He forced me to do abortion, yet

Dear Agatha, 

Many thanks for your sincere and unbiased advice to the public.

Please I   need your help from this mess I put myself. I am in love with a guy of 30 years and this is our fifth year of the relationship.  I love this guy so much and he loves me too.  But my fear is that he is always getting angry so easily that he can one day kill someone. Besides, I don’t like his reactions to me at the slightest mistake. One day, he told me that I am a disturbance to his life. He is fond of keeping malice but no matter what he does, I still love him. Whenever we quarrel, I will always be the one to beg him, sending messages and calling for forgiveness even if he is the one that is wrong.

But something happened last month! I missed my period and told him about it, he told me to go for a pregnancy test, I did, the result was positive. Immediately I came with the results he started asking me why I should make such a mistake knowing that his elder brother is yet to get married and that he is the second child in the family. 

He thereafter gave me two days to think and know what to do about the pregnancy. On the second day, he came to me and started to quarrel with me again that he isn’t prepared for marriage especially as his elder brother is still single. He says there is no way he would marry before his brother.  

As he left, he told me to do what I wanted with the pregnancy. Thereafter, he started avoiding me, not answering my calls I felt sick at once. From that point, I started losing concentration so much that my work suffered.  

Part of my problem became how to tell my mother and siblings about my condition. Being the first-child of   our parents and with my father late, I decided to abort the baby. But to my surprise, he came back a week after asking about the pregnancy. I told him I had it aborted.  

He started cursing me that he regretted the day he met me, that why should I abort his baby; that my actions indicate that the baby wasn’t his in the first place. He ended by telling me it was over between us. After he finished that, I reminded him of his earlier statement that I should do what I wanted with the baby since he wasn’t ready to be a father yet or get married. Since then I have been crying and begging God for forgiveness but after all these things I still love this guy and I want him back. I love him so much that I cannot do without him, but he have refused my calls and also refused to talk to me.  I am in a big messed, please what should I do, because I have killed a human being.

Agatha, should I still beg him for forgiveness or should I quit the relationship after building all my love and my life around him? I don’t want to lose him no matter what.  What about my future?

Worried Lady.

Dear Worried Lady, 

Take a break from it all, because from the tone of this letter you are heading for a psychological breakdown. You need time alone to first reconcile yourself with everything that happened, make your peace with God before thinking of what to do with your relationship. To attempt to find answers to everything at once would spell disaster for you emotionally. 

The first thing here is the issue of the abortion. No matter what he said or didn’t do, you shouldn’t have terminated the life of that baby. Much as I understand your feelings and the little choice his attitude presented you with, like you that child had a right to live. Honestly I know exactly the thoughts that must have flooded through your minds when he rejected you and the unborn child.

 Many ladies in your shoes would do exactly what you did to avoid explaining the paternity of your child to your family members who since the death of your father had in some ways put their hopes on you, seeing in you an opportunity to fulfill one dream or the other. 

If it would help you focus, a lot of us too have at one time or the other exercised that right over our bodies, but God is a forgiving one who sees and knows more than we would ever know.

Begging for forgiveness is the best step you can take on this matter. He is the only one that can cleanse your guilt and make right what has gone wrong. Not only that, He did know from the beginning that you weren’t going to keep the baby, but like so many women you failed that test of true love and appreciation of this special gift from God. 

It isn’t so much for the abortion, but for the rejection of His gift, efforts and love. Seek Him through prayers; once He sees the regrets in your heart, He would forgive you. In future, if you must sleep with a man, don’t put yourself in the situation of getting pregnant again. Use preventive methods to put pregnancy at bay until you are ready.

Abortion could be an immediate solution to what many women think is a problem of an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy, the fact remains that it carries with it a huge danger for the unmarried woman. In some cases, it could actually bring on the problem of infertility or a more fatal end, death! For everywoman that goes in for abortion, it is like committing suicide because the procedure could also take her life.

Pray to God that He heals you of any negative effect of that decision you took on your own. 

Frankly, you should have given him more time to think before taking the decision to end the pregnancy. Yes, he acted like a coward, denying you when you needed him the most, but try putting yourself in his shoes to appreciate the chaos of thoughts that went through his mind when you informed him about the pregnancy.

In the first place, there was no decision between the two of you to get pregnant, therefore coming to him to inform him about it gave him shivers. First, the thought of how to provide for you and the child instantly ballooned into a huge fear for him. Considering that it wasn’t planned, he didn’t think before acting out his fears. At the time he was mouthing those painful words, he had not sat down to consider the implications of what those words or the effects they would have on you. 

He said all those things in his confused state of mind without thinking at all. From his behaviour, by the time he sat down to think, marshal his plans, he was more than ready to live up to his responsibilities as a father. 

Sincerely both of you are guilty of the same crime, that of not thinking out your actions before acting. Had he taken the news like a man, thought of his option carefully, you wouldn’t have been forced to abort the baby and had you also given him sometime to thaw, informed him of your decision to end the pregnancy, you still would have been pregnant with the baby.

There is no relationship without a history of hurts, pains, choices and forgiveness. All these are what give character to relationship and life generally. 

If you still love him and think you can really forgive and forget the incident that brought both of you to this point, seek him out for discussions. However, in agreeing to continue the relationship with him, there is the need for you to go beyond the pregnancy thing. 

Ensure you bring up all outstanding issues you have either discussed or have been agitating your mind. He should be made to understand that everyone needs a measure of respect and that for you to continue to function happily in the relationship, he has to learn to admit his faults as well as treat you with some esteem. The danger of keeping quiet for fear of losing him is that he would never have the kind of regard you need as a woman to occupy his life. 

You will only be short changing yourself of the benefits of marriage by allowing him to escape with those habits of his you don’t like.

However, be careful that you don’t force yourself to continue in a relationship that would, at the end of the day, hurt you. Once it becomes obvious that there is nothing to salvage, let go and allow the will of God for you to prevail.

Also listen to what he has to say about you. This way you place your relationship on a new level of success. 

As for your future, learn to plan for it by staying close to God who has the master plan of your life. 

Good luck. 

She can’t pass for my wife…

Dear Agatha,

I urgently need your suggestion over this case I am battling with. I have had this female friend since I was in the higher institution. She and I make a very good team in terms of contribution, initiative and knowledge on issues.  We also work together, a situation that is really making the connection between us strong. 

For me it is purely platonic and thought it was for her until recently when I noticed she is having divided attention, a development I am not comfortable with. She is beginning to see me as her boyfriend, a situation I am not comfortable with because she doesn’t measure up to the height of the woman of my dreams. To compound my situation, my friends are also beginning to think along that line. 

How do you think I should handle this situation?

Worried Friend.

Dear Worried Friend, 

By putting the records very straight before things degenerate between both of you, to delay is to risk destruction of your friendship. Already, she has started to build dreams around you, planning a future you obviously do not want to be part of as well as the number of children you would both have.

This is very dangerous and unhealthy for the working relationship between the two of you. Therefore call her as the friend that both of you have become to explain your discomfort to her. She has to understand that beyond what you both share officially there is not going to be any romance between the two of you. 

Let her know that if she refuses, it could ruin your chances of having the perfect working relationship. 

Thereafter, do a gradual withdrawal from her. Chances are she thinks you are available because she hasn’t seen you with another woman and naturally assumes this is because of her.

From time to time, even if you are not in a relationship, allow one or two of your female friends to come to visit you at the office. Their presence will help communicate more than words that you are not her exclusive property.

It will also help serve her the notice that she too should begin to look elsewhere for happiness. 

You could also play matchmaking with a male friend of yours. Invite this colleague of yours in company of this male friend as well as another female on a social outing. Doing all these would help preserve the good relationship you both have while at the same time communicating your unavailability to her. 

Ensure also that you spell everything out to your friends to ensure you don’t get pushed into something you don’t want to. The moment she gets a sympathetic nod from your friends, it might be difficult for you to detangle yourself from the web of love and conspiracy by this woman and your friends.  

For your own sake and happiness too, do reduce the time you spend with her. Make time out to be on your own with your friends if you are very sure she isn’t the right kind of woman for you. Your being with her always could also affect your own chances too of getting a woman to sustain interest in you. 

And one of the reasons you must take a step urgently has to do with the nature of a woman in love. If this lady is really nursing feelings for you as you think she is it could spell doom for you later. If she is the kind of woman whose actions is governed by jealousy, she might not allow you the freedom to love another woman as she would go to any lady you approach for a relationship to stay off you.

The fact that the two of you are always together is enough evidence to make the other woman believe whatever she says concerning the nature of her relationship with you. If the friends who could have vouched for you are assuming that you are indeed dating this girl, it would be pretty difficult getting a total stranger to trust in you. 

So make haste to clean up your act before it gets the best of you.

Good luck. 

 

he’s lazy, wasteful, and rude…

Dear Agatha,

Please I need your candid advice. I am dying silently in my own house.

My wife is making my life unbearable. I have been married for about two

years now and to the Glory of God we are blessed with a baby. I have a

wife that has no iota of respect for me. I admit I am no saint. I may have my faults but as a man I should know how to run my house. My wife is not working (housewife) and so it is important that her comfort should be my priority. Every month I give her N25,000 for the running of the home. In addition N10,000 for her monthly up keep. This money is mainly for backup, as I make sure we are never short of foodstuff in the house. Even the fridge/freezer is stocked with meat and fish and other essential items. So basically she has nothing to buy as regards feeding. But within a week the money is spent! Whenever I demand for explanation as to how she spent the money, she calls me a selfish man.

I severally told her we have other things to spend money on instead of material things, but I seem to be wasting my time. If I give her

money for electricity bill, it will be diverted to other things I don’t know of.

We have clothes to wash and she prefers using dry cleaners, even with

the house-help ready to wash the clothes. I have come to realise she is lazy and it pains me very much that she is not ready to make sacrifices

for our marriage. I have even gotten to the level of calling the marriage quit. She has no respect for me whatsoever and I feel so bad

about it. Please how do you go around a wife that is ready to challenge the husband at the drop of a hat? I love her but my love is being threatened

now. What do I do? I want to save my marriage but I doubt if I am strong

enough to do this.

Odia 

Dear Odia, 

I empathise with you but this is not to say you don’t have faults too of your own. Your first fault started long before both of you got married. How much bother did you put into finding out about the character and nature of the woman you intend to spend the rest of your life with?

Laziness and disrespect don’t begin overnight. These are character traits that are always entrenched from the beginning of one’s life. If a person has no rudeness or laziness in his or her gene, there is no way that can be developed overnight.

Yes, she may have masked her other attitudes, but if you were truthful you would have noticed way back then that she has the traits of laziness and rudeness in her. These are things people cannot hide easily. Also, you must have noticed too that she was also not frugal with money. A woman who isn’t prudent will also never be able to hide this aspect of her. In more than one ways, you must have noticed during your courtship days that she spent needlessly and carelessly. Even if you didn’t have as much as you have now, a woman who cannot manage a kobo will never be able to manage millions of Naira.

The truth is that you glossed over these things because you wanted her in your life and thought you could cope with these aspects of her.

Back then, no amount of warnings or cautions would have made you changed your mind because you were too much in love to bother about any flaw in her person. Love simplified and made smooth all these squeezes and folds in her character for you back then. When one is in love, it drives away all shadows of doubts and regrets as well as make perfect what is imperfect. This is why you didn’t see these things about her as faults back then.

Frankly if you want to enjoy this marriage, you simply have to develop the will power to overlook certain things about her. If you don’t, you will never be able to find the peace and happiness you need to manage your home.

I honestly can imagine your frustration at her inability to manage your home. 

But considering divorce isn’t a solution because whether you like it or not you will eventually get tired of staying alone and decide to start something new with another person. What would you do if your next wife also comes with faults you cannot manage?

She is your cross therefore you must look for ways of making it work. Behind every successful marriage there is a fool. One of the pairs has to be stupidly patient to make it work.

In this case, you must strive to ignore whatever the shortfalls of your wife are with the same determination you elected to gloss over them while you were still dating.

Don’t allow the familiarity of your being together to rob you of that unconditional love you had for her at the time of meeting her. Take it from me; it is the only way to make an impossible relationship work. You must love her for what and who she is to cope with her annoying habits. Keep afresh the reasons you married her out of the many women you came across while still single. It is important else you will forget in your anger and frustration your reasons for marrying her.

Because you have started with the tradition of giving her allowances, to stop would be to create serious problems in your marriage. Don’t stop but ensure that you give orders for the house-help to wash your clothes and clean the house. You could also take time out to pay your electricity bills to avoid continuous disagreement between the two of you. This way, you also avoid the embarrassment of being cut off by officials of Power Holdings over unpaid bills.

As for showing you respect, teach her through your own examples to learn how to show respect. When she performs a function for you, learn to say thank you and please while asking her to do something for you. Gradually she would begin to learn from your own examples. Overtime it would come easily to her. She just might belong to that group of persons who resist force, but find it easy to follow the examples given. Don’t forget that most of our habits come from the examples we are exposed to in our growing up years. There is no way she would know the right thing to do as a wife or mother if the example she was exposed to as a child is what she is exhibiting now. If, as a child, she grew up with a mother or female guardian who loathed hard work, didn’t show respect for the head of the house, it is only natural for her too to be like that woman. We are all products of our foundations. Only exposure to other forms of behaviour and teaching can help her realise the wrong in her ways and this you cannot achieve by nagging, because to her there is nothing wrong in doing things in the way she knows. Sincerely, if you insist too much, she would see you are simply being unreasonable and difficult to live with.

Although it may not appear right at the beginning for you as the husband to show such civility to your wife when she should be the one showing such good manners, but doing that is helping your marriage grow. A successful marriage is the one that is very elastic and flexible; one that can be stretched and would still bounce back effortlessly. 

By asking her not to work, you are also helping to entrench the lazy tradition she grew up with, even if you don’t want her to work in a formal setting, you can open a shop for her. Let her earn some money of her own to appreciate the hard work behind the money you give her as allowances. The human nature finds it difficult to appreciate the sweat of other people but feel the pains of tireless hours, dented hopes when the money comes from their own sweat. 

If your desire is to ensure she is free to care for your home and children, look for a shop near the house. The important thing is to ensure she is engaged in something positive and productive. Overtime, she would learn to appreciate the value of money. Don’t ever give up on love. Shadows are part of our lives but they haven’t stopped us from achieving our goals, which means that once you have the right kind of determination to make this marriage work, you will come overtime to enjoy it because patience is golden.

Above all, hand over everything in your marriage to God who knows why He brought the two of you together. 

Good luck. 

She still dates her ex…

Dear Agatha, 

Would appreciate your help, I caught my girlfriend cheating with her ex. Before we started dating, I knew she was dating this guy. This is because we attend the same school, same course and same class. She told me he treats her badly and doesn’t appreciate her. I treat her like an angel. She was first in all. Then I caught her cheating on me with this same man.  I told her it was over but she is begging me.
Hurt lover

Dear Hurt lover, 

Did she break up with the other man before you both started dating? No matter how you look at it, you are the third party in this relationship. Rather than encourage her to date you, the ideal thing should have been for you to persuade her to try and make the relationship work. Especially as the person in question is known to you, your classmate!

How were you expecting to conduct a relationship with the girlfriend of your classmate? If you had put yourself in the other guy’s shoes, no matter the temptation of dating this girl, you would have walked away.

You should have asked very pertinent questions when she told you he wasn’t treating her well. You should have asked if he was beating her or cheating on her. 

And before dating her, did you bother to find out the kind of lady she is? From what has happened, it should be obvious to you by now that she isn’t the kind of lady you can trust with your heart. If her excuse is lack of appreciation from her other boyfriend, are you also treating her badly? What is her excuse now for going back to him?

Your warning bell should have sounded when she agreed to date you in the first place knowing that you and her former boyfriend are classmates. Whatever angle you look at it from, a woman conscious of her image wouldn’t take such a risk knowing that the two guys could become good friends.

Now that you have caught her with her former boyfriend, please let go. In the first instance, she was never really yours at all. Ideally, it is always advisable that people should end a relationship, give themselves time to heal before going into another to avoid regrets and hurting of the new person in their lives.

Had she ended the relationship first, given herself time to heal, she would have known if she had sufficiently healed enough to begin something with you. 

At any rate, the harm has been done. She has betrayed a trust so if you are wise and want some emotional stability, move on but give yourself sometime to heal from this act of betrayal so you don’t unwittingly hurt an innocent person who may really love you.

In future learn to be a friend first. This way you get to observe at close quarters the real person of your desire. For a successful relationship to grow, both parties must have the patience, tolerance and willingness to accommodate each other’s limitations. Only with a friend can you have the kind of tolerance that makes two opposite people want to stay together irrespective of the challenges that come from doing so. Good luck. 

 

Tired waiting for good girl…

Dear Agatha, 

I really commend you for all your work. God will keep helping you to solve your own problems too. Please my case is just that I’m not lucky in getting a girl I want and is becoming a problem. Initially, I didn’t see it as a big deal running after girls but strangely I seem to lack the confidence these days. I will be 26 years of age on February 14 and haven’t seen the girl that interests me. 

I need you to help me with any mature lady from late 30s to 40s. Since I can’t get the younger ones, maybe I should try the older ones. Please I will appreciate every effort made for me. 

Confused Boy.

Dear Confused Boy, 

Going after older women isn’t the solution to your problem at all. You will only be complicating your life getting involved with older women. Once you get into the habit, it would be difficult to stop. Unless your motive for wanting older women is different from the reason you stated, it would take more from you to approach an older woman for friendship. Most women within the age group you stipulated would be married with families of their own. What then would be your motive for dating another man’s wife?

At 26, you are young, strong and full of dreams. Don’t begin your life harvesting in other people’s cultivated farms. You may gain momentarily from dating these women in terms of material gains, but ask those who did it before you what remained of the things they got this way. Nothing because money not worked for soon expires. Work as a man to earn your money, have freedom and God’s blessings to spend it on viable things. 

Cheating may be the in-thing but at the end of the day, only those who truly wait on God for His blessings have the peace of mind and body to spend it.

No matter the difficulties that girls your age are giving you they remain your best bet. They may not have the money but they are the ones who hold your future and happiness.

Good luck.

Let’s talk about sex

Dear Readers,

Wednesday, 24^th of this month is my birthday. In line with the promise I made two years ago, we are going into clinic today. We shall be discussing the irritating issue of sex in marriage. Over these last months I have received several letters on the place of sex in marriage as well as the havoc lack of sincerity on the part of couples who refuse to acknowledge the proper placement of sex is bringing to their marriages. 

Couples, especially men are under the impression that it is wrong for a woman to demand for sex from their spouses and actually go ahead to enjoy it. Men are usually of the opinion that any woman who displays vast knowledge on the issue of lovemaking lived a wayward life before meeting him.

Women who ordinarily would have wanted something different from their marriages are cowed into pretending to be happy with the quality of sex they get from their husbands while secretly wishing for something more.

The result is that many married women out of sexual frustration are being forced by the limitations placed on them by both their husbands and society to be having secret affairs outside their home to achieve their dreams and fantasy of a fulfilled sexual life.

This is because they don’t want their men branding them as being morally bankrupt. While some die in silent frustration, become increasingly disillusioned and actually act out their frustration on the man and everyone near them, a sizeable number of women are increasing seeking solace outside their homes. The best of their act which ideally should be given to their husbands are given to the men outside. Since the woman has no desire to protect any image with her lover, she drops every pretence and goes ahead to show the man she is with how vast she is in the game.

Unfortunate but it explains why so many marriages are having issues, challenges which should have been avoided in the first place. 

For couples to enjoy the benefit of a full marriage, the issue of sex must be discussed with as much openness as possible. Sex is integral to the success of a marriage hence couples should not pretend it doesn’t matter. It is more important an issue than the number of children a couple plans to have, more crucial than the issue of where to stay and the vision of the union. Frankly, without good sex, the couple might as well be planning on and planting on infertile land. 

Granted that from the ancient past, there are two rules guiding sex, the one that has to do with unmarried people and what should obtain after marriage, the fact remains that when one gets married, every anti sex lecture should be buried if the marriage is to work.

There is no law which prevents a woman from making the first move or telling her husband how she wants to be pleased in the bedroom. Every act of sex should be a special adventure between couples, an opportunity for both of them to take a memory trip down to fantasy Island. This is because, marriage is a lifetime trip and for it to retain its excitement, sex must be used as a weapon of stability and recreation at all times. It is the only thing that brings so much chemical reaction between a couple and patents the marriage as an exclusive preserve. It gives the man the right over the woman and the woman right over the man.

From the letters I get, I sense confusion in the minds of most women over the issue of sex. To be fair to them, this perplexity is valid especially for those whose upbringing paint a very dirty and horrifying picture of sex. For instance, there is this case I treated some few years ago. It had to do with a woman whose upbringing detailed sex as a tool only for procreation. Her husband couldn’t understand why she was being very uncooperative and lacking in understanding of his feelings. The wife maintained her stance stressing sex is dirty and not something decent people should engage in frequently. To her, it was only to be done when a couple desires to have babies. Inspite of her husband’s complains to her family and friends, nothing changed.  

At the end of the day, her husband impregnated another woman who today has taken over her home. By the time she came to me for help, it was too late to manage the issue for her. Even till now, she still finds it difficult to see sex as a something natural between couples. 

There is no doubting the fact that sex plays an integral role in the success or otherwise of any marriage. It is the cement that binds marriage, gives it character and oils the wheels of entertainment of the marriage.

Someone once described sex as the recreational aspect of marriage. It is what adds fun and value to marriage. However, for it to add value, a couple must be willing to trust each other, encourage freedom within the marriage because that is what would translate into premium sex between them. 

Sex establishes friendship and friendship energizes quality sex between a couple. 

No marriage is too old to benefit from the thrills of marriage. It is one of the aspects of marriage that lasts forever. 

For a new couple, one of the rules to a successful marriage is to adopt a sincere approach to sex. Whatever ideas couples come with from their homes and their lives as individuals into marriage, it is pertinent, for couples to do away with such ideas with a view of finding their own rhythm as well as understanding of each other’s thirst as well as sexual desires. 

Couples should adopt a very opened approach to the issue of sex as well as work out a method of communication when things are not working out well. Often than not, in the hassles of trying to earn a living, keeping home and paying bills, sex suffers. Either the man is too tired to do anything but eat or the woman too is exhausted from combining home work with official duties. Most times, sex becomes more of a function than an act of expressing love and celebration of the institution of marriage.

But when a couple has been able to break down every barrier between them, even on those days they cannot really get the act going, they are still able to bond and achieve fullness of the union through sexual communication act. 

It is really a simple matter of knowing what to say, the right looks, cuddle, smile and those special things that tell your partner though I am too tired to go through the act, but you are uppermost in my mind. It is called the love innuendoes.

These are those things that transform sex to lovemaking. This is why one couple can stay without having sex for a week and still feel very close and satisfied while another would be up in tension. 

Granted premarital sex, is one thing every young woman especially should avoid but the fact remains that sex is one of the best gifts God gave to married couples. Between married couples, only the best is good enough to sustain the union. To achieve this, like every other endeavor in life, couples should at all times strive to upgrade their knowledge, technique and applications of all that is involved to get the best of the gift. 

This is imperative if the marriage institution is to survive the threat of the other woman and man. To allow sex remain dormant is to court trouble. Every couple must in the interest of their marriage at all times pull it along to whatever level they are. It must grow, mature and enduring as the couples themselves. It must be spiced with different spices at all times to keep it attractive for the couple.

It isn’t just the act but everything that brings on the act. Therefore a lot imagination and help is requires especially by the woman to ensure her man doesn’t stray. 

Sex must be worn different garments and perfumes; given different platforms apart from the bedroom to keep it active. Any woman desirous of keeping her man should think of what would make the difference between what he gets at home and what he gets outside. Like food, everywoman must be able to brew her own special brew in the bedroom. 

If need be, everywoman should woo her husband with gifts to her bed. Her bed should be her love-nest, the kind no other woman can match let alone come in to steal away her man. In marriage, sex should be celebrated and not hidden in cupboards because whether we like it or not, we are products of other people’s sex life. 

Good luck. 

 

’m not sure I can trust her again…

I am an avid reader of your column, a 35-year-old married man and a professional based in Lagos. I have just heard the most shocking news of my life. During a recent argument, my wife had requested that I vouched on the fidelity of my mistress and I was ready to swear that she was absolutely faithful. However, before agreeing to swear to the oath, I called up my mistress and demanded she confirmed I was the only one she had been with in the four years we had been together. She confirmed I was the only one she has had sex with, but warned that I must not take any oath on her behalf.
You can imagine the shock and surprise I felt when weeks later, she admitted she has had sex with two other men, save that she had been raped by the men in 2007. I recall that she had told me in 2007 that her landlord got some thugs to invade her residence. I
had demanded from her then if the men assaulted her and she had flatly
denied. Of course, hearing the news of the rape broke me and I
sympathised with her but I also wondered what else she must have been hiding from me all these years.
I trusted her so much that I was ready to divorce my wife to marry
her. I had even instructed my lawyer to hand over the sole landed
property I had to her should I die untimely. Now I seem to be in a
fix. I still love but I’m not sure I can trust her again. I’m tempted to give my wife a second-chance, but can’t leave my mistress especially at such a delicate time as this. What do I do?
Cy

Dear Cy,

Precisely how delicate is this time? And for whom is this time fragile for, you or her? If she was raped three years ago, why didn’t she tell you then? Why did she lie about it when you demanded to know if she was assaulted? What steps did she take to sue the landlord since her assailants were faceless and came into her home on the orders of a known person?

Why did she wait until now to tell you what she couldn’t tell you when the issue was fresh and the doctors could still detect evidences of violent entrance into her body? Was she ever going to tell you the truth about that incident if you didn’t ask her? 

If true she was raped that day, you being her man should have been the first to know. She should have given you the opportunity of protecting her from the landlord. That she kept quiet is evident of something else, perhaps a story she doesn’t want to tell you. Who was she protecting back then that made her deny any assault on her person? These are questions begging for answers.

You definitely have your reasons for wanting to do away with your wife but in doing so, be careful you don’t walk away from frying pan into another. The grass always appears greener on the other side of the fence. Mostly we don’t appreciate what we have until we lose it.

Ask yourself this question in the silence of the night, when no one or thoughts disturb you, take out your wife from the cupboard of time where you have banished thoughts of her. Go back the very first moments you both met and how it was between the two of you. 

Can you still remember the reason you married her? Deep down, do you think she still has that thing irrespective of the current situation between the two of you?

This is no time to get angry or play up issues that are not important. Doubtless she must have hurt you in more than one ways to come to the conclusion that you want her out of your life, but do you think she alone committed the offence you accuse her of? Are you as just as you want everyone to think? Do you think it is right for you to flaunt this other woman in her face while she still stays in your home as your wife? If this other woman turns out to be more of a disappointment than your current wife, what would you do? Divorce her and marry another?

There is no one who comes perfect from God. We all have one defect or the other. Often than not, the mistakes we notice in others come from our own impatience as well as inability to open the personal manuals of our friends and loved ones. We want our loved ones to perform from our own manuals forgetting each an everyone one of us come with our own private code which gives us a uniqueness from others around us. What you today perceive as her own faults may be as a result of your inability to understand and appreciate who exactly she is. 

There is nothing as frustrating as living with someone who doesn’t understand what someone is all about. 

If you have decided to give her another chance, it is true that the issue between you isn’t beyond redemption. But, because there is another woman out there, the willingness as well as determination to discuss your differences with a view of coming to an agreement is missing from your end.

Use this opportunity provided by what you described as this delicate period between you and your mistress to talk with your wife. Whatever it is that has gone wrong between the two of you, this is the time for both of you to come out in the open. 

Give her the chance too also to talk about her disappointments as well as reasons for her behaviour. There is no way two complete strangers can come together under one roof without disagreements, disappointments and moments of regrets. The human nature is such that issues will always come up between two people. If people from same parentage can have very fundamental issues between them; how much more both of you who come from different homes, ideologies, cultures, upbringings and values?

No matter how much one tries to avoid challenges in marriage, they will still come because it is human to disagree and agree. The best marriages are those that survived the penetrating heat of the goldsmith’s fire. Only the best gold comes out of the furnace in premium quality. The same principle applies to marriage. It must go through life’s oven, survive the heat to get to its true character. 

Every marriage requires devotion, annoying sacrifices, humiliating choices, tolerances, stupid patience, believe in the union, trust in God as well as honesty to make it work. It can’t work when any of these is missing, won’t bring out the best if one party is unwilling to take the blame of the other.

Marriage is scared and calls for constant devotion to make it work. To lay the blame of it on the doorsteps of one party only is to write whatever reasons both of you came together off. 

With a mistress somewhere in your life, you will never be able to think straight and give your marriage the drive to take it out of the woods. 

A mistress has all the time in the world to put her best foot forward because she has a goal to achieve but there is no hiding place for the wife constantly under scrutiny from her husband.

Frankly the issue here is not who is right or wrong but that of helping your marriage to move away from the point it is now. 

Without making the efforts, it will not move from the point it is now. 

Give you and your wife the opportunity to be happy together.

Re: Before her inability to hallow my privacy wrecks our marriage...

Read your mail and I quite appreciate your worries because I know exactly what you are going through, it is really not easy living with a disorganised human being. I say this because am in the same situation, in fact mine is even worse than yours. If I could, I will keep my own room while my husband keeps his. But I know it would affect the three months marriage such that the intimacy that has to be built into our marriage won’t be and the regular romance that comes with marriage won’t be there. So I have to bear and put up because I have no choice.
Since it is like this with you, keeping separate rooms will affect your marriage and give your wife room to start suspecting you even though there may be nothing. So just like Auntie Agatha said, call her and explain to her and having told her before the marriage about your choice, she should understand your need for neatness and organisation in your home. Your wife needs to be in your arms; you both have rights to each other’s space and you can’t say that you prefer to hold your pillow at night when you have a wife of your own. So be patient with her and teach her. I know that she loves you and her marriage; she will adjust gradually.
Marriage isn’t easy.
Cent.

Hard picking my dream man among them…

Dear Agatha, 

I have two boyfriends but I don’t love any of them. Now a married man that I don’t know what is wrong with his marriage is asking me out. What do I do?

Tina

Dear Tina, 

Ordinarily, I should ignore this letter because it signposts you as an unserious minded young lady. But on the second thoughts, I realised you really need some help.

Going out with two boys at the same time won’t help you focus on your life, and will deny you a direction of what you should do at every moment of it. Any woman, young and old, serious minded lady concerned about her image and who wants to make something positive out of life engages in multiple relationship. Once news gets around that you are the kind of girl that is into multiple relationships, only men who are out for fun would come your way. And those looking for wife materials would stay away because when it comes to the issue of marriage, the same men who came to you for fun would prefer a woman with untainted reputation.

Rather than risk having negative reputation, be bold enough to tell a man you feel nothing for that you are not interested. Have you thought of the possibility of these two men meeting at your place or even knowing each other? At the end of the day, would the negative publicity of your affairs with two men be worth whatever it is you are getting from them especially as you claim not to even love them?

There is also the issue of love you raised. What do you understand by love? This is what you should find out first. There is a whole world of difference between friendship and love. You can have these two boys in your life as friends nothing more. Your relationship with them should be healthy, devoid of any illusion of having something special between you and any of them. In such a relationship, you don’t have anything to defend or commitment beyond your friendship.

From the onset, the terms of association would be clearly understood from the beginning. We are friends and not having a relationship that has an undercurrent of romance. 

This way, you get to escape if the line of friendship is becoming unbearable without feeling bad or risking an unnecessary reputation that comes from soured relationship. 

To help you focus properly on your dreams as well as the future, avoid giving a vow you don’t have any intentions of honouring. 

The first thing to do is to spell out your feelings to these boys. Tell them you agreed to a relationship with them in error. That you don’t feel anything but friendship for them and since you won’t want to hurt them, and would appreciate being left alone for you to really make up your mind on what you want from life first. 

This way, you save yourself from the headache of going into fruitless relationship.  Just learn to be sincere with yourself at all times. Once you do that you won’t find yourself in a situation you don’t want at all. As for the married man, don’t get involved. Whatever challenge he is going through in his marriage isn’t any business of yours. Issues in marriages are meant to be tackled; such challenges are meant to give character to a marriage and help it have focus. Tell him you are not a solution to his marital problems and that he should go and resolve whatever the problems are with his wife. And that because you wish to live happily with a man one day, you shouldn’t be a party to another woman’s problem.

Good luck.

Pregnant, yet I’m his punching bag…

Dear Agatha,

I am 18 years old, married and eight months pregnant. My husband is 19 years of age and takes delight in beating me not minding that I am heavily pregnant. He doesn’t care as he slaps, punches, twists my hands and does whatever he wants to do. I am really tired of my life but I love him. I eloped with him in February this year and got married to him not long ago. We have been together for four years now and I really trusted him because he really loved and cared for me. Then he was always at my beck and call. He listened to me and treated me with respect. 

But he completely changed after our wedding. He has increasingly become hostile to me to the point he appears not to give a concern for my feelings at all. These days the very things I tell him not to do are the things that delight him. 

He wants me to know that he is the man and that I am the woman. I have tried to accommodate this by allowing him take all the decision while I simply obey. However the recent trouble started when I tried to stop him when he indicated a desire to go the gym at 3am. Because I raised an objection, he started hitting me. He gets angry for no reason whatsoever. He now expresses a desire to leave me, get a divorce once there is a minor disagreement between us.  

Agatha, I can’t leave him because I really love him. I feel as if my life is captured in his life. I can’t do without him. I really love him but he wants so much to get rid of me.

To think this is the same person who before marriage never went out without my permission. Once I raised an objection to whatever he wanted to do, he would immediately desist from it to please me.  

These days he deliberately goes out and leaves me all alone. He doesn’t care that I am eight months pregnant and could go into labour at any time from now. Please help me. I am in need of good counsel. I am very stressed and helpless. It’s been one problem or the other since I got pregnant. I am scared of losing him and the baby. 

Tccc.

Dear Tccc, 

At 18 and 19, you are both too young and immature to handle the situation you have both placed yourselves in, parenthood is tasking and demanding. Ideally both of you should be in school, under the protective custody of your parents and enjoying the freedom and wildness of the teenage years. 

If he is complaining, it is because he lacks the knowledge and understanding of how to handle being a father at an early age when he should be partying with friends; going after different girls for the fun of it. He sees in you a barrier to all the things he wants to do, hence the frequency at which he lashes out on you. Before you both married he had all his freedom. Now not only is he married at his age but also going to be a father when he should be in the disco halls. He is frustrated because while he is thinking of baby food and diapers, his friends would be talking about girls and parties. None of his friends is in the position he has found himself. For someone who isn’t as matured as he is, this is enough to make him take a temporary leave of his sanity. Suddenly every dream he has for the future is collapsing before him like a pack of cards because he now has a wife and child to consider. He is frustrated because everywhere he turns around you, screams responsibility. Beating, lording over you as well as issuing threats are the only weapon he now has to order his world. Cowardly, but until he comes to term with what he desperately wants to wish away, wake up, you may not see much of the man you fell in love with. 

In his current state of mind, he thinks you are at fault, hence someone he has to move away from to be free from the emotional nightmare he has currently. He has worked himself up to believe that if you didn’t get pregnant, run away from home and agreed to marry him, he would still be free to do as he likes. Deep in his mind, you are his dream killer so be careful because in his current state of mind, he could really harm you without realising what he is doing until it’s too late to. He is presently too blinded by his own miseries to care too about how much pains he is inflicting on you or how you feel for that matter.

Frankly, you made the greatest mistake of your life by absconding with him. What were you thinking leaving home when you should be in school planning for the years ahead? As you must have realised not all that glitters is gold. Marriage and parenthood are a different ball game from dating. This is the time for you to retrace your steps irrespective of your state or what you have done. It is obvious both of you cannot stay together for now. He may unwittingly harm you in one of his annoyances. You are too young to handle this on your own and the situation isn’t good for your health. You need all the strength on your delivery day to be able to aid the baby come out. Besides, you need encouragement and care to ensure the labour goes smoothly. 

There is no one who can look after you exactly like your mother. No matter her level of disappointment at your behaviour, she would never want you dead. You are in a precarious situation at least until your husband realises that he owes you and the baby attention and care.

If you can’t go back home to your parents on your own, out of fear, go through their respected friends or pastors, who would go on your behalf to plead with them. Apologise to them and explain the situation you are facing. If you are in Lagos, I could go with you to see them if it would be of any help too. You should also consider informing his parents about your situation. Don’t forget the baby in your womb is their grandchild, hence the need for you to contact them for help. Besides soliciting for forgiveness and help from your two families, learn to accord your husband some level of respect. No man likes to be told by his wife how to conduct his affairs. He always likes to be in charge. Getting permission from you before he goes out or does anything isn’t right. Yes, you have the right to be informed but telling him where he can go and can’t go isn’t part of your brief as the woman. You can only appeal to him, coax him into staying with you and not by commands.

From the tone of your letter, it is obvious that you have been making all the decisions in this relationship and that the idea of both of you eloping and getting married is yours. Be careful, you have already made one big mistake, don’t allow that domineering spirit in you push you into making another woman especially now that he is battling to come to terms with this situation as to get his freedom from the mess he is now.

If you want to have the baby alive, learn to keep your mouth shut; talk less and pray more to God to help both of you overcome this trying time. It is also imperative you begin to think of how you both are going to provide for the baby, something you can do to help cushion the efforts he would be making. Rather than devote your entire time nagging him on what to do or not, sit him down to discuss the possibilities of what you both can do to make ends meet when the baby comes. Even though you are both shying away from the fact of being expectant parents and marriage makes both of you older than your ages.

Begin to act like a woman who has the interest of her family at heart by coming up with exigency plans.

The best thing now is to think of a business you can begin, something that would bring in regular money and give you time to be with the baby as well as to continue with your studies. 

Always remember that the past isn’t as important as the future that is always there for one to make amends of mistakes made in the past. Yes, both of you didn’t think beyond the immediate when you took the steps that have brought you into this mess but your lives do not have to live on this mistake. Channel that strong will of yours into making something positive out of your lives together.

Marital battles are best fought on bent praying knees, and never through nagging. 

Good luck.