children. But I cannot allow any woman into my home, the one I took my parents money to establish. It is not possible! As it is, he has already used my money to train his other children. What kind of help can you offer me Agatha?
I want you to appreciate that I am a hurt woman who is desperate to keep her inheritance.
Patience.
Dear Patience,
At almost 60, should you be more concerned about your peace of mind, making up with your children than fighting over a legacy your children, from your narration, may not really need?
Can wrongs ever be right? Granted, your husband has been unfair to you but don’t you think your current reaction is giving basis for your husband’s decision to marry another woman? If your children are not supporting you, and actually appear to be giving their father tacit support, can you still say you are right?
There are situations in life when our righteousness can be very wrong. In this situation, your justification may not be right at the end of the day.
What is life? What is the essence of marriage? Is it to just have children? We can all give one reason or the other to rationalise our actions but would these excuses stand the test of time, when our actions and the results we get are put side by side?
Yes, you did the right thing, helping to kick start your husband’s success in life but does it merit your nagging him; exposing him to the disdain of the children? If your own children can say those things about you, then you must have been terrible in your quest to ensure their father didn’t forget the side where his bread was buttered.
Marriage is more than a journey of having good financial base; it is more of a journey of success, respect and tolerance.
Nagging him to remain loyal to you obviously drove him into the hands of another woman; one who knows that a good marriage is more than having plenty of money to spend.
Unwittingly, you created the opportunity for this woman to have a permanent stay in your husband’s life because the resonance of your words was hurting his being. You were making him feel worthless as a man; he needed to assure himself that he was man enough to command the respect and loyalty of a woman.
Granted, he started with your money but over the years, he has invested his time and intellect to making that money a success. If it weren’t for his sound business mind and judgements, do you think, you would have been able to manage that inheritance you seem to pride more than anything else in your world?
If it weren’t his destiny to be successful, that money would have gone down the drain. What you only did was to give him an early start; he did the rest. If you hadn’t given him the money, someone else would have. God only used you to make His desires for your husband to come to early manifestation.
In your shoes, I would discard any attempt at sharing out the property or leaving the home. To continue with this line of action is to say your 40 years together as a couple has been a complete waste. Deep down, isn’t this marriage worth saving despite what he has done to you?
The beauty of life is our ability to learn from our mistakes. At every level in life, we must make conscious effort to do away with the mistakes of the past. There is nothing stopping you from enjoying your marriage by making conscious and positive attempts at correcting the mistakes of the past.
Going ahead with your decision will further cause a disharmony between you and your children on one hand and your husband on the other hand.
Take advantage of your chance meeting with your stepchildren to mend the wounds your attitude and utterances have caused in your home. To do otherwise is to become a very lonely woman in life. As it stands, your children already have their own families, ones if you stay longer than necessary would become uncomfortable with you while your husband too has a wife and children to fill his space too. Your leaving the house will give him the freedom he needs to fully integrate his family into his life. Old age gives us the opportunity to count our loses, adjust our lives to accommodate the many imperfections of life.
There is nothing love cannot forgive. Become the rallying point for your family. His other wife and children will never take your place if you are wise and know how to patch things up. Rather than fight him, encourage discussion, this way you will know what went wrong as well as how to manage all the new challenges without becoming the ultimate victim.
By being close to God, you make things easier for you to manage.
Good luck.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Pregnant for a boy, pastor warns against abortion…
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I am 40, a divorcee with two children. Since my separation from my husband three years ago, I have been without a stable relationship. I have sex when I want to, but in the last couple of months, I have fallen hopelessly in love with a 26-year-old man. He works in my department. Since setting my eyes on him, I have been unable to concentrate on anything. I dream of him night and day as well as get very resentful of any female that comes close to him. This has made a female colleague to incur my wrath twice.
Even when I know I should caution him for some very obvious mistakes he makes during the discharge of his duties, I simply gloss over it.
Early in the year, the feelings got very unbearable for me, so I invited him to my house. Good food, wine and mood music must have influenced his boldness not to question my offer. That night he slept at my house. The following day, he was sober enough to apologise but I brushed aside his apologies, assuring him it was okay and confessing my love for him.
Although he told me about his girlfriend as well as his desires to marry her, I silently refused to listen. I wanted all the fairy tales; I have found love in him. I noticed that he was trying as much as possible to avoid me, refusing to look me straight in the eyes as well as trying to avoid any personal thing with me.
I was very angry at this, that I threatened to get tough with him if he keeps ignoring me. The fear of losing his job, made him bow to pressures from me, but from his attitude it was like raping him.
At the point I got tired of forcing him to sleep with me, I found out quite unexpectedly that I am almost four months pregnant. It was actually the prophetic warning of my pastor that alerted me to my state. According to my pastor, attempts to disengage the pregnancy will result in my death. I was planning on getting pregnant because I thought I was secured by the injections I was taking to prevent a pregnancy. Despite my feelings, I wasn’t planning on getting pregnant at all. My last child was already 13 so why would I want a baby to disrupt my life? Aborting this child would have been the best option for all concerned but I don’t want to die. My children will suffer if anything happens to me since I am all they have right now.
The reason I am writing is to ask for your advice. When I informed him about the pregnancy, he told me to my face that I should get rid of the pregnancy that there was no way he would accept responsibilities for the child. That he plans to get married to his girlfriend later this year and he wouldn’t want anybody to know that he has been sleeping with a woman almost his mother’s age. He threatened to deny paternity of the child if I attempt to keep it.
How do I explain to my 15-year-old daughter that I am pregnant for a man who isn’t ready to accept the pregnancy and for a man who is 14 years my junior? How do I explain to my 13-year-old son? What do I tell the child in future who his father is especially since he resigned last week and left no forwarding address?
What more, there is an older man in my life who is now very interested in officially marrying me as his second wife. I don’t know what to do at all.
My best friend insists I should terminate it. But I am scared. In addition to being almost four months, I have been warned against it. Please tell me how to progress from this point. Even though I still have strong feelings for him, I am beginning to hate him for his attitude towards me and his unborn baby. In retrospect, I can’t even explain the nature of my feelings or what brought them on. I really feel so foolish now.
What should I do, Agatha?
Maria.
Dear Maria,
First things first, settle the issue of your unborn baby. Make up your mind that irrespective of whatever the father says or feels, this child is a gift from God; given to you in His wisdom to care for. God doesn’t make mistakes like we humans. The circumstances may not be palatable for you now, but once the child is born, a lot of things will change for good.
The mistake of your adventure has been made. It would be an exercise in futility to dwell on whatever motivated your feelings for him. Certain things in life simply defy logic. Accept what happened to you as one of those things. Destiny cannot be altered. To attempt explaining it would only make you feel worse than you already are.
Therefore, for the sake of your unborn child, give up these feelings and concentrate on making yourself strong for you and your children. From your own admission, you are all they have. People will always talk if that is what you are afraid of. Whether wrong or right, the fact that you are unmarried and pregnant is enough topic of discussion on its own. Besides, by virtue of your being divorced has already made you a constant subject for the gossip minded individuals. Whether you like it or not, nothing you do or say will escape gossip.
So, forget whatever anybody would say about your state. At 40, you don’t owe anybody any explanation for whatever actions you take. As for your children, they will understand when the time is ripe. Your daughter will one day grow up and fall in love. Then she will understand the sometimes craziness and passion of love. Don’t blame yourself for what you felt for this young man. Yes, it was controversial given you are older by 14 years, but love is one of the most irrational kind of emotions in life. An older man could easily have done the same thing you did under the circumstances. Like I said earlier, that unborn child is your concern and responsibility. If you are separated from the man you married, there is no man you cannot be estranged from.
From your account, your children appear to be your only permanent source of comfort and companionship. Very soon, your first set of children will be out of the house to begin their own lives; you will be left with this one. God has positioned this baby to be your companion in your lonely years. With this baby in your life, you won’t have any dull moment or feel dejected because the children are away in boarding school or hostel.
Therefore, see this pregnancy as a wonderful plan of God for tomorrow. In addition, the presence of this child will stop you from making another mistake women in their middle age make when alone.
This is why you must not listen to your friend at all. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Wisdom demands you listen to the servant of God, you didn’t consult, but who came up with a message for you. If you knew you were pregnant, had gone to him for help, then you can doubt the authenticity of his prophecy. That he gave it to you without you even knowing your state is evidence of the desires of God for your life.
Ignore whatever your lover said about this child. Forget him as a matter of fact. One day, when the time comes, that time in the future we always feel the itch to make up with our past, he would come to ask for his child but till then, tell the child, once old enough to understand the ways of the adult world, the truth.
A lot of the child’s reaction would come from the quality of your love, care and time to him or her. If the child is secured in your love, the attitude and reactions of the father won’t matter so much. And as long as you don’t try to embellish the story to present the father as a monster, sticking instead to the naked truth of your love, decision and the issue of his or her coming to being, you will emerge the victor at the end of it all.
Children are not stupid or irrational. How they turn out in life comes from the values implanted into them by their closest parent, the mother. If you are fair and truthful, none of your children will condemn you for being human and a woman. No matter how tough or old we are, we will always need love and affection.
Although your gamble didn’t go down well, be brave and learn to accept that which you cannot change.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I am 40, a divorcee with two children. Since my separation from my husband three years ago, I have been without a stable relationship. I have sex when I want to, but in the last couple of months, I have fallen hopelessly in love with a 26-year-old man. He works in my department. Since setting my eyes on him, I have been unable to concentrate on anything. I dream of him night and day as well as get very resentful of any female that comes close to him. This has made a female colleague to incur my wrath twice.
Even when I know I should caution him for some very obvious mistakes he makes during the discharge of his duties, I simply gloss over it.
Early in the year, the feelings got very unbearable for me, so I invited him to my house. Good food, wine and mood music must have influenced his boldness not to question my offer. That night he slept at my house. The following day, he was sober enough to apologise but I brushed aside his apologies, assuring him it was okay and confessing my love for him.
Although he told me about his girlfriend as well as his desires to marry her, I silently refused to listen. I wanted all the fairy tales; I have found love in him. I noticed that he was trying as much as possible to avoid me, refusing to look me straight in the eyes as well as trying to avoid any personal thing with me.
I was very angry at this, that I threatened to get tough with him if he keeps ignoring me. The fear of losing his job, made him bow to pressures from me, but from his attitude it was like raping him.
At the point I got tired of forcing him to sleep with me, I found out quite unexpectedly that I am almost four months pregnant. It was actually the prophetic warning of my pastor that alerted me to my state. According to my pastor, attempts to disengage the pregnancy will result in my death. I was planning on getting pregnant because I thought I was secured by the injections I was taking to prevent a pregnancy. Despite my feelings, I wasn’t planning on getting pregnant at all. My last child was already 13 so why would I want a baby to disrupt my life? Aborting this child would have been the best option for all concerned but I don’t want to die. My children will suffer if anything happens to me since I am all they have right now.
The reason I am writing is to ask for your advice. When I informed him about the pregnancy, he told me to my face that I should get rid of the pregnancy that there was no way he would accept responsibilities for the child. That he plans to get married to his girlfriend later this year and he wouldn’t want anybody to know that he has been sleeping with a woman almost his mother’s age. He threatened to deny paternity of the child if I attempt to keep it.
How do I explain to my 15-year-old daughter that I am pregnant for a man who isn’t ready to accept the pregnancy and for a man who is 14 years my junior? How do I explain to my 13-year-old son? What do I tell the child in future who his father is especially since he resigned last week and left no forwarding address?
What more, there is an older man in my life who is now very interested in officially marrying me as his second wife. I don’t know what to do at all.
My best friend insists I should terminate it. But I am scared. In addition to being almost four months, I have been warned against it. Please tell me how to progress from this point. Even though I still have strong feelings for him, I am beginning to hate him for his attitude towards me and his unborn baby. In retrospect, I can’t even explain the nature of my feelings or what brought them on. I really feel so foolish now.
What should I do, Agatha?
Maria.
Dear Maria,
First things first, settle the issue of your unborn baby. Make up your mind that irrespective of whatever the father says or feels, this child is a gift from God; given to you in His wisdom to care for. God doesn’t make mistakes like we humans. The circumstances may not be palatable for you now, but once the child is born, a lot of things will change for good.
The mistake of your adventure has been made. It would be an exercise in futility to dwell on whatever motivated your feelings for him. Certain things in life simply defy logic. Accept what happened to you as one of those things. Destiny cannot be altered. To attempt explaining it would only make you feel worse than you already are.
Therefore, for the sake of your unborn child, give up these feelings and concentrate on making yourself strong for you and your children. From your own admission, you are all they have. People will always talk if that is what you are afraid of. Whether wrong or right, the fact that you are unmarried and pregnant is enough topic of discussion on its own. Besides, by virtue of your being divorced has already made you a constant subject for the gossip minded individuals. Whether you like it or not, nothing you do or say will escape gossip.
So, forget whatever anybody would say about your state. At 40, you don’t owe anybody any explanation for whatever actions you take. As for your children, they will understand when the time is ripe. Your daughter will one day grow up and fall in love. Then she will understand the sometimes craziness and passion of love. Don’t blame yourself for what you felt for this young man. Yes, it was controversial given you are older by 14 years, but love is one of the most irrational kind of emotions in life. An older man could easily have done the same thing you did under the circumstances. Like I said earlier, that unborn child is your concern and responsibility. If you are separated from the man you married, there is no man you cannot be estranged from.
From your account, your children appear to be your only permanent source of comfort and companionship. Very soon, your first set of children will be out of the house to begin their own lives; you will be left with this one. God has positioned this baby to be your companion in your lonely years. With this baby in your life, you won’t have any dull moment or feel dejected because the children are away in boarding school or hostel.
Therefore, see this pregnancy as a wonderful plan of God for tomorrow. In addition, the presence of this child will stop you from making another mistake women in their middle age make when alone.
This is why you must not listen to your friend at all. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Wisdom demands you listen to the servant of God, you didn’t consult, but who came up with a message for you. If you knew you were pregnant, had gone to him for help, then you can doubt the authenticity of his prophecy. That he gave it to you without you even knowing your state is evidence of the desires of God for your life.
Ignore whatever your lover said about this child. Forget him as a matter of fact. One day, when the time comes, that time in the future we always feel the itch to make up with our past, he would come to ask for his child but till then, tell the child, once old enough to understand the ways of the adult world, the truth.
A lot of the child’s reaction would come from the quality of your love, care and time to him or her. If the child is secured in your love, the attitude and reactions of the father won’t matter so much. And as long as you don’t try to embellish the story to present the father as a monster, sticking instead to the naked truth of your love, decision and the issue of his or her coming to being, you will emerge the victor at the end of it all.
Children are not stupid or irrational. How they turn out in life comes from the values implanted into them by their closest parent, the mother. If you are fair and truthful, none of your children will condemn you for being human and a woman. No matter how tough or old we are, we will always need love and affection.
Although your gamble didn’t go down well, be brave and learn to accept that which you cannot change.
Good luck.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
I’m dying for my wife’s younger sister
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com,Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I met my wife in August 2011. I met her younger sister when I went on a visit to their house the same year. Something instantly changed in me when I saw the little girl. What I felt for her was so powerful and magnetic; I simply couldn’t deny it.
Although there was really nothing between the elder sister and I at that point, I fought against the feelings I had for the younger sister.
Rather than the feelings to go away, it grew stronger the next time I went to their house. Still I ignored it, putting it down as temptation.
Knowing how potent temptation can be, I took to avoiding the young lady.
Unfortunately, ignoring my feelings and deep love for the younger sister, I hastened to marry the elder sister; thinking it was an antidote for the cure of my feelings for the younger lady.
Painfully, since marrying the elder sister, I have come to realise that all my passion, love, affection and happiness are on this younger sister. It has been a very miserable life for me. I married my wife but I love the younger sister.
My marriage and life have been very unbearable that I can no longer do anything. Even my work is in danger. I feel like dying. It is most painful whenever I remember I had this feeling for the younger lady right from the beginning, and had all the chance to opt for her. Instead, I ignored it, thinking that the feeling was going to die. Why I did this, I still don’t know.
I am finished. Life does not have any meaning to me. If there is any help you can offer me please let me know, for the pains are too much.
Chuka.
Dear Chuka,
Sad as your story is, there is nothing you can do about it anymore. To attempt to do anything about your feelings for the younger lady is to destroy the peace and harmony of a family. I am sure destroying this family peace, honour and tradition isn’t among the things you want for them.
Had you subjected your feelings to scrutiny the first time you met this younger woman, a lot of the headaches you are currently feeling would have been avoided even though it still would have created some problems between the two sisters.
Having married the elder sister, it is too late now to cry over spilled milk. Your responsibility is to ensure this marriage works. This is what happens when we don’t give heed to our inner person. You were alerted but you ignored it because you didn’t care, were blind to the qualities your ideal woman must have.
This came from a lack of clear understanding of what marriage entails. What you should have done was to back out immediately from the family, to give yourself that chance to properly think of what you feel. Jumping into marrying the elder sister was unnecessary given the fact that you were still very strong on your feelings for the younger sister.
If what you feel for the younger sister is true love, it will never go away but that is not to say, you cannot manage it if you want to. At one point or the other, a lot of us have found ourselves in your kind of situation; meeting a true love in a very wrong time and season.
There is no way you can divorce your wife to marry the younger sister. Even if you leave her to marry another woman, it still won’t stop you from feeling the way you do about this young lady. Therefore, you must be strong and let go of what you feel now.
I understand when you say it is tough but hard-hitting situations need drastic changes; one that involves a very huge sacrifice. You must put as much distance between you and your sister-in-law. Ask your employers for transfer to a place where you and your wife can start life anew. The struggle of fitting into a new place, trying to make an impact will to an extent give you little time to think of your feelings for your sister-in-law. Another thing is to encourage your wife to become pregnant. Babies are wonderful at diverting attention to themselves. The worry of how to care for the child, coupled with the presence of something so precious would act as a very good remedy for your love-sickness.
This way, you will also be giving yourself the chance to discover the unique quality in your wife.
You haven’t been able to love her because all your emotions and attention are on her sister. Remember, something attracted you to her in the first place. Make the special effort to bring it back. Yes, it may not be very strong but you can grow it to be close to what you want. Every relationship and marriage need a strong and wide base. Most women can do without this passionate love from their husbands; all they want is to be respected. As long as you are also meeting your side of the responsibilities at home, she won’t mind too much. Rather than cause you and her whole family needless pain, strive to give your wife some measure of comfort and happiness. It isn’t her fault that you didn’t act like a man when the opportunity presented itself.
As your wife, you have responsibilities towards her. As a woman, you must also realise she needs attention and care. By dwelling too much on a dream you know isn’t achievable, you are destroying the chances of your marriage surviving.
Whatever it will take you, make this marriage work else, you will be the ultimate victim of this whole drama. Every marriage has its season of challenge; just regard what you are going through as yours. If you are matured and determined, you will overcome it. A resolute mind can always achieve anything it desires. As long as you desire a good marriage, no matter what you feel for your sister-in-law, your marriage will survive it all. Learn to give your marriage a focus. It will help you a great deal.
Don’t forget to entrust your marriage to God.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I met my wife in August 2011. I met her younger sister when I went on a visit to their house the same year. Something instantly changed in me when I saw the little girl. What I felt for her was so powerful and magnetic; I simply couldn’t deny it.
Although there was really nothing between the elder sister and I at that point, I fought against the feelings I had for the younger sister.
Rather than the feelings to go away, it grew stronger the next time I went to their house. Still I ignored it, putting it down as temptation.
Knowing how potent temptation can be, I took to avoiding the young lady.
Unfortunately, ignoring my feelings and deep love for the younger sister, I hastened to marry the elder sister; thinking it was an antidote for the cure of my feelings for the younger lady.
Painfully, since marrying the elder sister, I have come to realise that all my passion, love, affection and happiness are on this younger sister. It has been a very miserable life for me. I married my wife but I love the younger sister.
My marriage and life have been very unbearable that I can no longer do anything. Even my work is in danger. I feel like dying. It is most painful whenever I remember I had this feeling for the younger lady right from the beginning, and had all the chance to opt for her. Instead, I ignored it, thinking that the feeling was going to die. Why I did this, I still don’t know.
I am finished. Life does not have any meaning to me. If there is any help you can offer me please let me know, for the pains are too much.
Chuka.
Dear Chuka,
Sad as your story is, there is nothing you can do about it anymore. To attempt to do anything about your feelings for the younger lady is to destroy the peace and harmony of a family. I am sure destroying this family peace, honour and tradition isn’t among the things you want for them.
Had you subjected your feelings to scrutiny the first time you met this younger woman, a lot of the headaches you are currently feeling would have been avoided even though it still would have created some problems between the two sisters.
Having married the elder sister, it is too late now to cry over spilled milk. Your responsibility is to ensure this marriage works. This is what happens when we don’t give heed to our inner person. You were alerted but you ignored it because you didn’t care, were blind to the qualities your ideal woman must have.
This came from a lack of clear understanding of what marriage entails. What you should have done was to back out immediately from the family, to give yourself that chance to properly think of what you feel. Jumping into marrying the elder sister was unnecessary given the fact that you were still very strong on your feelings for the younger sister.
If what you feel for the younger sister is true love, it will never go away but that is not to say, you cannot manage it if you want to. At one point or the other, a lot of us have found ourselves in your kind of situation; meeting a true love in a very wrong time and season.
There is no way you can divorce your wife to marry the younger sister. Even if you leave her to marry another woman, it still won’t stop you from feeling the way you do about this young lady. Therefore, you must be strong and let go of what you feel now.
I understand when you say it is tough but hard-hitting situations need drastic changes; one that involves a very huge sacrifice. You must put as much distance between you and your sister-in-law. Ask your employers for transfer to a place where you and your wife can start life anew. The struggle of fitting into a new place, trying to make an impact will to an extent give you little time to think of your feelings for your sister-in-law. Another thing is to encourage your wife to become pregnant. Babies are wonderful at diverting attention to themselves. The worry of how to care for the child, coupled with the presence of something so precious would act as a very good remedy for your love-sickness.
This way, you will also be giving yourself the chance to discover the unique quality in your wife.
You haven’t been able to love her because all your emotions and attention are on her sister. Remember, something attracted you to her in the first place. Make the special effort to bring it back. Yes, it may not be very strong but you can grow it to be close to what you want. Every relationship and marriage need a strong and wide base. Most women can do without this passionate love from their husbands; all they want is to be respected. As long as you are also meeting your side of the responsibilities at home, she won’t mind too much. Rather than cause you and her whole family needless pain, strive to give your wife some measure of comfort and happiness. It isn’t her fault that you didn’t act like a man when the opportunity presented itself.
As your wife, you have responsibilities towards her. As a woman, you must also realise she needs attention and care. By dwelling too much on a dream you know isn’t achievable, you are destroying the chances of your marriage surviving.
Whatever it will take you, make this marriage work else, you will be the ultimate victim of this whole drama. Every marriage has its season of challenge; just regard what you are going through as yours. If you are matured and determined, you will overcome it. A resolute mind can always achieve anything it desires. As long as you desire a good marriage, no matter what you feel for your sister-in-law, your marriage will survive it all. Learn to give your marriage a focus. It will help you a great deal.
Don’t forget to entrust your marriage to God.
Good luck.
My affair with a married man makes me feel guilty
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com,Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I want to get out of my current relationship. The man I am in love with is married and I always feel guilty when we are together but it is so difficult to let go because I truly love him.
What should I do?
Confused Lover.
Dear Confused Lover,
There is no future in this relationship. Let him go! The more you stay around him, the longer you delay your chance of meeting the right man. Besides, if you tarry for too long, your time and season may just pass you by before you realise it.
Try putting yourself in his wife’s shoes; how will you feel if another woman is denying you the joy of marriage as well as the presence of your husband? Just as you won’t be happy, this woman isn’t. You are causing her pains and her children deprivation. The time and money their father would have given them, you are taking.
If you truly love this man, encourage him to go. Ask him to try to imagine his wife having an affair with another man. If he can imagine the pains of having his wife in another man’s arms, then he should imagine how his wife would feel by his betrayal of their marriage vows.
Every love story that doesn’t end in marriage always has a sad feeling. Doubtless, you will feel some sort of emotional pains leaving him but when you consider the fact that you have more to lose than gain, you will listen to that inner voice that is making you feel guilty and uncomfortable with the knowledge that you are chipping away the foundation of another woman’s happiness.
In addition, the man can revoke the same reasons he has for being unfaithful to his wife whenever he gets tired of you and needs to move on. If he can afford to be unfaithful to his wife, there is nothing stopping him from concurrently dating other girls alongside you.
Even if his wife is failing in her responsibilities at home, he should teach her what he wants, not have affairs.
Don’t worry about what you feel now, you will overcome it. By the time you meet the right man, the one who will treat you as his queen, you will wonder what you ever saw in this married man.
When next he calls, tell him you are no longer interested in continuing the relationship with him. You will only hurt for a few days.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I want to get out of my current relationship. The man I am in love with is married and I always feel guilty when we are together but it is so difficult to let go because I truly love him.
What should I do?
Confused Lover.
Dear Confused Lover,
There is no future in this relationship. Let him go! The more you stay around him, the longer you delay your chance of meeting the right man. Besides, if you tarry for too long, your time and season may just pass you by before you realise it.
Try putting yourself in his wife’s shoes; how will you feel if another woman is denying you the joy of marriage as well as the presence of your husband? Just as you won’t be happy, this woman isn’t. You are causing her pains and her children deprivation. The time and money their father would have given them, you are taking.
If you truly love this man, encourage him to go. Ask him to try to imagine his wife having an affair with another man. If he can imagine the pains of having his wife in another man’s arms, then he should imagine how his wife would feel by his betrayal of their marriage vows.
Every love story that doesn’t end in marriage always has a sad feeling. Doubtless, you will feel some sort of emotional pains leaving him but when you consider the fact that you have more to lose than gain, you will listen to that inner voice that is making you feel guilty and uncomfortable with the knowledge that you are chipping away the foundation of another woman’s happiness.
In addition, the man can revoke the same reasons he has for being unfaithful to his wife whenever he gets tired of you and needs to move on. If he can afford to be unfaithful to his wife, there is nothing stopping him from concurrently dating other girls alongside you.
Even if his wife is failing in her responsibilities at home, he should teach her what he wants, not have affairs.
Don’t worry about what you feel now, you will overcome it. By the time you meet the right man, the one who will treat you as his queen, you will wonder what you ever saw in this married man.
When next he calls, tell him you are no longer interested in continuing the relationship with him. You will only hurt for a few days.
Good luck.
I’m in love with my pastor…
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com,Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
Please I urgently need your help. I am in love with my pastor. It is so profound that I cannot stand the sight of his wife. I live everyday for him and even see us getting married sometime in the future. I am a member of the choir in my church.
What should I do? I cannot live without him.
Laura.
Dear Laura,
Leave the church before you destroy not just the church, but this man’s home as well. The intensity of what you feel is capable of making you commit a crime; the kind you will end up regretting only after you have done it. What you feel isn’t love at all, but infatuation, a kind of obsessive feeling that is capable of even killing a perceived rival. The fact that you are unable to stand the sight of the wife is an indication that you are crossing the line of sanity. If what you feel is normal, you will be able to fight it because true love is a gentle spirit, which can last forever without being violent.
That you are dreaming of the two of you getting married is in itself an indication that given the opportunity for you to harm the wife, you will do it without blinking as long as it is a means to getting your heart’s desires.
You must realise that everything you feel for this man is wrong. Apart from him being a married man, which makes him unavailable to you, he is also a servant of God commissioned to uphold the words of God. If you tempt him to derail, a lot of people would derail with him; the thousands of people who have faith in him and his ministry.
These are people who have tied everything to the ministry of this man, who see in him a representative of the God they don’t see, whose words and works give them a glimpse of the nature of God.
As a chorister, you also occupy a unique place in church; that of ministering to the spiritual needs of the people through songs. Doubtless, temptations are a compulsory part of the life of every true Christian, the truth remains that when such temptations come, we use all that we have to ward them off.
The more you are exposed to the company of this pastor, the less likely you are of ridding yourself of these feelings. What you feel for him will only get worse.
Even if what you feel for him is the real thing; there is no way you can have him. Therefore stop tormenting yourself by building castles in the air where this man is concerned. Moving out of the church, away from everything he represents would help open your heart to another man. Frankly, you need the presence of another man, who cares for you to neutralise whatever you feel for this pastor.
You will never be able to accept another man if you continue to nurse your fantasies about being his wife.
When you move away, it will be easier for you to pray yourself out of this feeling. Many a time, out of sight can weather down strong feelings of love. If you don’t want to do it for him, do it for yourself because at the end of the day, it is your reputation and life that would suffer.
You cannot live everyday for a man who isn’t yours. It doesn’t make sense. We are all entitled to some forms of fantasies but when it becomes as strong as you living your life for someone who is out of your reach, then it is a very dangerous feeling. You must therefore learn to begin to live for yourself, have dreams of a man of your own.
Once you grow the determination to leave this man, you will discover a freedom you never thought you had; the liberty to trust more in your person.
Above all, ask God for help to overcome this temptation.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
Please I urgently need your help. I am in love with my pastor. It is so profound that I cannot stand the sight of his wife. I live everyday for him and even see us getting married sometime in the future. I am a member of the choir in my church.
What should I do? I cannot live without him.
Laura.
Dear Laura,
Leave the church before you destroy not just the church, but this man’s home as well. The intensity of what you feel is capable of making you commit a crime; the kind you will end up regretting only after you have done it. What you feel isn’t love at all, but infatuation, a kind of obsessive feeling that is capable of even killing a perceived rival. The fact that you are unable to stand the sight of the wife is an indication that you are crossing the line of sanity. If what you feel is normal, you will be able to fight it because true love is a gentle spirit, which can last forever without being violent.
That you are dreaming of the two of you getting married is in itself an indication that given the opportunity for you to harm the wife, you will do it without blinking as long as it is a means to getting your heart’s desires.
You must realise that everything you feel for this man is wrong. Apart from him being a married man, which makes him unavailable to you, he is also a servant of God commissioned to uphold the words of God. If you tempt him to derail, a lot of people would derail with him; the thousands of people who have faith in him and his ministry.
These are people who have tied everything to the ministry of this man, who see in him a representative of the God they don’t see, whose words and works give them a glimpse of the nature of God.
As a chorister, you also occupy a unique place in church; that of ministering to the spiritual needs of the people through songs. Doubtless, temptations are a compulsory part of the life of every true Christian, the truth remains that when such temptations come, we use all that we have to ward them off.
The more you are exposed to the company of this pastor, the less likely you are of ridding yourself of these feelings. What you feel for him will only get worse.
Even if what you feel for him is the real thing; there is no way you can have him. Therefore stop tormenting yourself by building castles in the air where this man is concerned. Moving out of the church, away from everything he represents would help open your heart to another man. Frankly, you need the presence of another man, who cares for you to neutralise whatever you feel for this pastor.
You will never be able to accept another man if you continue to nurse your fantasies about being his wife.
When you move away, it will be easier for you to pray yourself out of this feeling. Many a time, out of sight can weather down strong feelings of love. If you don’t want to do it for him, do it for yourself because at the end of the day, it is your reputation and life that would suffer.
You cannot live everyday for a man who isn’t yours. It doesn’t make sense. We are all entitled to some forms of fantasies but when it becomes as strong as you living your life for someone who is out of your reach, then it is a very dangerous feeling. You must therefore learn to begin to live for yourself, have dreams of a man of your own.
Once you grow the determination to leave this man, you will discover a freedom you never thought you had; the liberty to trust more in your person.
Above all, ask God for help to overcome this temptation.
Good luck.
Re: My friend’s mother died in my arms
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com,Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I read the story of this young man. I also had similar experience with the wife of a friend of mine who openly expressed her preference for me right in the presence of her husband some years ago.
Agatha, the temptation is often high when one is invited by the woman to do it. Some women just cannot have enough of it so look for someone outside their home to add to the pleasure they are getting at home.
Robin need not tell or ask anybody for forgiveness. It will spread and aggravate the scandal. Besides, the family may never forgive him. The guilt he is feeling will be more than enough punishment for him throughout his life time.
He should instead approach God directly for forgiveness. Once God forgives him, he becomes free.
Adebayo.
Dear Agatha,
I read your column on the above subject and it was like reading my story but in my case, the woman didn’t die.
She was the mother of my best friend. I have never told anybody this story but something deep inside me, after reading Robin’s story, wants me to share this story with young men who find themselves in the same position Robin and I found ourselves.
I am 56 years old now. This woman and my mother were friends. We all grew up as one family. Her son and I have been friends since we were babies. As a matter of fact, my mother was her chief bride’s maid when she got married.
Right from as far as I can remember, she has always had a very soft spot for me. As I grew up, it became obvious to everybody that she took special interest in me, even more than her son. Severally, I got things she would ordinarily never part with from her.
During our secondary school days, whenever she came on a visit to our school, we were boarders, she would come with so many things for us. Me, she would give extra money which always made me happy. Fortunately, this didn’t affect my relationship with her son. As a matter of fact, my friend and I took advantage of this. Whenever we needed money, all I had to do was ask his mother.
The first time I noticed her interest was when I was in form four. I had come down with fever prompting the school to send me home. My mother wasn’t around when I came home. She was away to Kano to buy groundnut oil. She was a big trader in Iddo market.
Since she was at home, it was as good as having my mother with me. Few days after I came home, she invited me to her room to help her with something. When I came into the room, she was completely naked. I ran out of the room but she told me not to worry; that all I have to do is sleep beside her.
I resisted. She didn’t say anything or attempt it until my first year in the university. I was the only one at home when she came in. I had been watching an adult film so her timing was right. That day, I slept with her and it became a regular thing between us. Whenever she came to visit us in school, few minutes later, I would disappear to meet her at our hide out. It went on until our graduation. During my youth service, she will always look for an excuse to visit me in my host state. Unknown to us, a lot of people had begun to notice and were beginning to talk.
Eventually the talks got to her son who defended me. He fought bitterly with the friend who made the remarks I decided there and then to stop. The guilt of his implicit trust in me was too much for me that I started to run from his mother.
She eventually gave up on me when I asked to stay back in Kano after my youth service. I only resumed going to their house when she died some few years back.
Agatha, from my experience, a woman will never let go until she gets what she wants. In retrospect, I regret what I did with her; the memories still hunt me especially when my friend and his family come visiting.
Robin cannot be blamed for what he did. These elderly women are very experienced and not shy in asking for what they want. My friend’s mother said it was my vitality she liked about our affair. She said, her husband alone cannot drive her to satisfaction hence needed me to do that for her.
It is really tough when one comes across such women. Only very few young men can resist a determined mature woman.
Robin, like me, should resign to faith and allow the hands of time heal him. Although it never completely goes away, but over time he would be able to function well.
Temisan.
Dear Agatha,
I read the story of this young man. I also had similar experience with the wife of a friend of mine who openly expressed her preference for me right in the presence of her husband some years ago.
Agatha, the temptation is often high when one is invited by the woman to do it. Some women just cannot have enough of it so look for someone outside their home to add to the pleasure they are getting at home.
Robin need not tell or ask anybody for forgiveness. It will spread and aggravate the scandal. Besides, the family may never forgive him. The guilt he is feeling will be more than enough punishment for him throughout his life time.
He should instead approach God directly for forgiveness. Once God forgives him, he becomes free.
Adebayo.
Dear Agatha,
I read your column on the above subject and it was like reading my story but in my case, the woman didn’t die.
She was the mother of my best friend. I have never told anybody this story but something deep inside me, after reading Robin’s story, wants me to share this story with young men who find themselves in the same position Robin and I found ourselves.
I am 56 years old now. This woman and my mother were friends. We all grew up as one family. Her son and I have been friends since we were babies. As a matter of fact, my mother was her chief bride’s maid when she got married.
Right from as far as I can remember, she has always had a very soft spot for me. As I grew up, it became obvious to everybody that she took special interest in me, even more than her son. Severally, I got things she would ordinarily never part with from her.
During our secondary school days, whenever she came on a visit to our school, we were boarders, she would come with so many things for us. Me, she would give extra money which always made me happy. Fortunately, this didn’t affect my relationship with her son. As a matter of fact, my friend and I took advantage of this. Whenever we needed money, all I had to do was ask his mother.
The first time I noticed her interest was when I was in form four. I had come down with fever prompting the school to send me home. My mother wasn’t around when I came home. She was away to Kano to buy groundnut oil. She was a big trader in Iddo market.
Since she was at home, it was as good as having my mother with me. Few days after I came home, she invited me to her room to help her with something. When I came into the room, she was completely naked. I ran out of the room but she told me not to worry; that all I have to do is sleep beside her.
I resisted. She didn’t say anything or attempt it until my first year in the university. I was the only one at home when she came in. I had been watching an adult film so her timing was right. That day, I slept with her and it became a regular thing between us. Whenever she came to visit us in school, few minutes later, I would disappear to meet her at our hide out. It went on until our graduation. During my youth service, she will always look for an excuse to visit me in my host state. Unknown to us, a lot of people had begun to notice and were beginning to talk.
Eventually the talks got to her son who defended me. He fought bitterly with the friend who made the remarks I decided there and then to stop. The guilt of his implicit trust in me was too much for me that I started to run from his mother.
She eventually gave up on me when I asked to stay back in Kano after my youth service. I only resumed going to their house when she died some few years back.
Agatha, from my experience, a woman will never let go until she gets what she wants. In retrospect, I regret what I did with her; the memories still hunt me especially when my friend and his family come visiting.
Robin cannot be blamed for what he did. These elderly women are very experienced and not shy in asking for what they want. My friend’s mother said it was my vitality she liked about our affair. She said, her husband alone cannot drive her to satisfaction hence needed me to do that for her.
It is really tough when one comes across such women. Only very few young men can resist a determined mature woman.
Robin, like me, should resign to faith and allow the hands of time heal him. Although it never completely goes away, but over time he would be able to function well.
Temisan.
My mother-in-law gives me problems
With Agatha Edo,Email:womaneditor@independentngonline.com,gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com,Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
My marriage is just three months old. My father-in-law is a very good man, the kind of father I prayed for. I lost my father last year and he has become a fine replacement for him.
Since marrying his son, he has been there for me, telling me things he knows will help me live a wonderful life with my husband. Through him, I got to know what kind of things to avoid and what to hold tightly to.
He even went as far as teaching me how to prepare his son’s favourite food, which incidentally is also his. He said his mother used to cook it for him and that my husband fell in love with the food too when he went to live with her.
His wife, my stepmother-in-law is also an angel. Unless one is told she isn’t the biological mother of my husband, you won’t know from the way she dotes on my husband and his elder brother. Her daughters and son accord their elder brothers every respect they deserve.
On the other hand, my mother-in-law is a terror. She is divorced from my father-in-law. I learnt she didn’t also last long in her second marriage. She is in her third marriage.
For some strange reasons, she and I didn’t get off on a good start. But being the younger woman, I have tried my best to be civil and to avoid getting into her wrong side.
But with her latest decision and desire, there is no way I can avoid it. About three weeks ago, she packed into my house without notifying her son or me.
I came back from work to meet her fully installed in my guest room. She even had my sister staying with us make a different kind of meal for her, different from the one I instructed them to make.
As if that wasn’t enough, she brought some clothes including her underwear she wanted my sister to wash. Out of respect, she did but left out the pants.
When I came back home, my sister was very angry and indicated her interest to go if she was staying. I waited for my husband to come back home before saying anything. He too didn’t like the idea of his mother coming and tried to persuade her to go back to her husband’s house.
Rather than face her son, she started raining curses on my family and me. There was nothing she didn’t say, including manipulating her son to favour his father instead of her; my husband and I bought a car for the father during his birthday.
She told everyone who cared to listen that I will not enjoy peace in her son’s home. It’s been hell for me. My husband has been begging me but everyday she spends in our home is a living hell. My father-in-law and his wife are currently in Ghana; I don’t know if I should call him to report the development in my home.
Every night, I hear her cursing any woman who will not allow her enjoy her son. What do I do? I am not cut out for her kind of person. Please help me because I am getting fed up and won’t mind leaving her son for my peace of mind.
I haven’t told my mother because she is yet to recover from my father’s death, which affected her badly due to their closeness. Telling her what I am going through might kill her.
Agatha, please help me.
Morayo.
Dear Morayo,
Every page of marriage is a lesson of endurance, sacrifices, patience and wisdom. Unfortunately, these experiences are the kinds nobody talks about. Even those who attempt to share their own stories, more often than not, hiss or sigh through the story. At the end of the day, the story is never fully told due to the desire to protect one’s marriage and image.
Morayo, I assure you that whatever you are going through isn’t strange at all. If every married woman is to write her experience, you will find that we are all confronted in our different homes with similar situations; the only difference being in the faces of the actors.
Even your mother-in-law who is your major headache now also went through a similar situation as a young wife.
If the women before you survived to become mothers-in-law in the same homes they were victimised and traumatised as women, then you will survive your own ordeal.
All you have to do is ask God for the grace to develop a thick skin to endure your mother-in-law. You will definitely outlive her as long as you have the determination to make your marriage work. There is no avoiding this kind of confrontation in most marriages. It will always happen because she sees you as someone vying for the love of the son she has always had to herself. One day when you too become a mother-in-law you will understand some of her sentiments. It takes the grace of God for a mother to let go completely especially if the wife of her son, tries to stop her from having access to him.
There is no way a mother won’t get upset if she remembers all she went through in producing the man this younger woman is trying to monopolise. Is it the agony of the early days of pregnancy or the sleepless nights of worries when sick or going through life’s many changes that she went through with him?
For these reasons, don’t worry about her attitude towards you. Her desire is to have and keep the love of her son. Like most women in her shoes, she is trying to protect her territory; especially as she has no husband to keep her company. In your case, she is a handful because all her attempts at marriages have failed. Although she is refusing to say anything, she is lonely hence her decision to move into your home.
Whether you like it or not, your husband is her son therefore he owes her a certain degree of loyalty. This is something you must not attempt to deny both of them because they have been part of each other’s lives before you came in.
The only thing is that she is over-doing it, placing curses on you. Whenever she does that, tell yourself it isn’t your portion and that at any rate, you have no intention of stopping her from having peace in her son’s house.
From experience, women like her are difficult to win over because not only have they developed their ideas of what they want but are very determined to make sure her ways are the only right ones.
Her kind needs idiotic patience to win over. Since you know she is impossible in many ways, try to ignore her when she begins. See her attitude as being part of who she is, an extension of the man you love.
This way, to some extent, you will tolerate her excesses while also working on your husband to do all he can to stop her from placing curses on you. Your husband should tap into the natural love every mother has for her child and plead with her not to curse you since he will be worst affected should anything happen to you.
If you can both afford it, spend your weekends away from home. Leave on Friday and come back on Monday evening. This way, you will reduce your time with her as well as have something to look forward to. This kind of sacrifice will help protect your mind and marriage from all the things she is doing or saying.
As for your sister, it might be advisable for her to leave. Get an elderly woman to come in thrice in a week to clean the house for you. Such a woman would have the tact and experience to handle your mother-in-law’s tantrums. There is no way your sister can refuse to go on errands for her. It will eventually lead to more complications for you.
The fact that your mother-in-law is unable to keep a home isn’t your business at all. You know what the reactions of your father-in-law would be to her staying in your house. Don’t try to play one against the other. They are both your parents-in-law. During her own birthday, no matter what, also give her a worthy gift to balance your act. Let’s be fair to her, in her shoes, how would you feel? Even if she is the most terrible person in the world, she deserves some attention too from her son.
This is one reason you must be determined to make your own marriage work despite her attitude. She is obviously suffering for some ill-conceived decisions she made in the past but the lesson of life is all about healing old wounds. The more you all ignore her, the more bitter and unbearable she becomes. A little love and endurance from you can change her. She cannot give love because she never had it but you have love so give it to her!
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
My marriage is just three months old. My father-in-law is a very good man, the kind of father I prayed for. I lost my father last year and he has become a fine replacement for him.
Since marrying his son, he has been there for me, telling me things he knows will help me live a wonderful life with my husband. Through him, I got to know what kind of things to avoid and what to hold tightly to.
He even went as far as teaching me how to prepare his son’s favourite food, which incidentally is also his. He said his mother used to cook it for him and that my husband fell in love with the food too when he went to live with her.
His wife, my stepmother-in-law is also an angel. Unless one is told she isn’t the biological mother of my husband, you won’t know from the way she dotes on my husband and his elder brother. Her daughters and son accord their elder brothers every respect they deserve.
On the other hand, my mother-in-law is a terror. She is divorced from my father-in-law. I learnt she didn’t also last long in her second marriage. She is in her third marriage.
For some strange reasons, she and I didn’t get off on a good start. But being the younger woman, I have tried my best to be civil and to avoid getting into her wrong side.
But with her latest decision and desire, there is no way I can avoid it. About three weeks ago, she packed into my house without notifying her son or me.
I came back from work to meet her fully installed in my guest room. She even had my sister staying with us make a different kind of meal for her, different from the one I instructed them to make.
As if that wasn’t enough, she brought some clothes including her underwear she wanted my sister to wash. Out of respect, she did but left out the pants.
When I came back home, my sister was very angry and indicated her interest to go if she was staying. I waited for my husband to come back home before saying anything. He too didn’t like the idea of his mother coming and tried to persuade her to go back to her husband’s house.
Rather than face her son, she started raining curses on my family and me. There was nothing she didn’t say, including manipulating her son to favour his father instead of her; my husband and I bought a car for the father during his birthday.
She told everyone who cared to listen that I will not enjoy peace in her son’s home. It’s been hell for me. My husband has been begging me but everyday she spends in our home is a living hell. My father-in-law and his wife are currently in Ghana; I don’t know if I should call him to report the development in my home.
Every night, I hear her cursing any woman who will not allow her enjoy her son. What do I do? I am not cut out for her kind of person. Please help me because I am getting fed up and won’t mind leaving her son for my peace of mind.
I haven’t told my mother because she is yet to recover from my father’s death, which affected her badly due to their closeness. Telling her what I am going through might kill her.
Agatha, please help me.
Morayo.
Dear Morayo,
Every page of marriage is a lesson of endurance, sacrifices, patience and wisdom. Unfortunately, these experiences are the kinds nobody talks about. Even those who attempt to share their own stories, more often than not, hiss or sigh through the story. At the end of the day, the story is never fully told due to the desire to protect one’s marriage and image.
Morayo, I assure you that whatever you are going through isn’t strange at all. If every married woman is to write her experience, you will find that we are all confronted in our different homes with similar situations; the only difference being in the faces of the actors.
Even your mother-in-law who is your major headache now also went through a similar situation as a young wife.
If the women before you survived to become mothers-in-law in the same homes they were victimised and traumatised as women, then you will survive your own ordeal.
All you have to do is ask God for the grace to develop a thick skin to endure your mother-in-law. You will definitely outlive her as long as you have the determination to make your marriage work. There is no avoiding this kind of confrontation in most marriages. It will always happen because she sees you as someone vying for the love of the son she has always had to herself. One day when you too become a mother-in-law you will understand some of her sentiments. It takes the grace of God for a mother to let go completely especially if the wife of her son, tries to stop her from having access to him.
There is no way a mother won’t get upset if she remembers all she went through in producing the man this younger woman is trying to monopolise. Is it the agony of the early days of pregnancy or the sleepless nights of worries when sick or going through life’s many changes that she went through with him?
For these reasons, don’t worry about her attitude towards you. Her desire is to have and keep the love of her son. Like most women in her shoes, she is trying to protect her territory; especially as she has no husband to keep her company. In your case, she is a handful because all her attempts at marriages have failed. Although she is refusing to say anything, she is lonely hence her decision to move into your home.
Whether you like it or not, your husband is her son therefore he owes her a certain degree of loyalty. This is something you must not attempt to deny both of them because they have been part of each other’s lives before you came in.
The only thing is that she is over-doing it, placing curses on you. Whenever she does that, tell yourself it isn’t your portion and that at any rate, you have no intention of stopping her from having peace in her son’s house.
From experience, women like her are difficult to win over because not only have they developed their ideas of what they want but are very determined to make sure her ways are the only right ones.
Her kind needs idiotic patience to win over. Since you know she is impossible in many ways, try to ignore her when she begins. See her attitude as being part of who she is, an extension of the man you love.
This way, to some extent, you will tolerate her excesses while also working on your husband to do all he can to stop her from placing curses on you. Your husband should tap into the natural love every mother has for her child and plead with her not to curse you since he will be worst affected should anything happen to you.
If you can both afford it, spend your weekends away from home. Leave on Friday and come back on Monday evening. This way, you will reduce your time with her as well as have something to look forward to. This kind of sacrifice will help protect your mind and marriage from all the things she is doing or saying.
As for your sister, it might be advisable for her to leave. Get an elderly woman to come in thrice in a week to clean the house for you. Such a woman would have the tact and experience to handle your mother-in-law’s tantrums. There is no way your sister can refuse to go on errands for her. It will eventually lead to more complications for you.
The fact that your mother-in-law is unable to keep a home isn’t your business at all. You know what the reactions of your father-in-law would be to her staying in your house. Don’t try to play one against the other. They are both your parents-in-law. During her own birthday, no matter what, also give her a worthy gift to balance your act. Let’s be fair to her, in her shoes, how would you feel? Even if she is the most terrible person in the world, she deserves some attention too from her son.
This is one reason you must be determined to make your own marriage work despite her attitude. She is obviously suffering for some ill-conceived decisions she made in the past but the lesson of life is all about healing old wounds. The more you all ignore her, the more bitter and unbearable she becomes. A little love and endurance from you can change her. She cannot give love because she never had it but you have love so give it to her!
Good luck.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
She did plastic surgery to date boys her sons’ age
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
How does one describe a woman who under the guise of going for a holiday abroad came back a different person? Since last year, I have heard stories of my wife of almost 25 years having affairs with boys of her sons’ ages.
You see Agatha, one gets to an age in life when one pretends not to notice or hear certain things. At 61, I have seen almost all the shades of life to be shocked. Between you and I, when these stories about my wife were coming, I at first didn’t believe them, but I began to suspect when she started behaving in strange manner. She was wearing clothes that left her behind exposed. I mean blouses that really didn’t cover her up.
I am 11 years older than she is. At 50, she still looked beautiful and appealing in the kind of way women blessed with good body usually is at that age.
Even when I thought they were right, I made up my mind to be fair to her. I too have had flings here and there. If she wanted to feel young, I figured, I should let her be. At my age, I was too experienced in the ways of men and women to bother myself with whatever she may have decided to do. Besides, it was the best way for me to handle my heart problem. I wasn’t ready to die over the decision of one woman, even if she is my wife to have a relationship outside our marriage. As far as she didn’t end up embarrassing me, kept it out of my sight and environs, I was ready to endure the marriage because as a wife and mother, she had really tried.
But not even my resolve to look the other way prepared me for the latest development. Sometimes, I wonder if women ever think or know the implications of their decisions. My wife travelled to United Kingdom to spend sometime with our daughter or so she said.
Six weeks, she came back looking 20 years younger courtesy of a dramatic plastic surgery she went for. She didn’t bother to inform me, ask for my opinion and permission before taking such a major decision.
From her action, it is obvious to me that what I think no longer matters means a lot. Although in front of her, people compliment her new looks, behind her they mock us. As a matter of fact, her children too are embarrassed by her decision and a few of my friends have asked me why I allowed her get away with it.
Sincerely, I have had it with her. I am really angry about everything and I am not impressed with her looks at all. Like her, I have also refused to discuss whatever she did to herself and refused to be seen together with her. I guess the reaction of the people around her must have gotten through to her because she no longer attends the family church, instead she now attends one of her friends’ church.
I hope you don’t regard my question as an insult, but what is it with you women? Why do women hurt the men who love them the most? What goes on in the mind of the average woman?
Although my mind is made up about my marriage, yet I can’t help wondering if you women think at all.
Roland.
Dear Roland,
Not at all. In the line of this job, I have learnt to understand the different feelings and emotions of everybody when going through one form of crisis or the other. I have become used to remarks like yours, so I am not offended. It is logical, given your recent experiences. You must be going through a cocktail of emotions, so looking for a woman to lash at.
For the first time, I don’t know how to handle this matter, but this calls for absolute patience because the issues are multi-dimensional. To help you arrive at the right decision, try to treat them individually. This way, you will be sure what precisely you are reacting to in this marriage.
You also have to factor in the years you have both spent together, especially those years when she was much younger and more attractive. In doing this, you must also take into considerations your own contributions to the person she has become.
Are you sure you didn’t help to make her the kind of woman she has become? In terms of attention and appreciation, how would you grade yourself?
While I am not trying to give her an easy berth, the truth remains that we unwittingly weaken or sharpen the resolve of our partners to become total strangers to us. If she is having affairs at the age both of you should be recapping on your life together, finding the emotional and mental equilibrium to advance into middle age, then something is very wrong in all the years you have spent together so far?
This is especially so if she has been faithful to you all these years. An old woman doesn’t learn new dance steps in her prime. Those women you were unfaithful with, how did they look? While you were in these relationships, how much time did you have for her and the children? Did you make her feel ugly, unwanted and unappreciated? Did you at any time bother about her sexual fantasies or just overrode her right of say? What kind of lover and husband were you? Were you a father and friend or a boss and tyrant? How did you bridge the gap of 11 years between the two of you?
A lot of times, we focus more on the mistakes, the end product of our collective actions over the years and not on the issues that gave birth to the challenges in the first place.
Honestly, there is no way she could have simply made up her mind in her old age to misbehave. Years of endurance, silent suffering and deprivation must have changed her to this little monster before you.
And this kind of problem doesn’t just go away. It isn’t by pretending you are matured about it or that you have seen all there are to see about life. No! It is about talking about it and reconciling your differences at the end of it all. Whatever you decide to do with the marriage, both of you must talk because you have too much at stake.
Given your ages, forget about what she has done to her body, nothing can change the age of the mind; you have both reached that delicate stages in your life when a lot of thoughts and considerations go into every decision taken. Unlike in the past, when you can afford the gamble of a wrong decision, you cannot do that now. From this point any resolution must factor in the interest of others as well as its implications on everyone especially the children and grandchildren.
Also you have to consider your own health. At this age, what can you do on your own without a woman in your life? Yes, paid helps can take care of domestic chores, but what about your emotions and other little details only a wife can do best?
Call her irrespective of whatever you think her accumulated sins are. To make the discourse fruitful, suppress whatever anger or disappointment you feel towards her. Like you rightly said, we get to a stage in life when things that were so important assume less significance. She may not have done the surgery for the sake of other men, but to get you to notice her after years of aching for it. By giving her the opportunity to pour out her heart, you make it easier for the both of you to subject your life together to proper scrutiny. Every marriage needs this kind of examination to help heal it from the effects of abuse we unwittingly subject our unions to. Many issues that come up in marriages are from taking each other for granted.
A lot of couples assume that once the dotted lines are signed, the marriage can run itself to success. Unless the same efforts, devotion, interest, love, respect and attention are invested in making a marriage work, it soon runs into problem of rust.
This kind of talk will also help you realise how you contributed to the problems you now blame her for. Importantly, it will help both of you realise in explicit terms the direction of the marriage.
There is nothing that heals a bad marriage like a frank talk. At this point, don’t hide anything from her, including the bit about her extra marital affairs. It is only after this kind of talk that you can make the right kind of decision, because your perspective becomes clearer and more profound.
If at the end of the day, there is something to salvage, don’t hesitate to give your marriage another chance. Like you admitted there is nothing strange any more about life that you haven’t seen.
It isn’t just women who hurt the ones they love. It is a human thing. We tend to take those we love so much for granted, that at the end of the day we end up hurting them unknowingly that we do those we are not so closed to.
The average woman lives for her children and husband. She therefore goes into frenzy when the man in the centre of her life ignores her. This is why you have to be sure of the motive of your wife before condemning her.
God will touch you both where you each need Him the most.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
How does one describe a woman who under the guise of going for a holiday abroad came back a different person? Since last year, I have heard stories of my wife of almost 25 years having affairs with boys of her sons’ ages.
You see Agatha, one gets to an age in life when one pretends not to notice or hear certain things. At 61, I have seen almost all the shades of life to be shocked. Between you and I, when these stories about my wife were coming, I at first didn’t believe them, but I began to suspect when she started behaving in strange manner. She was wearing clothes that left her behind exposed. I mean blouses that really didn’t cover her up.
I am 11 years older than she is. At 50, she still looked beautiful and appealing in the kind of way women blessed with good body usually is at that age.
Even when I thought they were right, I made up my mind to be fair to her. I too have had flings here and there. If she wanted to feel young, I figured, I should let her be. At my age, I was too experienced in the ways of men and women to bother myself with whatever she may have decided to do. Besides, it was the best way for me to handle my heart problem. I wasn’t ready to die over the decision of one woman, even if she is my wife to have a relationship outside our marriage. As far as she didn’t end up embarrassing me, kept it out of my sight and environs, I was ready to endure the marriage because as a wife and mother, she had really tried.
But not even my resolve to look the other way prepared me for the latest development. Sometimes, I wonder if women ever think or know the implications of their decisions. My wife travelled to United Kingdom to spend sometime with our daughter or so she said.
Six weeks, she came back looking 20 years younger courtesy of a dramatic plastic surgery she went for. She didn’t bother to inform me, ask for my opinion and permission before taking such a major decision.
From her action, it is obvious to me that what I think no longer matters means a lot. Although in front of her, people compliment her new looks, behind her they mock us. As a matter of fact, her children too are embarrassed by her decision and a few of my friends have asked me why I allowed her get away with it.
Sincerely, I have had it with her. I am really angry about everything and I am not impressed with her looks at all. Like her, I have also refused to discuss whatever she did to herself and refused to be seen together with her. I guess the reaction of the people around her must have gotten through to her because she no longer attends the family church, instead she now attends one of her friends’ church.
I hope you don’t regard my question as an insult, but what is it with you women? Why do women hurt the men who love them the most? What goes on in the mind of the average woman?
Although my mind is made up about my marriage, yet I can’t help wondering if you women think at all.
Roland.
Dear Roland,
Not at all. In the line of this job, I have learnt to understand the different feelings and emotions of everybody when going through one form of crisis or the other. I have become used to remarks like yours, so I am not offended. It is logical, given your recent experiences. You must be going through a cocktail of emotions, so looking for a woman to lash at.
For the first time, I don’t know how to handle this matter, but this calls for absolute patience because the issues are multi-dimensional. To help you arrive at the right decision, try to treat them individually. This way, you will be sure what precisely you are reacting to in this marriage.
You also have to factor in the years you have both spent together, especially those years when she was much younger and more attractive. In doing this, you must also take into considerations your own contributions to the person she has become.
Are you sure you didn’t help to make her the kind of woman she has become? In terms of attention and appreciation, how would you grade yourself?
While I am not trying to give her an easy berth, the truth remains that we unwittingly weaken or sharpen the resolve of our partners to become total strangers to us. If she is having affairs at the age both of you should be recapping on your life together, finding the emotional and mental equilibrium to advance into middle age, then something is very wrong in all the years you have spent together so far?
This is especially so if she has been faithful to you all these years. An old woman doesn’t learn new dance steps in her prime. Those women you were unfaithful with, how did they look? While you were in these relationships, how much time did you have for her and the children? Did you make her feel ugly, unwanted and unappreciated? Did you at any time bother about her sexual fantasies or just overrode her right of say? What kind of lover and husband were you? Were you a father and friend or a boss and tyrant? How did you bridge the gap of 11 years between the two of you?
A lot of times, we focus more on the mistakes, the end product of our collective actions over the years and not on the issues that gave birth to the challenges in the first place.
Honestly, there is no way she could have simply made up her mind in her old age to misbehave. Years of endurance, silent suffering and deprivation must have changed her to this little monster before you.
And this kind of problem doesn’t just go away. It isn’t by pretending you are matured about it or that you have seen all there are to see about life. No! It is about talking about it and reconciling your differences at the end of it all. Whatever you decide to do with the marriage, both of you must talk because you have too much at stake.
Given your ages, forget about what she has done to her body, nothing can change the age of the mind; you have both reached that delicate stages in your life when a lot of thoughts and considerations go into every decision taken. Unlike in the past, when you can afford the gamble of a wrong decision, you cannot do that now. From this point any resolution must factor in the interest of others as well as its implications on everyone especially the children and grandchildren.
Also you have to consider your own health. At this age, what can you do on your own without a woman in your life? Yes, paid helps can take care of domestic chores, but what about your emotions and other little details only a wife can do best?
Call her irrespective of whatever you think her accumulated sins are. To make the discourse fruitful, suppress whatever anger or disappointment you feel towards her. Like you rightly said, we get to a stage in life when things that were so important assume less significance. She may not have done the surgery for the sake of other men, but to get you to notice her after years of aching for it. By giving her the opportunity to pour out her heart, you make it easier for the both of you to subject your life together to proper scrutiny. Every marriage needs this kind of examination to help heal it from the effects of abuse we unwittingly subject our unions to. Many issues that come up in marriages are from taking each other for granted.
A lot of couples assume that once the dotted lines are signed, the marriage can run itself to success. Unless the same efforts, devotion, interest, love, respect and attention are invested in making a marriage work, it soon runs into problem of rust.
This kind of talk will also help you realise how you contributed to the problems you now blame her for. Importantly, it will help both of you realise in explicit terms the direction of the marriage.
There is nothing that heals a bad marriage like a frank talk. At this point, don’t hide anything from her, including the bit about her extra marital affairs. It is only after this kind of talk that you can make the right kind of decision, because your perspective becomes clearer and more profound.
If at the end of the day, there is something to salvage, don’t hesitate to give your marriage another chance. Like you admitted there is nothing strange any more about life that you haven’t seen.
It isn’t just women who hurt the ones they love. It is a human thing. We tend to take those we love so much for granted, that at the end of the day we end up hurting them unknowingly that we do those we are not so closed to.
The average woman lives for her children and husband. She therefore goes into frenzy when the man in the centre of her life ignores her. This is why you have to be sure of the motive of your wife before condemning her.
God will touch you both where you each need Him the most.
Good luck.
Can’t he do without extramarital deals?
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
My husband is having an affair. How do I stop him?
Worried Wife.
Dear Worried Wife,
It isn’t every time a man goes outside his home for an affair that he is to blame. In some cases, the wife at home unwittingly aids another woman to get the attention of her husband.
Admittedly some men are chronic womanisers, but a lot of these aches can be minimised by the amount of efforts the wife puts into making her home very comfortable for the man.
First you must work on your person and home before attempting to tackle the issue of the other woman in your husband’s life.
Although you didn’t say for how long you have been married, but a lot of women make the mistake of forgetting that men are not restricted by marriage from looking outside their homes as women are.
This is why every married woman must from time to time make every effort to ensure her husband’s reason for marrying her remains fresh. The moment a woman allows herself to be distracted from her reason for being a wife to her husband, she leaves her flanks opened for invasion by another woman.
Therefore, before you battle your husband, how would you grade yourself as a woman in his life? Do you still excite him as you did before you tied the knots? Are you still sensual, taking special care of yourself in terms of your clothes and personal appearance? Do you still make his heartbeat by your choice of clothes, hairdo as well as all those extra bits that make you a woman? Can he still show you off with pride with the arrogance of a man who knows he has one of the most special women by his side? Can you still remember what you looked like when you were still dating? Can you recognise that woman in your current form?
Were you to assess yourself through the eyes of your husband and give an honest answer, how would you rate yourself? Honestly, once you are determined to be truthful to yourself, you will begin to understand some of the things that are wrong with your marriage, and more importantly, his reasons for drifting. Although not an excuse, but more often than not when the mind is desirous of something, it needs just a little bit of help from a potential source to make it happen.
The joy of every man is to have a woman he can put on display at all times. Even though many men make the show of not wanting their wives to dress in a particular way, the irony of life is, that same dress they don’t want on their wives, is the same one they appreciate in other women.
Take time out to think of those things he particularly liked about you, complimented you for when he was still trying to engage your interest in him. Make the attempt to recover those things. It will help re-engineer his interest in you, bring him back to you without fighting the other woman or him for that matter.
Your performance as his woman may be just right, but as a wife, how would you score yourself? How well do you understand the needs of the man you call your husband? This is often the reason some men give for going into other relationships. When a man doesn’t get the kind of attention from his wife, feels displaced by children or make to feel like an intruder in the life of his wife, he goes in search for the woman who would shower all her attention on him. Unfortunately, the woman outside knows this, hence puts in the time the woman at home cannot deposit in her marriage. She also invests the extra energy as well as innovations into everything she does for her man-friend to make her the better choice for him.
When a married woman finds herself in the kind of position you have found yourself, her best weapon to win her man over is to behave like the mistress. Fighting won’t stop both man and woman from continuing with their affair. As a matter of fact, it has the potentials of complicating things for her. Instead, she should create time and purpose for her home. Like the mistress, she should use her money and time effectively. This is precisely what you should do to get your man back.
There is the need for you to do a little bit of investigation on your rival. Get people to give you information about her; this way you will know how to marshal your plans. Having information will give you an idea into her person. This way, you will be better guided in how you can neutralise her powers over your husband, not by fighting her, but knowing where to channel your energy in the quest to getting your husband back.
From experience, there is always something to learn from the other woman. It could just be a simple matter of her temperament or attitude. Definitely, there is something the other woman always has which the woman at home lacks. This is what a wise woman looks for instead of picking a needless fight with her husband’s mistress.
Allow that woman to be your mirror of reform. You need her to win your husband over. There is always a blessing behind every disappointment. I know you are in pains of betrayal by your husband, but only a well thought out wisdom filled package can replace that pain with joy.
If you are the kind that nags, is not so particular about his food or home, has little time to discuss or listen to him, it is important you change. Befriend him all over again, ask him questions about his work, interest and health. Generate discussion about anything you know interests him, if possible key yourself into that hobby he cannot do without, just to make yourself relevant to him all over again.
You have to get through to him first before trying to change him or stop him from doing what he is currently engaged in. It is more a battle for his conscience.
By making yourself appear completely at his beck and call, you increasingly make it difficult for the other woman to have nothing to hold on to. If you have children, let them go and stay with a friend or relative for the weekend if you cannot afford to take your husband out. Ensure such a weekend is filled with ideas of how to re-invent your marriage. Woo him with your body, mind and soul. Bear in mind that your mission is to recover your marriage hence every hurt and pains you feel, knowing out there is another woman in his life, should be crushed. As long as you are determined that no woman is worth you giving up your husband and home for, you will at the end of the day smile.
It is only after you have done all these, won him over that you can bring up the issue of the other woman. By the time you are discussing her with him, she would have long become history in his life. So the tension often associated with confronting an unfaithful husband wouldn’t be there. You will both be discussing the issue as friends, who are determined to cherish what they have found irrespective of what life throws at them.
In addition, make all the efforts to become his best friend. The good thing about being friends with your spouse is the open door of communication it offers to you as the wife. When a woman is her husband’s best friend, she enjoys a special place, her position as wife doesn’t offer her in her husband’s life. As a friend, the husband will tell her things he would never dare share with his wife. It takes both the grace of God and a deliberate effort on the part of the woman to be her husband’s best friend. No matter what this man does to you, refuse to be irritated instead, ask for the grace of God to defeat the problem.
Once your husband begins to notice changes in you behaviour, he will come back home to you. Every marriage must go through certain challenges to build its character. The different results we get during our time of trials are the issues we play up as well as our reactions while the situation persists.
Bath him with love and attention more than you ordinarily would. You need to now more than ever before because only love has the power to buy back a man who has found comfort in the arms of another woman. Any little mistake on your part is capable of making him stay in his new comfort zone forever. So be careful you don’t give in to your natural urge to be confrontational.
Above all, learn to pray and be mindful of who you discuss your home with. God remains man’s best friend.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
My husband is having an affair. How do I stop him?
Worried Wife.
Dear Worried Wife,
It isn’t every time a man goes outside his home for an affair that he is to blame. In some cases, the wife at home unwittingly aids another woman to get the attention of her husband.
Admittedly some men are chronic womanisers, but a lot of these aches can be minimised by the amount of efforts the wife puts into making her home very comfortable for the man.
First you must work on your person and home before attempting to tackle the issue of the other woman in your husband’s life.
Although you didn’t say for how long you have been married, but a lot of women make the mistake of forgetting that men are not restricted by marriage from looking outside their homes as women are.
This is why every married woman must from time to time make every effort to ensure her husband’s reason for marrying her remains fresh. The moment a woman allows herself to be distracted from her reason for being a wife to her husband, she leaves her flanks opened for invasion by another woman.
Therefore, before you battle your husband, how would you grade yourself as a woman in his life? Do you still excite him as you did before you tied the knots? Are you still sensual, taking special care of yourself in terms of your clothes and personal appearance? Do you still make his heartbeat by your choice of clothes, hairdo as well as all those extra bits that make you a woman? Can he still show you off with pride with the arrogance of a man who knows he has one of the most special women by his side? Can you still remember what you looked like when you were still dating? Can you recognise that woman in your current form?
Were you to assess yourself through the eyes of your husband and give an honest answer, how would you rate yourself? Honestly, once you are determined to be truthful to yourself, you will begin to understand some of the things that are wrong with your marriage, and more importantly, his reasons for drifting. Although not an excuse, but more often than not when the mind is desirous of something, it needs just a little bit of help from a potential source to make it happen.
The joy of every man is to have a woman he can put on display at all times. Even though many men make the show of not wanting their wives to dress in a particular way, the irony of life is, that same dress they don’t want on their wives, is the same one they appreciate in other women.
Take time out to think of those things he particularly liked about you, complimented you for when he was still trying to engage your interest in him. Make the attempt to recover those things. It will help re-engineer his interest in you, bring him back to you without fighting the other woman or him for that matter.
Your performance as his woman may be just right, but as a wife, how would you score yourself? How well do you understand the needs of the man you call your husband? This is often the reason some men give for going into other relationships. When a man doesn’t get the kind of attention from his wife, feels displaced by children or make to feel like an intruder in the life of his wife, he goes in search for the woman who would shower all her attention on him. Unfortunately, the woman outside knows this, hence puts in the time the woman at home cannot deposit in her marriage. She also invests the extra energy as well as innovations into everything she does for her man-friend to make her the better choice for him.
When a married woman finds herself in the kind of position you have found yourself, her best weapon to win her man over is to behave like the mistress. Fighting won’t stop both man and woman from continuing with their affair. As a matter of fact, it has the potentials of complicating things for her. Instead, she should create time and purpose for her home. Like the mistress, she should use her money and time effectively. This is precisely what you should do to get your man back.
There is the need for you to do a little bit of investigation on your rival. Get people to give you information about her; this way you will know how to marshal your plans. Having information will give you an idea into her person. This way, you will be better guided in how you can neutralise her powers over your husband, not by fighting her, but knowing where to channel your energy in the quest to getting your husband back.
From experience, there is always something to learn from the other woman. It could just be a simple matter of her temperament or attitude. Definitely, there is something the other woman always has which the woman at home lacks. This is what a wise woman looks for instead of picking a needless fight with her husband’s mistress.
Allow that woman to be your mirror of reform. You need her to win your husband over. There is always a blessing behind every disappointment. I know you are in pains of betrayal by your husband, but only a well thought out wisdom filled package can replace that pain with joy.
If you are the kind that nags, is not so particular about his food or home, has little time to discuss or listen to him, it is important you change. Befriend him all over again, ask him questions about his work, interest and health. Generate discussion about anything you know interests him, if possible key yourself into that hobby he cannot do without, just to make yourself relevant to him all over again.
You have to get through to him first before trying to change him or stop him from doing what he is currently engaged in. It is more a battle for his conscience.
By making yourself appear completely at his beck and call, you increasingly make it difficult for the other woman to have nothing to hold on to. If you have children, let them go and stay with a friend or relative for the weekend if you cannot afford to take your husband out. Ensure such a weekend is filled with ideas of how to re-invent your marriage. Woo him with your body, mind and soul. Bear in mind that your mission is to recover your marriage hence every hurt and pains you feel, knowing out there is another woman in his life, should be crushed. As long as you are determined that no woman is worth you giving up your husband and home for, you will at the end of the day smile.
It is only after you have done all these, won him over that you can bring up the issue of the other woman. By the time you are discussing her with him, she would have long become history in his life. So the tension often associated with confronting an unfaithful husband wouldn’t be there. You will both be discussing the issue as friends, who are determined to cherish what they have found irrespective of what life throws at them.
In addition, make all the efforts to become his best friend. The good thing about being friends with your spouse is the open door of communication it offers to you as the wife. When a woman is her husband’s best friend, she enjoys a special place, her position as wife doesn’t offer her in her husband’s life. As a friend, the husband will tell her things he would never dare share with his wife. It takes both the grace of God and a deliberate effort on the part of the woman to be her husband’s best friend. No matter what this man does to you, refuse to be irritated instead, ask for the grace of God to defeat the problem.
Once your husband begins to notice changes in you behaviour, he will come back home to you. Every marriage must go through certain challenges to build its character. The different results we get during our time of trials are the issues we play up as well as our reactions while the situation persists.
Bath him with love and attention more than you ordinarily would. You need to now more than ever before because only love has the power to buy back a man who has found comfort in the arms of another woman. Any little mistake on your part is capable of making him stay in his new comfort zone forever. So be careful you don’t give in to your natural urge to be confrontational.
Above all, learn to pray and be mindful of who you discuss your home with. God remains man’s best friend.
Good luck.
Her penchant for costly lifestyle may end the union…
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I am one of those affected by the Sanusi banking reforms. I lost my bank job three years ago. I was however given a tidy sum as gratuity, which I quickly invested in the completion of our property and fishery business.
By the grace of God, the business is thriving, which means I am able to meet my obligations to my family. However, certain things like
annual holidays abroad, changing of cars, and attending expensive parties with their attendant uniform (••••aso ebi••, as Yoruba people call it) buying are out of my budget.
To get the cooperation of everybody at home, I called a family meeting
when the money was paid into my account. My children, three of them are all in private and expensive schools in the country. The reason I called them was for them to appreciate my current financial constraints.
They all agreed with me when I mentioned my decision to complete the construction of our home at Magboro, along Lagos Ibadan Expressway. My children were very understanding and promised not to make unnecessary demands on me.
True to their words, they hardly make any. They have been very supportive, always asking after my business and finding ways of helping me grow it. As a matter of fact, my son and daughter spent their holidays in a fish farm to acquire the skill and knowledge to grow better breeds. I was touched by their decision because they didn’t ask me for money for the training, rather they saved their pockets money to fund it.
You can therefore imagine my pains, disappointment and wonder at the attitude of their mother who determined to make my life a living hell.
My wife, who should be my backbone and partner in life, has refused to adjust lifestyle to allow our new means of survival. She almost didn’t want to relocate from Victoria
Island, where we were living to our house. She said it was too remote and too far from all her friends.
It wasn’t until the children and I threatened to leave her in the house that she agreed to come with us.
She expects me to use the money I made from my business to finance her parties, ‘aso ebi’ (uniform), outings and holidays abroad. My attempts to make her see reasons saw her packing out of the house to stay with one of her friends, who since I knew her has always laid claims to a husband who stays abroad. Although I have met her in the company of other men, I pretend not to know the kind of job she does.
I have severally tried to warn my wife to stay away from her, but she won’t listen. This is the woman she is now having as best friends.
The children too have tried to appeal to her to bear with me, but everyday my wife is changing for the worse. Although she agreed to come home last week but I suspect that it is only for a while that she has already made up her mind about the marriage.
I came to this conclusion when she told me that there was no way she could change her lifestyle to make me happy, that going to parties is part of her life.
I tried to get her mother to intervene but the mother too is obstinate. She said it was selfish and unreasonable for me to think her daughter would feel comfortable living where my house is when she has lived all her life as Shitta woman, the heart of Surulere. She said, I should sell my house and get myself a comfortable place on the Island. She also complained that I haven’t bought her any new clothes or trinkets since I left the bank. Like my wife, she said her car too needed a replacement. Admitted, I haven’t been able to meet all the obligations I hitherto oblige her because I am growing my business. I am still using my old cars and they are working well.
I dare not tell my parents who never liked her and her lifestyle from the very day I married her. My parents are of the opinion that she is responsible for my lack of marked progress despite the years I spent in the bank and with the position I got to before I was asked to go.
One of the conditions she is giving is that I should buy her a new car.
Agatha, I am fed up. But for my friend who insisted years back I buy the three plots of land that now houses my home and business, I am not sure I would have left the bank with anything tangible.
Our marriage is 17 years old. I am too confused to think straight.
Gbenga.
Dear Gbenga,
Calm down to avoid courting a health problem that might leave you with expensive medical bills.
There is nothing strange under the sun. The worst that can happen is her walking out of the marriage. If this happens, you won’t be the first man to lose his wife to a better social life or the last. One of you has to think of the welfare of the children. You are lucky the children are understanding and are ready to give you all the support to succeed in your new life. You owe it to these wonderful children to make something positive out of the situation you have found yourself.
There is always a calm after every storm. At this juncture, just thank
God that you have this place to begin life all over again. If you care to look around you, not everybody who left the bank with you has your fall back plan. Some have only their memories of once-upon-a time to live on.
Allow your wife and her mother to make their choice. If your wife thinks your current lifestyle is one she cannot bring herself to conform to grant her the freedom to try someone else. It appears that her mind is made up. Frankly, there is nothing you say or do now that will make her change her mind especially as she has the backing of her mother. It would have been a different kettle of fish if she lacked
the support of her mother. It would have been easy for you to win her back if she were alone in her desires.
It is obvious that your mother-in-law rather than your wife’s friends
is the real problem here. Your wife is who she is because her mother has made her so and is still influencing her to be the daughter she groomed. It isn’t something that started today. Right from the day, you married your wife, your mother-in-law her been in charge of your home through her daughter. It would be hard for you to make your wife see reasons with a mother like that. There is no way she would ever change to support you in the way a wife should. Even if she wanted to, her mother will never allow her have the peace of mind to.
Sincerely, you caused it. If you hadn’t indulged them all these years, her mother won’t be making these demands on you. The time has come for you to act as a man; make it clear to your wife that you have had
enough of having her mother dictate to you how you spend your money.
Make her realize she has a choice to come back home to help you give them all a good life within your means or cave in to the pressures of her mother.
It is very unfortunate, but to try to force her to stay with you is to
end up with a very miserable home. She has made it as clear to you as
possible that her reasons for marrying you aren’t the same with yours.
She wants the bright and colourful side of life which only your
banking job can finance.
But to leave you blameless, ask her, which is important to her, the welfare of the children whose future will be affected if you pull out the kind of money required to buy a new car from your business or her mad desire to be at par with her circle of friends? This is to ensure
you are clear about her demands as well as have something to refer her back to when that time comes in the future when she realizes her mistake.
When things get to this point in a marriage, it is always best to be realistic. If she wants to continue, let her know it won’t be on her terms. That even if you have the money to buy a new car, you would rather invest in growing your business until it can run itself.
Don’t be afraid to make your stance known to your mother-in-law and
wife. Be rest assured that whatever will be will be. Turn more to God for His help and assistance to make things happen in your life.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I am one of those affected by the Sanusi banking reforms. I lost my bank job three years ago. I was however given a tidy sum as gratuity, which I quickly invested in the completion of our property and fishery business.
By the grace of God, the business is thriving, which means I am able to meet my obligations to my family. However, certain things like
annual holidays abroad, changing of cars, and attending expensive parties with their attendant uniform (••••aso ebi••, as Yoruba people call it) buying are out of my budget.
To get the cooperation of everybody at home, I called a family meeting
when the money was paid into my account. My children, three of them are all in private and expensive schools in the country. The reason I called them was for them to appreciate my current financial constraints.
They all agreed with me when I mentioned my decision to complete the construction of our home at Magboro, along Lagos Ibadan Expressway. My children were very understanding and promised not to make unnecessary demands on me.
True to their words, they hardly make any. They have been very supportive, always asking after my business and finding ways of helping me grow it. As a matter of fact, my son and daughter spent their holidays in a fish farm to acquire the skill and knowledge to grow better breeds. I was touched by their decision because they didn’t ask me for money for the training, rather they saved their pockets money to fund it.
You can therefore imagine my pains, disappointment and wonder at the attitude of their mother who determined to make my life a living hell.
My wife, who should be my backbone and partner in life, has refused to adjust lifestyle to allow our new means of survival. She almost didn’t want to relocate from Victoria
Island, where we were living to our house. She said it was too remote and too far from all her friends.
It wasn’t until the children and I threatened to leave her in the house that she agreed to come with us.
She expects me to use the money I made from my business to finance her parties, ‘aso ebi’ (uniform), outings and holidays abroad. My attempts to make her see reasons saw her packing out of the house to stay with one of her friends, who since I knew her has always laid claims to a husband who stays abroad. Although I have met her in the company of other men, I pretend not to know the kind of job she does.
I have severally tried to warn my wife to stay away from her, but she won’t listen. This is the woman she is now having as best friends.
The children too have tried to appeal to her to bear with me, but everyday my wife is changing for the worse. Although she agreed to come home last week but I suspect that it is only for a while that she has already made up her mind about the marriage.
I came to this conclusion when she told me that there was no way she could change her lifestyle to make me happy, that going to parties is part of her life.
I tried to get her mother to intervene but the mother too is obstinate. She said it was selfish and unreasonable for me to think her daughter would feel comfortable living where my house is when she has lived all her life as Shitta woman, the heart of Surulere. She said, I should sell my house and get myself a comfortable place on the Island. She also complained that I haven’t bought her any new clothes or trinkets since I left the bank. Like my wife, she said her car too needed a replacement. Admitted, I haven’t been able to meet all the obligations I hitherto oblige her because I am growing my business. I am still using my old cars and they are working well.
I dare not tell my parents who never liked her and her lifestyle from the very day I married her. My parents are of the opinion that she is responsible for my lack of marked progress despite the years I spent in the bank and with the position I got to before I was asked to go.
One of the conditions she is giving is that I should buy her a new car.
Agatha, I am fed up. But for my friend who insisted years back I buy the three plots of land that now houses my home and business, I am not sure I would have left the bank with anything tangible.
Our marriage is 17 years old. I am too confused to think straight.
Gbenga.
Dear Gbenga,
Calm down to avoid courting a health problem that might leave you with expensive medical bills.
There is nothing strange under the sun. The worst that can happen is her walking out of the marriage. If this happens, you won’t be the first man to lose his wife to a better social life or the last. One of you has to think of the welfare of the children. You are lucky the children are understanding and are ready to give you all the support to succeed in your new life. You owe it to these wonderful children to make something positive out of the situation you have found yourself.
There is always a calm after every storm. At this juncture, just thank
God that you have this place to begin life all over again. If you care to look around you, not everybody who left the bank with you has your fall back plan. Some have only their memories of once-upon-a time to live on.
Allow your wife and her mother to make their choice. If your wife thinks your current lifestyle is one she cannot bring herself to conform to grant her the freedom to try someone else. It appears that her mind is made up. Frankly, there is nothing you say or do now that will make her change her mind especially as she has the backing of her mother. It would have been a different kettle of fish if she lacked
the support of her mother. It would have been easy for you to win her back if she were alone in her desires.
It is obvious that your mother-in-law rather than your wife’s friends
is the real problem here. Your wife is who she is because her mother has made her so and is still influencing her to be the daughter she groomed. It isn’t something that started today. Right from the day, you married your wife, your mother-in-law her been in charge of your home through her daughter. It would be hard for you to make your wife see reasons with a mother like that. There is no way she would ever change to support you in the way a wife should. Even if she wanted to, her mother will never allow her have the peace of mind to.
Sincerely, you caused it. If you hadn’t indulged them all these years, her mother won’t be making these demands on you. The time has come for you to act as a man; make it clear to your wife that you have had
enough of having her mother dictate to you how you spend your money.
Make her realize she has a choice to come back home to help you give them all a good life within your means or cave in to the pressures of her mother.
It is very unfortunate, but to try to force her to stay with you is to
end up with a very miserable home. She has made it as clear to you as
possible that her reasons for marrying you aren’t the same with yours.
She wants the bright and colourful side of life which only your
banking job can finance.
But to leave you blameless, ask her, which is important to her, the welfare of the children whose future will be affected if you pull out the kind of money required to buy a new car from your business or her mad desire to be at par with her circle of friends? This is to ensure
you are clear about her demands as well as have something to refer her back to when that time comes in the future when she realizes her mistake.
When things get to this point in a marriage, it is always best to be realistic. If she wants to continue, let her know it won’t be on her terms. That even if you have the money to buy a new car, you would rather invest in growing your business until it can run itself.
Don’t be afraid to make your stance known to your mother-in-law and
wife. Be rest assured that whatever will be will be. Turn more to God for His help and assistance to make things happen in your life.
Good luck.
Rejecting my hubby’s idea of adoption, my undoing
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I am 48 years old while my husband is going to be 55 next month. We have been married for almost 20 years without a child. There is nothing we have not done to have one.
Despite all the assurances that there is nothing wrong with either of us medically, we still don’t have a child to show for our union.
About 10 years ago, my husband begged me to allow us adopt a child, but I refused. I was bitter and very angry because in my mind, I thought it meant he had given up on my ability to have a child. I was also concerned that it would mean I was the one with the problem so I rejected the idea.
Two years after that, he also made attempts to bring in his late brother’s only child and son who is nine years, whose parents died in an accident, I also refused. After that, he didn’t attempt it again.
Deep down I was determined he won’t make a mockery of me. So I resisted every move he made to adopt or bring a child home.
Recently, my monthly flow stopped suddenly. When I told the doctor, he said it was normal but that we should observe it for sometime before any test can be carried out. In addition, I started experiencing this irritating hotness inside of me. I became very uncomfortable as the heat coming from inside of me became worse. No matter how effective the air conditioner is, I would still break out in sweat beads.
By the time I went back to the doctor, it was obvious I was experiencing all the signs of menopause. I was sad because it meant I wouldn’t be able to have a child.
When I told my husband what the doctor said, he didn’t say anything beyond it being a natural thing.
Three months after, I approached him to discuss the issue of our adopting a child; but to my surprise he told me he was no longer interested. He said at the time he wanted it, I didn’t show any interest.
Four weeks after that discussion, his elder sister came to the house with two little children she introduced as belonging to my husband. From their ages, I guessed they were less than six years old.
Looking back, I noticed, it was about the same time my husband’s family stopped harassing me for a child.
When I confronted him about the children, he didn’t bother to deny it instead, he said I was to blame. That had I agreed to his suggestion to adopt or allow the only child of his late brother come to live with us, he would have stood by me all the way.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, my husband and his family want the mother of his children to move in with us.
I feel used and dumped by my in-laws. Although I have briefed my lawyers about the move by my in-laws, I want your opinion on how best to handle this matter. There is no way I would allow another woman into the house I supported my husband to build simply because I don’t have a child. Is it my fault that I cannot have a child?
Furthermore, I intend asking the courts to insist on a DNA for the children because I don’t think they are my husband’s. If I haven’t been able to conceive for him all these years, how come he is able to father children from another woman?
Iyinu.
Dear Iyinu,
Since he is fit just as you are medically there is nothing stopping him getting another woman pregnant. The problem may just be with the two of you as a couple. Sometimes, nature takes a decision, which no one can explain.
Therefore, your intention to begin a legal battle against the paternity of his children would be needless, a pure exercise in futility. At any rate, your husband who should be the one querying the paternity of the children is sure he is their father. On what basis do you want to go to court? Even if you have all the legal grounds in the world to do so, if your husband comes to court to oppose you and to insist that he knows the children are not his biologically but, decided to adopt them when you refused him the joy of adoption, what are you going to do?
Whether you like it or not, these children are a reality you must learn to accept if you intend continuing with this marriage.
Children are the circle of life. Without them, no adult is ever complete. Your husband, unlike most men, offered you the chance to become a mother by suggesting adoption, which you turned down. Destiny offered you another chance when it provided you the chance of looking after the son of your late brother-in-law who died with his wife in an accident.
Even if you didn’t want to adopt a stranger, what stopped you from agreeing to take this child into your home and live? Even if you had children of your own, the welfare of this child should be your business. God was looking for ways to bless you but you threw your chances away.
There is no way you would have looked after this boy or an abandoned child without God showing you mercy. Your coldness at the rejection of his orphaned nephew must have made your husband to think twice. Ordinarily, as the woman, you should have been the one insisting the boy comes to stay with you.
If you lacked the motherly love to offer an orphan, with what love would you look after your own? Therefore, if you go to court to contest the paternity of your stepchildren, you will only be confirming the fears of your husband about you. No normal woman, no matter how bitter against the world, rejects a needy child.
That you were capable of looking the other way when this child became an orphan underscores your lack of maternal feelings whatsoever.
The fact that you haven’t been able to have your own child doesn’t mean you cannot be happy and fulfilled as a woman. All you have to do is open your heart and allow the sensation of love in.
Given your account, you left your husband with no choice but to do what he did. It would have been a different matter if he didn’t make any attempt to provide you both with an alternative to the challenge you were having in your marriage.
You were too blinded by your resolve not to be potrayed as the one with the fault; you completely ignored his needs and wishes too. By refusing to factor him into your plans, you left your home opened to another woman.
If there is anyone to be blamed for this whole mess, you are. You were selfish, unreasonable and blinded by your own challenges to care about the man whose life too was also involved.
You acted as if you were the only one in the marriage. You forgot marriage is a partnership, one that requires compromises, selflessness, compassion and understanding to nurture. Your husband was crying for help and understanding but you refused to listen to him.
Sincerely, you will end up destroying whatever little chance you have with your husband if you take any legal step.
What you should do is to sit him down for a discussion. No matter how bad a situation appears to be, it can always be redeemed once there is sincerity of purpose.
You can still change his mind about bringing the other woman into the same house as you. All it takes is a complete change of attitude by you. Be happy for him, open your heart to the children. Apologise for the mistakes you made in the past and ask for his support to have a child of your own through adoption. If you can, try to see how you can make peace with his nephew by bringing him home. No matter how hostile your in-laws are, there will be one person who has a soft spot for you. Approach that person for help.
What your husband needs is to see a change in your attitude to trust you again. You have hurt him too much. Be part of his life, dreams and happiness. It isn’t too much to give a man you have spent 20 years of your life with.
In addition, don’t be far away from God.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I am 48 years old while my husband is going to be 55 next month. We have been married for almost 20 years without a child. There is nothing we have not done to have one.
Despite all the assurances that there is nothing wrong with either of us medically, we still don’t have a child to show for our union.
About 10 years ago, my husband begged me to allow us adopt a child, but I refused. I was bitter and very angry because in my mind, I thought it meant he had given up on my ability to have a child. I was also concerned that it would mean I was the one with the problem so I rejected the idea.
Two years after that, he also made attempts to bring in his late brother’s only child and son who is nine years, whose parents died in an accident, I also refused. After that, he didn’t attempt it again.
Deep down I was determined he won’t make a mockery of me. So I resisted every move he made to adopt or bring a child home.
Recently, my monthly flow stopped suddenly. When I told the doctor, he said it was normal but that we should observe it for sometime before any test can be carried out. In addition, I started experiencing this irritating hotness inside of me. I became very uncomfortable as the heat coming from inside of me became worse. No matter how effective the air conditioner is, I would still break out in sweat beads.
By the time I went back to the doctor, it was obvious I was experiencing all the signs of menopause. I was sad because it meant I wouldn’t be able to have a child.
When I told my husband what the doctor said, he didn’t say anything beyond it being a natural thing.
Three months after, I approached him to discuss the issue of our adopting a child; but to my surprise he told me he was no longer interested. He said at the time he wanted it, I didn’t show any interest.
Four weeks after that discussion, his elder sister came to the house with two little children she introduced as belonging to my husband. From their ages, I guessed they were less than six years old.
Looking back, I noticed, it was about the same time my husband’s family stopped harassing me for a child.
When I confronted him about the children, he didn’t bother to deny it instead, he said I was to blame. That had I agreed to his suggestion to adopt or allow the only child of his late brother come to live with us, he would have stood by me all the way.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, my husband and his family want the mother of his children to move in with us.
I feel used and dumped by my in-laws. Although I have briefed my lawyers about the move by my in-laws, I want your opinion on how best to handle this matter. There is no way I would allow another woman into the house I supported my husband to build simply because I don’t have a child. Is it my fault that I cannot have a child?
Furthermore, I intend asking the courts to insist on a DNA for the children because I don’t think they are my husband’s. If I haven’t been able to conceive for him all these years, how come he is able to father children from another woman?
Iyinu.
Dear Iyinu,
Since he is fit just as you are medically there is nothing stopping him getting another woman pregnant. The problem may just be with the two of you as a couple. Sometimes, nature takes a decision, which no one can explain.
Therefore, your intention to begin a legal battle against the paternity of his children would be needless, a pure exercise in futility. At any rate, your husband who should be the one querying the paternity of the children is sure he is their father. On what basis do you want to go to court? Even if you have all the legal grounds in the world to do so, if your husband comes to court to oppose you and to insist that he knows the children are not his biologically but, decided to adopt them when you refused him the joy of adoption, what are you going to do?
Whether you like it or not, these children are a reality you must learn to accept if you intend continuing with this marriage.
Children are the circle of life. Without them, no adult is ever complete. Your husband, unlike most men, offered you the chance to become a mother by suggesting adoption, which you turned down. Destiny offered you another chance when it provided you the chance of looking after the son of your late brother-in-law who died with his wife in an accident.
Even if you didn’t want to adopt a stranger, what stopped you from agreeing to take this child into your home and live? Even if you had children of your own, the welfare of this child should be your business. God was looking for ways to bless you but you threw your chances away.
There is no way you would have looked after this boy or an abandoned child without God showing you mercy. Your coldness at the rejection of his orphaned nephew must have made your husband to think twice. Ordinarily, as the woman, you should have been the one insisting the boy comes to stay with you.
If you lacked the motherly love to offer an orphan, with what love would you look after your own? Therefore, if you go to court to contest the paternity of your stepchildren, you will only be confirming the fears of your husband about you. No normal woman, no matter how bitter against the world, rejects a needy child.
That you were capable of looking the other way when this child became an orphan underscores your lack of maternal feelings whatsoever.
The fact that you haven’t been able to have your own child doesn’t mean you cannot be happy and fulfilled as a woman. All you have to do is open your heart and allow the sensation of love in.
Given your account, you left your husband with no choice but to do what he did. It would have been a different matter if he didn’t make any attempt to provide you both with an alternative to the challenge you were having in your marriage.
You were too blinded by your resolve not to be potrayed as the one with the fault; you completely ignored his needs and wishes too. By refusing to factor him into your plans, you left your home opened to another woman.
If there is anyone to be blamed for this whole mess, you are. You were selfish, unreasonable and blinded by your own challenges to care about the man whose life too was also involved.
You acted as if you were the only one in the marriage. You forgot marriage is a partnership, one that requires compromises, selflessness, compassion and understanding to nurture. Your husband was crying for help and understanding but you refused to listen to him.
Sincerely, you will end up destroying whatever little chance you have with your husband if you take any legal step.
What you should do is to sit him down for a discussion. No matter how bad a situation appears to be, it can always be redeemed once there is sincerity of purpose.
You can still change his mind about bringing the other woman into the same house as you. All it takes is a complete change of attitude by you. Be happy for him, open your heart to the children. Apologise for the mistakes you made in the past and ask for his support to have a child of your own through adoption. If you can, try to see how you can make peace with his nephew by bringing him home. No matter how hostile your in-laws are, there will be one person who has a soft spot for you. Approach that person for help.
What your husband needs is to see a change in your attitude to trust you again. You have hurt him too much. Be part of his life, dreams and happiness. It isn’t too much to give a man you have spent 20 years of your life with.
In addition, don’t be far away from God.
Good luck.
He attempted suicide after he raped his daughter
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I have a challening issue on my hands. It has to do with my stepdaughter and my ex-husband.
The mother of my stepdaughter is alive, but she is the kind that has little or no time for her children, the reason her children and I are very close in the first place.
By the time I met and married my ex, she was long gone so I didn’t get to meet her until about two years into my marriage. The day I met her, she came to fight me over what she described as attempts to steal her children from her.
When I came into the house, I discovered that the children were always left on their own. Their father was never around due to his job.
Being the first of over 18 children, I was used to caring for people. So it wasn’t too difficult winning them over. In no time, all three of them became my friends. The only girl and the first child of the family began to take extra efforts in her studies. With the help of the home teacher I got for her, she made her papers after her third attempt.
I didn’t bother her father about her fees and other money she would need to go to school. But I noticed the father wasn’t happy that she was leaving home for school. For days, he was moody, didn’t talk to me at all.
Unfortunately, I left him in our third year together because of his cruel nature. He would beat me at any given opportunity; made me miscarriage of our first baby. By the time I was pregnant the second time, I had no choice but to leave him when he began to beat me again.
Now the issue is, my stepdaughter whose fees I still pay, in addition to her brothers’, came to report that her father raped her when she came home for holidays.
According to her, it happened when he came back drunk and she was in her room. She said, she was too frightened to say anything, as he appeared capable of killing her. She said he kept calling out my name while raping her.
She said, he realised what he had done only after he finished and begged her to forgive him; that it will never happen again. The poor girl is threatening to go to the Police with the story while her father the morning after tried to poison himself. He is still on admission.
What do I do, Agatha? If I allow her to go to the Police, her father would be destroyed completely.
Grace.
Dear Grace,
Doubtless, this is knotty. The first thing to do is evacuate the children from that house. Whatever it will cost you, locate their mother and see if you can get her to see reasons with you. Don’t, for now tell her about the rape issue; allow her daughter make that decision of telling her mother or not.
Peg your argument on the welfare of the children and the need for her as their mother to show more interest in their welfare. Plead with her not to be too far from them even if it won’t be easy for her, to have them stay with her.
Thereafter, go and visit your ex husband in the hospital. Find out what is wrong with him; he obviously needs help. Even if there is no way both of you can come together again as a couple, the fact that you were once married and have a child between the two of you makes it imperative for you to do your best for the family.
Don’t forget that if anything happens to him, you will be left with the responsibility of caring for all the children. As it is, those children regard you more as their mother and father. For this reason, you must bury your own disappointments and pains to help these children have a sense of responsibility to their father.
To achieve this, call your stepdaughter to plead with her to allow the matter be. Tell her why you think the matter should be resolved internally. The fact that the father tried to kill himself after discovering what he did is in itself enough punishment. There is no judgment that would be as great as that.
Without him saying anything, he has already condemned himself; she would only be nailing the final nail on his coffin if she goes to the Police. In the interim, don’t allow her go to her father’s house alone. If she has to see him, find time to go with her.
But, your major work here is prayer. It seems there is a spiritual problem somewhere. You need to pray to be sure but your narration points to the presence of some strange powers determined to destroy this man forever. That power doesn’t want him to ever have a woman in his life or enjoy his children.
The fact that he was calling out your name while raping his daughter shows that he wasn’t in control of his senses. By the time he did, all he wanted to do was die of shame at what he had done.
You won’t be doing yourself and this man any good if you totally blank him out of your mind. He needs you in the same way his children do. there is hope that he can still change. The fact the he was calling out your name shows that he still cares.
After all, he is the father of your child which is perhaps the strongest reason for you to help him. go into prayers and fasting on his behalf. Once God takes charge, whatever power is involved in the destruction of your home will vacate it. Until then, do all you have to do to protect everyone.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I have a challening issue on my hands. It has to do with my stepdaughter and my ex-husband.
The mother of my stepdaughter is alive, but she is the kind that has little or no time for her children, the reason her children and I are very close in the first place.
By the time I met and married my ex, she was long gone so I didn’t get to meet her until about two years into my marriage. The day I met her, she came to fight me over what she described as attempts to steal her children from her.
When I came into the house, I discovered that the children were always left on their own. Their father was never around due to his job.
Being the first of over 18 children, I was used to caring for people. So it wasn’t too difficult winning them over. In no time, all three of them became my friends. The only girl and the first child of the family began to take extra efforts in her studies. With the help of the home teacher I got for her, she made her papers after her third attempt.
I didn’t bother her father about her fees and other money she would need to go to school. But I noticed the father wasn’t happy that she was leaving home for school. For days, he was moody, didn’t talk to me at all.
Unfortunately, I left him in our third year together because of his cruel nature. He would beat me at any given opportunity; made me miscarriage of our first baby. By the time I was pregnant the second time, I had no choice but to leave him when he began to beat me again.
Now the issue is, my stepdaughter whose fees I still pay, in addition to her brothers’, came to report that her father raped her when she came home for holidays.
According to her, it happened when he came back drunk and she was in her room. She said, she was too frightened to say anything, as he appeared capable of killing her. She said he kept calling out my name while raping her.
She said, he realised what he had done only after he finished and begged her to forgive him; that it will never happen again. The poor girl is threatening to go to the Police with the story while her father the morning after tried to poison himself. He is still on admission.
What do I do, Agatha? If I allow her to go to the Police, her father would be destroyed completely.
Grace.
Dear Grace,
Doubtless, this is knotty. The first thing to do is evacuate the children from that house. Whatever it will cost you, locate their mother and see if you can get her to see reasons with you. Don’t, for now tell her about the rape issue; allow her daughter make that decision of telling her mother or not.
Peg your argument on the welfare of the children and the need for her as their mother to show more interest in their welfare. Plead with her not to be too far from them even if it won’t be easy for her, to have them stay with her.
Thereafter, go and visit your ex husband in the hospital. Find out what is wrong with him; he obviously needs help. Even if there is no way both of you can come together again as a couple, the fact that you were once married and have a child between the two of you makes it imperative for you to do your best for the family.
Don’t forget that if anything happens to him, you will be left with the responsibility of caring for all the children. As it is, those children regard you more as their mother and father. For this reason, you must bury your own disappointments and pains to help these children have a sense of responsibility to their father.
To achieve this, call your stepdaughter to plead with her to allow the matter be. Tell her why you think the matter should be resolved internally. The fact that the father tried to kill himself after discovering what he did is in itself enough punishment. There is no judgment that would be as great as that.
Without him saying anything, he has already condemned himself; she would only be nailing the final nail on his coffin if she goes to the Police. In the interim, don’t allow her go to her father’s house alone. If she has to see him, find time to go with her.
But, your major work here is prayer. It seems there is a spiritual problem somewhere. You need to pray to be sure but your narration points to the presence of some strange powers determined to destroy this man forever. That power doesn’t want him to ever have a woman in his life or enjoy his children.
The fact that he was calling out your name while raping his daughter shows that he wasn’t in control of his senses. By the time he did, all he wanted to do was die of shame at what he had done.
You won’t be doing yourself and this man any good if you totally blank him out of your mind. He needs you in the same way his children do. there is hope that he can still change. The fact the he was calling out your name shows that he still cares.
After all, he is the father of your child which is perhaps the strongest reason for you to help him. go into prayers and fasting on his behalf. Once God takes charge, whatever power is involved in the destruction of your home will vacate it. Until then, do all you have to do to protect everyone.
Good luck.
Re: Met on Facebook, had the wedding, but he’s a cripple
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
Going through that story, I wept for the wrong values many of our young men and women are now embracing. It also brought to mind a very personal battle confronting me as a mother.
Two years ago, my eldest daughter came home with this fantastic story of meeting her old boyfriend on line. She told her father and I how wonderful the man was to her while in school; even got her siblings to back up her story.
According to her, he now stays in Germany and her indicated interest in getting married to her. Given her age, I was curious about the marital status of the man. She assured me he was still single and that fate must have kept him for her.
Although something deep within me tried to probe further, she blocked every attempt I made. My curiosity was beginning to irritate her so much so my husband had to warn me to back off. His argument was simple; its her life so if she wants to lie about what isn’t; I should allow her be.
It sounded cold but when I gave it a thought, I submitted to her wish.
She railroaded us into a quick wedding at which the boy’s brother represented him. on the two occasions she allowed me to speak with him, certain things didn’t tally. For instance, he got the school and dates of their purported time together mixed up. Again, I tried as a mother to get her to open up to me, even promising not to confide in her father, still she insisted they had been secondary school lovers.
She left a week after the wedding. I didn’t know what I was expecting or how fast it would happen but barely 24 hours after she left, she called to say she wanted to come back home; that the man she married wasn’t what he claimed he was.
According to her, he was on a wheel chair and that one of his legs was actually amputated. When I asked if the man wasn’t the same person she had known all her life, went to school with, it was then she told she had lied about everything.
That she knew, I won’t allow her marry him if I knew they met three weeks before on the internet. She said, the money he sent her, gifts items and a car he bought her which she sold without telling anybody are the reasons she wanted to marry him at all cost.
Her father who was listening to my side of the conversation, took the phone from me, warned not to contemplate coming back to his house that she should remain in that marriage.
There was nothing my daughter didn’t say to come back but her father and I stood our ground. Today, they have a baby boy and even though she is still not too happy about his disability, is still hopeful that we would support her desire to divorce him but she has come to appreciate his person and mind.
Kosi, you just have to do as Agatha says. Give yourself time to get to know him. At least nobody forced you into making the choice, you did out of greed like my daughter. The least you can do is to find ways of making each other happy.
Like Agatha, pointed out since he is capable of functioning as a man, is caring, what more do you want? For instance, my son-in-law is very caring, taking good care of us; at least, my daughter got her wish of a financially stable man even if she isnt enjoying the marriage as she hoped to.
It is a pity what you young girls play up these days or what you think marriage is all about. Kosi, invest all you have as a woman to make the best of the situation you have created for yourself.
Mrs. Apoyi.
Dear Agatha,
Going through that story, I wept for the wrong values many of our young men and women are now embracing. It also brought to mind a very personal battle confronting me as a mother.
Two years ago, my eldest daughter came home with this fantastic story of meeting her old boyfriend on line. She told her father and I how wonderful the man was to her while in school; even got her siblings to back up her story.
According to her, he now stays in Germany and her indicated interest in getting married to her. Given her age, I was curious about the marital status of the man. She assured me he was still single and that fate must have kept him for her.
Although something deep within me tried to probe further, she blocked every attempt I made. My curiosity was beginning to irritate her so much so my husband had to warn me to back off. His argument was simple; its her life so if she wants to lie about what isn’t; I should allow her be.
It sounded cold but when I gave it a thought, I submitted to her wish.
She railroaded us into a quick wedding at which the boy’s brother represented him. on the two occasions she allowed me to speak with him, certain things didn’t tally. For instance, he got the school and dates of their purported time together mixed up. Again, I tried as a mother to get her to open up to me, even promising not to confide in her father, still she insisted they had been secondary school lovers.
She left a week after the wedding. I didn’t know what I was expecting or how fast it would happen but barely 24 hours after she left, she called to say she wanted to come back home; that the man she married wasn’t what he claimed he was.
According to her, he was on a wheel chair and that one of his legs was actually amputated. When I asked if the man wasn’t the same person she had known all her life, went to school with, it was then she told she had lied about everything.
That she knew, I won’t allow her marry him if I knew they met three weeks before on the internet. She said, the money he sent her, gifts items and a car he bought her which she sold without telling anybody are the reasons she wanted to marry him at all cost.
Her father who was listening to my side of the conversation, took the phone from me, warned not to contemplate coming back to his house that she should remain in that marriage.
There was nothing my daughter didn’t say to come back but her father and I stood our ground. Today, they have a baby boy and even though she is still not too happy about his disability, is still hopeful that we would support her desire to divorce him but she has come to appreciate his person and mind.
Kosi, you just have to do as Agatha says. Give yourself time to get to know him. At least nobody forced you into making the choice, you did out of greed like my daughter. The least you can do is to find ways of making each other happy.
Like Agatha, pointed out since he is capable of functioning as a man, is caring, what more do you want? For instance, my son-in-law is very caring, taking good care of us; at least, my daughter got her wish of a financially stable man even if she isnt enjoying the marriage as she hoped to.
It is a pity what you young girls play up these days or what you think marriage is all about. Kosi, invest all you have as a woman to make the best of the situation you have created for yourself.
Mrs. Apoyi.
He betrayed our vow
With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I am a muslim but when my husband and I were dating, I made him promise I would be his only wife.
Right from my early years, I have vowed never to marry a man who would marry more than a wife. I made this vow as a result of my parents’ experiences. Not for one day, did my mother who is my father’s first wife enjoy her marriage.
It was always one form of quarrel or the other in our house.
Mad jealousy drove mothers and children to the extreme, one that involved native doctors, alfas and spiritualists. After a while, the issue for my mother wasn’t my father marryng a new wife, which was his pastime, rather, it was how to protect her children who were dying mysteriously as well as getting sick.
The deaths of my two eldest brothers aged her over night.
With their deaths, the son of the second wife became the first male of the family; when a third wife came that one also died.
I graduated three years after my mates left school because someone in my father’s house didn’t want me to become a graduate.
One of my siblings is today in a mental home for the same reason.
He happens to be the brightest star among all my father’s children.
If I continue, it may take a life time for me to tell the world how horrible my growing up years were.
For these reasons, I made up my mind not to marry a man who nurses the desire to marry a second wife. Deliberately I went out of my way to befriend only Christian men and would have married one if my father and his brothers didn’t put up a stiff opposition. Being an Iman and his eldest daughter, there was no way, I would dishonour him by marrying outside my faith.
When my current husband came, I explained my entire life to him and my desire to be the only woman in my husband’s life.
He too, a product of a polygamous home, agreed to my terms. In his words, it was the least we could do for our children.
Now almost 10 years into our marriage, blessed with two childen, two boys, he has not only changed his mind about our agreement but has gone ahead to marry a second wife who is already pregnant for him.
His excuse? His father who is also a muslim sholar mandated it for him to marry more than a wife.
When I reminded him of our agreement, he said, he cannot ask the other woman to leave his house or terminate the pregnancy she was carrying.
He promised however not to bring her into the house. She currently lives in a rented apartment but I fear along the line she would get fed up of staying outside her husband’s home.
My parents too are of very little help. My mother said, I should accept it. that it is my destiny.
Agatha, this is one destiny I don’t want. I don’t want to share my husband and home with any other woman.
I don’t want my children going through all those nightmare of a home filled with many mothers and children.
I feel highly betrayed and want an out of this marriage but I don’t have any support from anybody, including my friends who all think I am asking for the impossible in life. They are all preaching peace and tolerance.
I am honestly so confused because of he is caring and loving. Despite taking another wife, he has continued to be fair to me and the children.
The house we currently live in is ours.
To demonstrate his love for the children and I, he not only changed the name on the title deeds to my own but also gave me permission to change the name to my maiden name to give me whatever assurance I need that he would never leave me and the children unprovided for.
Please help me out of this situation because I don’t want to share him with any woman.
Halima.
Dear Halima,
I know you feel bad but. leaving isn’t a solution. unless you are prepared to soldier life on your own as a single mother. If not at one point too, you will end up being the other woman in another man’s life.
No matter how strong willed you are, a time would come when you will find yourself in need of a male company. This is the reality of life, one you would have to think deeply and thoroughly before taking a decision on how you want to proceed.
Besides, whether you leave him or not, your children already have a stepmother who is about to give them a stepsibling. This means,
whatever it is you are trying to prevent has already happened by your husband getting married to this woman. If she is spiritually dangerous, it matters very little whether you live with your husband nor not. She would still make attempts to destroy you and the children if she so desires.
Therefore, your concern now shouldn’t be how to run away from the nightmare of your youth but, how to manage the challenges your current situation presents.
The first place to begin is to revisit your premarital promises to each other.
How realistic was that promise considering the fact that your religion permits polygamy.
Irrespective of whatever promises you made to each other, the fact remains that your religion doesn’t frown at a man marrying more than one wife. This means you have to accept the presence of the other woman in your lives. Besides, the typical
African man is a polygamist by nature. You cannot change the nature of the average man, no matter how hard you try to.
The only thing that changes a man is the fear of God.
Once he makes up his mind not to offend his God, life becomes easier for the woman in his life.
Being a Muslim by birth and practice, he isn’t acting against his religion or the orders of the God he serves. For this reason, you must act with a measure of wisdom here.
Don’t throw away all you have laboured for in the last 10 years. If not for your sake, do it for your children whose legacy and father you will be giving up for another to enjoy.
As long as there is no violence and the woman isn’t staying in the same house as you and your children, stay on. But, good wisdom demands you turn over your life completely to the God you serve. In addition, don’t involve yourself in the affairs of the other woman.
As long as your husband is taking care of you and the children, mind your business.
Don’t allow any third party intervention in the world you have created for you and your children.
When he is with you, treat him with all the respect he deserves as your man. And when he is with the other woman, allow him be.
At this point, you also need to ask yourself an important question.
How perfect have you been as a wife? Granted that religion maybe a factor in his decision to take another wife would be have done if he didn’t have a profound reason to? There is the need for you to X-ray your own behavior as a wife and friend.
It is important you do, to ensure you continue to remain revelant in his life, especially now that there is another woman to match you up with. He may not set out to deliberately compare you with his second wife but it is human nature to hence, your need to improve on your weak points which maybe the real reason he decided to take another wife.
He may not really be able to explain his reasons but the mind has a way of filling in the missing gap when it finds the right answer to issues that have long baffled it.
This maybe the real reason and unless you work on that aspect of your character and person, you risk losing him completely to the other woman.
It isn’t everytime in a polygamous setting that the rival depends on charm to win over the man. Good character, devotion and quality attention given the man can make all the difference to a man who has been thristy for such things in his life.
By being truthful to yourself, you will be saving yourself from a lot of needless headaches.
And to do a good job of this, you have to let go of your disappointments at his betrayal.
Just accept early that he wasn’t meant to be faithful to you.
It will help you recover early as well as help you focus on the things you have to do.
Your parents and friends asking you not ot leave him know that life is a very thorny path.
Nothing is ever as it seems. This is why you must be tolerant, patience and focused.
By being faithful to your God and applying His given wisdom, you can still come to enjoy this marriage as much as you set out to, in the beginning irrespective of the other woman’s presence in his life.
Always remember no woman fights a marital challenge on her own powers.
As long as you give yours over to your God, you will win at the end of it all.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I am a muslim but when my husband and I were dating, I made him promise I would be his only wife.
Right from my early years, I have vowed never to marry a man who would marry more than a wife. I made this vow as a result of my parents’ experiences. Not for one day, did my mother who is my father’s first wife enjoy her marriage.
It was always one form of quarrel or the other in our house.
Mad jealousy drove mothers and children to the extreme, one that involved native doctors, alfas and spiritualists. After a while, the issue for my mother wasn’t my father marryng a new wife, which was his pastime, rather, it was how to protect her children who were dying mysteriously as well as getting sick.
The deaths of my two eldest brothers aged her over night.
With their deaths, the son of the second wife became the first male of the family; when a third wife came that one also died.
I graduated three years after my mates left school because someone in my father’s house didn’t want me to become a graduate.
One of my siblings is today in a mental home for the same reason.
He happens to be the brightest star among all my father’s children.
If I continue, it may take a life time for me to tell the world how horrible my growing up years were.
For these reasons, I made up my mind not to marry a man who nurses the desire to marry a second wife. Deliberately I went out of my way to befriend only Christian men and would have married one if my father and his brothers didn’t put up a stiff opposition. Being an Iman and his eldest daughter, there was no way, I would dishonour him by marrying outside my faith.
When my current husband came, I explained my entire life to him and my desire to be the only woman in my husband’s life.
He too, a product of a polygamous home, agreed to my terms. In his words, it was the least we could do for our children.
Now almost 10 years into our marriage, blessed with two childen, two boys, he has not only changed his mind about our agreement but has gone ahead to marry a second wife who is already pregnant for him.
His excuse? His father who is also a muslim sholar mandated it for him to marry more than a wife.
When I reminded him of our agreement, he said, he cannot ask the other woman to leave his house or terminate the pregnancy she was carrying.
He promised however not to bring her into the house. She currently lives in a rented apartment but I fear along the line she would get fed up of staying outside her husband’s home.
My parents too are of very little help. My mother said, I should accept it. that it is my destiny.
Agatha, this is one destiny I don’t want. I don’t want to share my husband and home with any other woman.
I don’t want my children going through all those nightmare of a home filled with many mothers and children.
I feel highly betrayed and want an out of this marriage but I don’t have any support from anybody, including my friends who all think I am asking for the impossible in life. They are all preaching peace and tolerance.
I am honestly so confused because of he is caring and loving. Despite taking another wife, he has continued to be fair to me and the children.
The house we currently live in is ours.
To demonstrate his love for the children and I, he not only changed the name on the title deeds to my own but also gave me permission to change the name to my maiden name to give me whatever assurance I need that he would never leave me and the children unprovided for.
Please help me out of this situation because I don’t want to share him with any woman.
Halima.
Dear Halima,
I know you feel bad but. leaving isn’t a solution. unless you are prepared to soldier life on your own as a single mother. If not at one point too, you will end up being the other woman in another man’s life.
No matter how strong willed you are, a time would come when you will find yourself in need of a male company. This is the reality of life, one you would have to think deeply and thoroughly before taking a decision on how you want to proceed.
Besides, whether you leave him or not, your children already have a stepmother who is about to give them a stepsibling. This means,
whatever it is you are trying to prevent has already happened by your husband getting married to this woman. If she is spiritually dangerous, it matters very little whether you live with your husband nor not. She would still make attempts to destroy you and the children if she so desires.
Therefore, your concern now shouldn’t be how to run away from the nightmare of your youth but, how to manage the challenges your current situation presents.
The first place to begin is to revisit your premarital promises to each other.
How realistic was that promise considering the fact that your religion permits polygamy.
Irrespective of whatever promises you made to each other, the fact remains that your religion doesn’t frown at a man marrying more than one wife. This means you have to accept the presence of the other woman in your lives. Besides, the typical
African man is a polygamist by nature. You cannot change the nature of the average man, no matter how hard you try to.
The only thing that changes a man is the fear of God.
Once he makes up his mind not to offend his God, life becomes easier for the woman in his life.
Being a Muslim by birth and practice, he isn’t acting against his religion or the orders of the God he serves. For this reason, you must act with a measure of wisdom here.
Don’t throw away all you have laboured for in the last 10 years. If not for your sake, do it for your children whose legacy and father you will be giving up for another to enjoy.
As long as there is no violence and the woman isn’t staying in the same house as you and your children, stay on. But, good wisdom demands you turn over your life completely to the God you serve. In addition, don’t involve yourself in the affairs of the other woman.
As long as your husband is taking care of you and the children, mind your business.
Don’t allow any third party intervention in the world you have created for you and your children.
When he is with you, treat him with all the respect he deserves as your man. And when he is with the other woman, allow him be.
At this point, you also need to ask yourself an important question.
How perfect have you been as a wife? Granted that religion maybe a factor in his decision to take another wife would be have done if he didn’t have a profound reason to? There is the need for you to X-ray your own behavior as a wife and friend.
It is important you do, to ensure you continue to remain revelant in his life, especially now that there is another woman to match you up with. He may not set out to deliberately compare you with his second wife but it is human nature to hence, your need to improve on your weak points which maybe the real reason he decided to take another wife.
He may not really be able to explain his reasons but the mind has a way of filling in the missing gap when it finds the right answer to issues that have long baffled it.
This maybe the real reason and unless you work on that aspect of your character and person, you risk losing him completely to the other woman.
It isn’t everytime in a polygamous setting that the rival depends on charm to win over the man. Good character, devotion and quality attention given the man can make all the difference to a man who has been thristy for such things in his life.
By being truthful to yourself, you will be saving yourself from a lot of needless headaches.
And to do a good job of this, you have to let go of your disappointments at his betrayal.
Just accept early that he wasn’t meant to be faithful to you.
It will help you recover early as well as help you focus on the things you have to do.
Your parents and friends asking you not ot leave him know that life is a very thorny path.
Nothing is ever as it seems. This is why you must be tolerant, patience and focused.
By being faithful to your God and applying His given wisdom, you can still come to enjoy this marriage as much as you set out to, in the beginning irrespective of the other woman’s presence in his life.
Always remember no woman fights a marital challenge on her own powers.
As long as you give yours over to your God, you will win at the end of it all.
Good luck.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
I am lonely after my divorce
With Agatha Edo Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com,08054500626
Dear Agatha,
You are a shinning star and symbol of love and hope to many especially those of us that read your column. May God continue to bless and protect you and your family.
Agatha, I really need your help to solve this problem which has refused to go away. I left the shores of Nigeria 16 years ago for Switzerland, after writing my West Africa School Certificate examination.
I got married to a white woman few years after I came into this country to enable me secure my resident permit.
I was married to her for 13 years. The marriage produced two children. As the children where growing up, I decided taking them to visit my parents in Nigeria. But my wife opposed my taking them or accompanying me on the visit for that matter. She cited a documentary she watched on TV which claimed that children taken from Europe to African die from Mosquito bites.
Even though I assured her that the children were sufficiently vaccinated and that we would take any other vaccination necessary before traveling to Nigeria, she still refused. It was at that point she told me of an uncle of hers that died during a missionary trip to Nigeria.
I promised to protect her and the children against mosquitos but she refused. And before I knew what was happening, she had gone to file a divorce case against me. She claimed in the affidavit she filed that I intend relocating to Nigeria with the children permanently.
At that point, my interest in the marriage completely died. For the 13 years we were married, I was more of a slave to her. She was in total control of my accounts and salary. For a long time, my friends in Zurich tried to pressure me into filing a case against her domination of me but because I hated confrontations, I declined; thinking that over time things would work out between us. But I was completely wrong. Things got worse. The only thing she did for me was the encouragement she gave me during my University studies. But most of my friends thought she paid for me because of the huge money I was sending home.
We got divorced in December, 2006, despite everything, I still missed not having her around me. My father traveled from Nigeria to Zurich to plead with her but she was afraid that I might take the children to Nigeria. But for God I would have developed a mental problem at that time.
Following the support and advice of my parents, I have tried putting that ugly incident behind me. My parents have since mandated me to look for a good Nigerian woman to marry.
Agatha, you would recall I called you on phone last year November requesting you to pray for me. As an expert on relationships, is there any real woman?
I need a woman who will love me again. Loneliness is a sickness that comes with death if not checked. . I need a true love from any part of Nigeria.
Agatha, I don’t know how you are going to do it, but you have to do it. I need someone with good family moral background. She must not be temperamental. She must be caring and understanding. She must also combine beauty with brains and either a career or a business woman.
Agatha, please tell me, am I asking for too much by setting a standard which may not be easy to meet?
Life experiences have taught me to ask for an independent woman for a relationship. I want a self sufficient woman with good job, who can meet provide for 40 percent of her needs while I provide the remaining 60 percent as the head of the house.
Agatha, will God liberate me from the agony of staying alone without a woman? Can I find true love in Nigeria?
I intend coming back to Nigeria to settle after I must have established my relationship with my missing rib. Nothing destroys man more than a bad marriage.
Agatha, I believe that there are a lot of wife materials in Nigeria but where are they?
I need someone who is truly responsible in all ramifications. I want someone I can trust, who is caring, supportive and also independent enough to run the home when I am away. I don’t need a woman just for the pleasure of her body but for us to share in our dreams.
I want a woman who would be ready to share her inner most mind with me. I am a very peaceful and humble man. I don’t want the consequences of marring a lady who has little or no respect for my feelings.
Agatha, do something for me now. I need your help and advice.
I am 38 years of age from Anambra State and I am 1.78m tall.
Worried Man
Dear Worried Man,
To be very frank with you, in a way, you contributed to your predicament by the choices you made 13 years ago. From your own admission, you didn’t marry this woman out of love rather you married her to circumvent immigration problems. In her shoes, would you ever be able to trust such a person with something as precious as children?
Trust starts from the processes that lead to marriage. even if you didn’t tell her in plain English why you married her, her reactions to your taking the children to Nigeria and her treatment of you, show that she knows you married her out of a selfish reason, to protect your stay in her country.
She didn’t believe you because from the very beginning you never gave her any reason to trust or believe in the bond you both share. As far as this woman is concerned, those children are her only reason for putting up with being used by you to secure a permanent stay.
Bringing your father over to beg only helped to re-enforce her mistrust of the whole situation. To her, it shows desperation by you and your family to trick her into submitting the children to you especially as you seem to have the means of paying your parents’ way to Zurich. Your father’s coming actually nullified your claim that the reason you were contemplating taking the children to Nigeria was to get them introduced to your parents.
Your decision to come for a visit to Nigeria with the children wasn’t the real reason she left you. She did because there was never any trust between the two of you. It was simply a marriage of convenience and in such marriages, bitterness and disappointments are mandatory accomplishments. It also a matter that transcend the colour of her skin, creed and nationality rather it has to do with her entire being, her feelings and self-worth as a human.
If you marry another woman today under the same situation, chances are things would still end up the same way between the two of you. trust is very vital in any relationship.
That you are lonely isn’t enough. You must have a clear idea of what sort of woman would make you extremely happy. You went into the first one for selfish reasons, make sure your reasons for this new one is premised on respect, absolute trust and joint vision.
Your first marriage crashed because you both lacked common interest, dreams and visions. And in your 13 years as a couple, you both didn’t have the common focus to work on. Had both of you made the sacrifice after the wedding to factor into your marriage selflessness and sacrifices, when the issue of taking the children to Nigeria to know their paternal, both of you would have been able to manage it without it breaking up your marriage.
To avoid using your children as prawns or dividing their loyalty to either of you, strive to do the right thing by maintaining a friendly relationship with this woman. It is irrelevant whether or not both of you are still functioning as a couple, what is irrevocable is that you both share a life legacy through these children.
It is never too late to establish trust. Granted, it might not be possible for both of you to come back together, but a lot can be done to ensure you both keep being friends for the sake of those children. However, it won’t hurt if you explore the possibility of reconciliation with her. this is because there is no marriage without challenges. Having spent 13 years with her, to a reasonable extent you can predict her. marrying another woman would involve you starting all over again and it would take quite a while to be able to study the woman as you already do your ex.
Marriage is something you have to involve God. Ensure you first ask God for His permission and direction before going into another marriage. It is absolutely important you involve God in this one if you want to end being happy with your choice. Also insist on the woman who finally agrees to marry you meeting with the children first. There has to be an openness between all concerned if you want to have a happy home. Those children and their mother must be given every assurance that this woman and her children would not come between you and your first set of children. You must also be seen to be fair to all concerned.
No matter how lonely life gets, don’t make the mistake of accepting the first woman that comes. When a mistake recurs twice in one’s life, it becomes a familiar pattern. Take the extra time to study the woman by making out time to be with her. Also make up your mind to stick with her, no matter what you find out about her once you have signed the dotted lines. Enduring marriages come with more patches than smooth edges.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
You are a shinning star and symbol of love and hope to many especially those of us that read your column. May God continue to bless and protect you and your family.
Agatha, I really need your help to solve this problem which has refused to go away. I left the shores of Nigeria 16 years ago for Switzerland, after writing my West Africa School Certificate examination.
I got married to a white woman few years after I came into this country to enable me secure my resident permit.
I was married to her for 13 years. The marriage produced two children. As the children where growing up, I decided taking them to visit my parents in Nigeria. But my wife opposed my taking them or accompanying me on the visit for that matter. She cited a documentary she watched on TV which claimed that children taken from Europe to African die from Mosquito bites.
Even though I assured her that the children were sufficiently vaccinated and that we would take any other vaccination necessary before traveling to Nigeria, she still refused. It was at that point she told me of an uncle of hers that died during a missionary trip to Nigeria.
I promised to protect her and the children against mosquitos but she refused. And before I knew what was happening, she had gone to file a divorce case against me. She claimed in the affidavit she filed that I intend relocating to Nigeria with the children permanently.
At that point, my interest in the marriage completely died. For the 13 years we were married, I was more of a slave to her. She was in total control of my accounts and salary. For a long time, my friends in Zurich tried to pressure me into filing a case against her domination of me but because I hated confrontations, I declined; thinking that over time things would work out between us. But I was completely wrong. Things got worse. The only thing she did for me was the encouragement she gave me during my University studies. But most of my friends thought she paid for me because of the huge money I was sending home.
We got divorced in December, 2006, despite everything, I still missed not having her around me. My father traveled from Nigeria to Zurich to plead with her but she was afraid that I might take the children to Nigeria. But for God I would have developed a mental problem at that time.
Following the support and advice of my parents, I have tried putting that ugly incident behind me. My parents have since mandated me to look for a good Nigerian woman to marry.
Agatha, you would recall I called you on phone last year November requesting you to pray for me. As an expert on relationships, is there any real woman?
I need a woman who will love me again. Loneliness is a sickness that comes with death if not checked. . I need a true love from any part of Nigeria.
Agatha, I don’t know how you are going to do it, but you have to do it. I need someone with good family moral background. She must not be temperamental. She must be caring and understanding. She must also combine beauty with brains and either a career or a business woman.
Agatha, please tell me, am I asking for too much by setting a standard which may not be easy to meet?
Life experiences have taught me to ask for an independent woman for a relationship. I want a self sufficient woman with good job, who can meet provide for 40 percent of her needs while I provide the remaining 60 percent as the head of the house.
Agatha, will God liberate me from the agony of staying alone without a woman? Can I find true love in Nigeria?
I intend coming back to Nigeria to settle after I must have established my relationship with my missing rib. Nothing destroys man more than a bad marriage.
Agatha, I believe that there are a lot of wife materials in Nigeria but where are they?
I need someone who is truly responsible in all ramifications. I want someone I can trust, who is caring, supportive and also independent enough to run the home when I am away. I don’t need a woman just for the pleasure of her body but for us to share in our dreams.
I want a woman who would be ready to share her inner most mind with me. I am a very peaceful and humble man. I don’t want the consequences of marring a lady who has little or no respect for my feelings.
Agatha, do something for me now. I need your help and advice.
I am 38 years of age from Anambra State and I am 1.78m tall.
Worried Man
Dear Worried Man,
To be very frank with you, in a way, you contributed to your predicament by the choices you made 13 years ago. From your own admission, you didn’t marry this woman out of love rather you married her to circumvent immigration problems. In her shoes, would you ever be able to trust such a person with something as precious as children?
Trust starts from the processes that lead to marriage. even if you didn’t tell her in plain English why you married her, her reactions to your taking the children to Nigeria and her treatment of you, show that she knows you married her out of a selfish reason, to protect your stay in her country.
She didn’t believe you because from the very beginning you never gave her any reason to trust or believe in the bond you both share. As far as this woman is concerned, those children are her only reason for putting up with being used by you to secure a permanent stay.
Bringing your father over to beg only helped to re-enforce her mistrust of the whole situation. To her, it shows desperation by you and your family to trick her into submitting the children to you especially as you seem to have the means of paying your parents’ way to Zurich. Your father’s coming actually nullified your claim that the reason you were contemplating taking the children to Nigeria was to get them introduced to your parents.
Your decision to come for a visit to Nigeria with the children wasn’t the real reason she left you. She did because there was never any trust between the two of you. It was simply a marriage of convenience and in such marriages, bitterness and disappointments are mandatory accomplishments. It also a matter that transcend the colour of her skin, creed and nationality rather it has to do with her entire being, her feelings and self-worth as a human.
If you marry another woman today under the same situation, chances are things would still end up the same way between the two of you. trust is very vital in any relationship.
That you are lonely isn’t enough. You must have a clear idea of what sort of woman would make you extremely happy. You went into the first one for selfish reasons, make sure your reasons for this new one is premised on respect, absolute trust and joint vision.
Your first marriage crashed because you both lacked common interest, dreams and visions. And in your 13 years as a couple, you both didn’t have the common focus to work on. Had both of you made the sacrifice after the wedding to factor into your marriage selflessness and sacrifices, when the issue of taking the children to Nigeria to know their paternal, both of you would have been able to manage it without it breaking up your marriage.
To avoid using your children as prawns or dividing their loyalty to either of you, strive to do the right thing by maintaining a friendly relationship with this woman. It is irrelevant whether or not both of you are still functioning as a couple, what is irrevocable is that you both share a life legacy through these children.
It is never too late to establish trust. Granted, it might not be possible for both of you to come back together, but a lot can be done to ensure you both keep being friends for the sake of those children. However, it won’t hurt if you explore the possibility of reconciliation with her. this is because there is no marriage without challenges. Having spent 13 years with her, to a reasonable extent you can predict her. marrying another woman would involve you starting all over again and it would take quite a while to be able to study the woman as you already do your ex.
Marriage is something you have to involve God. Ensure you first ask God for His permission and direction before going into another marriage. It is absolutely important you involve God in this one if you want to end being happy with your choice. Also insist on the woman who finally agrees to marry you meeting with the children first. There has to be an openness between all concerned if you want to have a happy home. Those children and their mother must be given every assurance that this woman and her children would not come between you and your first set of children. You must also be seen to be fair to all concerned.
No matter how lonely life gets, don’t make the mistake of accepting the first woman that comes. When a mistake recurs twice in one’s life, it becomes a familiar pattern. Take the extra time to study the woman by making out time to be with her. Also make up your mind to stick with her, no matter what you find out about her once you have signed the dotted lines. Enduring marriages come with more patches than smooth edges.
Good luck.
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