My stepmother plans to ruin me…

Dear Agatha,

Please help me as I have gotten to a point in my life I can no longer cope with my situation. I am 18 years of age, the first of my mother’s three children.  She died while having the last of us seven years ago. My father’s mother took care of us until my father got married to another woman and she had to leave for the village due to constant quarrels between the new woman and herself.

It got to a head when she openly fought my grandmother when my father travelled. It was that day my grandmother left for the village leaving us at the mercy of the woman. When my father came and demanded to know what happened, I told him what I witnessed. My story was different from what she told my father. She told my father that my grandmother was the one who attacked her and that she only reacted in self-defence.

From that day on her hatred for my siblings and I doubled. She used every little opportunity to maltreat us so much so it became very difficult for us to concentrate in school. One day, my mother’s sister came unannounced. She witnessed what we were going through and insisted on taking all three of us with her. 

My father wasn’t going to allow her take any of us but when my maternal family rose in unison, my father had no choice but to let go of the baby and my immediate brother. He pleaded with them to allow him keep me that he would ensure I didn’t lack anything. 

True to his words, I don’t lack anything in terms of payment of my fees and feeding but my stepmother is the thorn in my flesh. If she isn’t insulting me, she is hauling insults at the memory of my dead mother. She blames me for her inability to have a child for my father and because of that has vowed to deal with me.  I now see her every night in my dream running after me. The last one was particularly terrifying but my mother was there to protect me from her. But she warned me to leave the house that she is planning on killing me.

One of the reasons my father didn’t allow my mother’s people take me in the first instance is the fact that I am my mother’s mirror image. I don’t know what to do. Besides, his wife seems to have done something to him because he doesn’t see what others see about her. He doesn’t think she is evil as everyone says. This is the reason for my letter to you. I have just finished my senior secondary school and hoping to write Unified Joint Admission Matriculation Examination next year. I delayed in my education because of the emotional trauma at home.

I am scared! I don’t know how to handle this situation at all.

Concerned Girl. 

Dear Concerned Girl,

Don’t be, because God is on your side. The Holy Spirit took the image of your mother to help you understand your situation better as well as warn you on the need to be careful. That dream underscores the presence of the Holy Spirit all around you, which would make it difficult for your stepmother or anyone for that matter to hurt you.

It would also help give your father a better understanding of issues happening around him. Rather exhibit fear for this woman, fight her on your knees with prayers. Hand her over to God who created her and has all the powers in the world to do and undo. 

Don’t help yourself by being rude to her. It isn’t worth it and would only be complicating things for you spiritually because God will leave the battle for you to fight. Continue to be of respect to her, no matter how difficult it appears. Don’t ever be tempted to pay her evil for evil. Whatever she is doing is out of fear of uncertainty and desire to also protect her territory. Even if she is inherently wicked, still hand her over to God.The best way to deal with her and your situation is to see it all as a lesson on self-perseverance and total submission to the will of God. If she has been unable to kill you all these years that she has been your stepmother, there is nothing she can do now. God allowed your maternal family take away the other two children because they lack the kind of spiritual gift you have, which is why God had to take them from their father’s house until He deems it fit for them to come back but you He has given the authority to overcome. By this time next year, God willing, you would be in school, away from her. Since your father is not likely to listen to you or let you go, keep praying for him at all times that whatever she has done to him would not cut short his life and that God will rescue him from whatever spiritual control she has over him. Don’t forget this woman is his wife and in some ways has some control over him. Whatever her faults maybe, that is her house, one day you would leave to begin your home. 

Chances are your father may not be under any spiritual influence but may have decided to look the other way to prevent him developing blood pressures and for you not to see his regrets. Don’t forget this woman came into his life as a result of the death of your mother. Anytime she misbehaves he is bound to feel regrets deep inside his soul at the death of your mother. If she had been alive he wouldn’t have encountered this woman would always be his thoughts. 

Keeping quiet about her mistakes is the only way he can manage without breaking down his everlasting pains. 

Just continue to pray for him and your siblings.

Good luck. 

As church leader she still cheats in exam hall…

Dear Agatha, 

I just read your response to a guy in the ‘Daily Independent’ on a wasteful wife. Mine is worse! She is wasteful, rebellious, covetous, likes and runs after rich men and she greatly lacks in focus.

She has done and abandoned so many things in the last nine years. She tells lies at every opportunity and prefers the advice of outsiders to mine. Can you imagine a wife that diverts children’s school fees to other purposes? 

Can you imagine a woman who abandons sex with her husband midway to attend to her brother who called in the middle of the night and did not return to bed until daybreak? This so-called brother of hers still calls at midnight despite informing him that it is not good for the health of my home? Can you imagine a woman who has taken concrete steps to heed the advice of one of the men who once slept with her to relocate abroad and the man is ready to sponsor her trip and education abroad? For Christ sake this woman is a leader in a Pentecostal church but cheats at examination hall.  These are just examples of what I have been going through in the last nine years. Please advise me on what to do.
Femmi.

Dear Femmi, 

What went wrong in your relationship? Just as it takes two to tangle, it takes the same two to destroy it. There is no way she can be this bad and you would not have known during your courtship years.

She certainly couldn’t have been the first woman you date; something must have attracted you to her in the first place. When a relationship becomes this troubled, good wisdom requires both parties to back to the drawing board. From your account, it is obvious that none of you have been able to pull the relationship from the point you left it nine years ago. 

Often than not most of the issues that later become monsters in our relationship are products of mistakes made before the decision to marry that particular person was made. They are usually premarital. For instance, some of the issues you are today complaining of were the things you decided to gloss over during your courtship years. A woman that has promiscuous tendencies must have unwittingly given one or two clues during those heady days of your courtship. The truth is that you didn’t care back then either because you didn’t recognise these signs for what they were or simply thought your love was sufficient to change her. A lot of time, we think the faults in our partners are things we can change overtime instead of learning to accept them from the very beginning to be issues that we would have to learn to live with forever. 

While I don’t condone infidelity in a relationship, think of what you do to aggravate the situation between the two of you. Are you the kind of man who lacks the patience to handle a woman or the kind that is too timid to act his role as the head of the home?

What steps have you taken to check her excesses? For instance, you accuse her of infidelity; have you concrete evidences to show that she is really having an affair or are your conclusions based on mere suspicions? Have you also sat her down to discuss her attitude with her as well as the likely effect her behaviour would have on the children?

Again, what is the quality of relationship between the two of you? How come she can confidently make arrangements to travel abroad without your approval? Definitely, you don’t seem to have control over this woman which calls to question the quality of the leadership you offer your home. How have you tried helping her become straight, stopping her from cheating in examinations? 

Time has really come for you to sit her down. Ask her probing questions about how she feels about you and the marriage as well as her decision on the marriage?

Unless both of you are sincere, determined as well as understanding of what marriage is, there is no saving this marriage from collapse.

Therefore, you must gauge your feelings for each other; consider the things that are important to both of you in this marriage, project into the future with a view of finding out if both of you can keep the flag of this marriage going, especially you! With everything you have said, you have obviously gotten to that stage where you are no longer happy with all that is happening around you. 

If both of you are sincere and have enough of the love that brought you together in the first place you can make it work despite all the odds against.  

It’s a matter of forgiving the hurts and pains of these past years and agreeing to continue on new terms. But in all these, seek the face of God because sentiments apart, some marriages, no matter how much we desire it would never work due to very wrong decisions we took before the marriage. Only God has the power to make such unions work. 

Good luck. 

I need to find my wife to tell her the truth

Dear Agatha, 

This Christmas would mark the seventh anniversary of my marriage to my wife. Unfortunately, my wife and I have been unable to have a child. All the tests she has done so far say she is healthy to have children.

Being a very busy man, I have kept postponing invitations of my family doctor to come for medical examinations. At any rate, since the doctor and I were both rascals in our university days, he didn’t put pressure on me so much to come since our tracks point at my viability as a man. He had helped me more than once to get out of tricky webs.

Naturally, my family members are worried. 

Severally, my mother in particular has made attempts to make me marry another woman but I have kept resisting her. I have always assured her that my wife would eventually give birth to a child.

However, there was a day I went to see my mother and met this strange-looking woman who was introduced as pastor’s daughter. We got talking until I became sleepy. Being in my mother’s place, I didn’t think anything of going into one of the rooms to sleep. 

Honestly, I didn’t know how it happened but I woke up with the strange looking woman by my side and judging from our appearance, we were both naked. Though, I don’t remember anything, she told me we had sex, something my mother who claimed to come into the room to wake me up said she witnessed.

Although I was confused by the story of my mother and the lady, I didn’t suspect my mother set me up. I was more worried about my wife whom I have never cheated on since I have been married to her. She happens to be one of the nicest things to have happened to me. She came into my life when everything was turning upside down for me. Through her dedication to me and belief in my abilities as a man, she has managed me to the enviable height I have attained today. She isn’t the kind of woman to be maltreated. 

Since the incident in my mother’s place isn’t the kind of thing one tells his wife, I did not mention it to her. Besides, by the time I got home, she had interesting news to break to me. She was two months pregnant. I was very glad and promptly forgot about the incident at my mother’s place. But I was reminded about it when I got home to find my mother and that same lady right there in my sitting room ordering my wife to quit my house, that another woman who could give me children had come to take her place.

Being a naturally calm person, my wife sat on the balcony waiting for me. Immediately she saw me, she came into the sitting room to demand for an explanation. She didn’t need to wait for an answer from me because of the guilt on my face. She didn’t say anything, she simply went into the room packed a bag and left me.

She didn’t go to her parents or friends. Her phone isn’t going through either. I don’t know where she is at all. I love my wife and I want her back in my arms. These few days have been hell for me. It took the intervention of my father to get my mother and this woman out of my house. When my father threatened to throw my mother out of his house, she confessed she drugged my drinks and got the lady to come into the room and pretend we slept together so she could have the perfect excuse to cause problems in my home.

Unfortunately, my wife is nowhere to be seen to find out the truth.

Apart from telling me what to do, she is a great fan of yours. There is no day she doesn’t go to your newspaper’s website to read you. I am hoping she would read this and come home.

Agatha, you will be helping to save my home by pleading with her. She respects your views dearly. 

Her name is Elizabeth. 

Tunji.

Dear Tunji,

Your story is pathetic! It is quite unfortunate that your mother allowed her desire to have a grandchild by you destroy a home your wife laboured to build. Even though I agree with you that the incident that happened to you is difficult to relay to one’s wife but you have been alerted by the events of that day that this was not just one of those things that happen by chance. 

You should have smelt a rat when you found this lady by your side naked in your mother’s house. Such audacity would not have been possible if your mother was not in the know. Ordinarily, that should have warned you that the incident was preplanned and that your sleep must have been induced to get you to play along. 

Another warning bell was your mother’s confirmation of being witness to the act of lovemaking by the two of you. At that point you should have asked her why she allowed such abomination to happen under her roof. That was the final confirmation you needed at that time to tell you that you have been nicely set up by your mother who has never hidden her desire for you to marry another woman.

Even if you did not have the guts to tell your wife, the matter should have been reported to your father who would have known how to frustrate and check the excesses of your mother. Honestly, you didn’t handle the matter very well. 

Your wife would not have reacted the way she did had you at least given her a hint of what happened in your mother’s house. The news would not have come to her as a shock. She would have known how to handle your mother and the woman when they came to her house to drive her out of it. She acted that way because you didn’t trust her enough to confide in her as well as the knowledge that you have been unfaithful to her. Yes, you didn’t sleep with the woman in question but the evidence of your mother and the woman are too much for her to dismiss. In her shoes, what would you have done? Remember the person here is your mother and the place the incident happened is her house with a lady she introduced to you!

Somehow her family and close friends would know where she is but are under strict instructions for them not to tell. Get your father and mother to go to her people to plead your case as well as explain what happened between you and the other woman. 

Your mother’s explanation as to how she set you up to achieve her aim of getting you to marry another woman is the only way to clear all doubts and confusion generated by your mother’s actions. 

For them to be so calm and not putting pressure on you to produce their daughter underscores their knowledge of her whereabouts. Beg them to forgive your weakness of not telling your wife about the incident. Your love and past record as well as the involvement of your parents in the matter would resolve the matter. 

I am sure you now know that marriage is a journey of trust and that without it, there is practically no marriage. No matter how unpleasant an incident maybe, it is always best to tell your partner about it before he or she finds out. Had you told her yourself, the attendant consequences and anger would have been easier for you to manage within yourself. The worst that would have happened would be for her to keep malice with you for a few days. This is an important lesson you must always keep close to your heart.

Also, learn to pray, only prayers can help us remain above our situation. 

And to you, Elizabeth, there is no marriage without challenges. Staying away won’t resolve this problem. Go back home and discuss it with your husband. You are only leaving him to temptations of other women. 
You should actually be happy that God in His infinite mercy has answered your prayers. Can you imagine if God had not answered your prayers? I am sure that would have hurt you the more. Give God all the glory for His mercies because He did not allow your mother-in-law disgrace you.

Do not allow another woman come to take over your home, reap in the land she did not sow. From your husband’s account you have always been there for him. 

Besides whatever happened was not his fault. There is no way he would have suspected his mother capable of going to the extent she went. Be happy that the truth is out and that your husband has always been truthful to his vows. Go back, that baby needs its father and so do you need your husband. This is part of the story you would one day tell your children.

Good luck. 

She won’t change from Anglican to Catholic…

Dear Agatha,

I am a big fan of your column and I read it a lot, and I can say that I have learnt a lot from the advices you give to people. I have a relationship problem for which I really need your help.

January, this year, I met a girl on a flight. She was heading for United Kingdom while I was going to Austria. We just clicked. We exchanged Facebook contact details and returned to our various destinations. Somewhere along the line I developed feelings for her and sometime around March or April I told her about my feelings via Yahoo messenger.

But before I did this, I had invited her for a wine festival in Austria; to be honest this was just a way to ask her to come visit me. She welcomed the idea, but she said I should visit her first in the UK.

I also had no problem with the idea, but I informed her that since she had a EU passport, she wouldn’t need a visa to come visit me while I would need to apply for a visa since I hold a Nigerian passport. Therefore it would be more straightforward for her to come to visit me. To cut a long story short, I agreed to the idea that I would visit her first before she comes to see me.

It is important to note that at the time we were discussing about visiting each other, we hadn’t developed any feelings for each other. So in March I set a date to visit her in July.

Somewhere along the line I developed feelings for her and in my mind, I concluded that it would be most ideal to let her know about my feelings face-to-face. But the feelings became too strong and one night while we were chatting on Yahoo messenger, I informed her about my feelings. After informing her about my feelings, she said she liked me also. So we decided to start dating each other.

Somewhere along the line, as I got to know her better and realised she was holding back. I discovered it had to do with long distance relationship. Her previous one didn’t work hence her friends advised her against going into another such a relationship.

I assured her of my commitment to her and promised to relocate to the UK, but before I do that, I would need to find a job first. We both understood that the job hunt would take sometime, but I said that the short-term solution would be to visit each other at least once a month. She agreed and said that we should be very cautious with the relationship by taking each day as it comes.

I started the process of looking for jobs in the UK, and to date I have applied for 150 jobs and haven’t been able to get any. I always explained to her the difficulties I was experiencing, and all the rejections I was getting with my applications. She replied that she would be patient, but that as she is 25 she won’t be able to be patient “forever”. Needless to say, it panicked me and determined to resolve the distance issue with any means possible.

 I also knew if I waited till July to visit her, it might affect the relationship. So I decided to visit her one-month earlier in June and again in July. After that we agreed she would come to visit me in August.

I was already planning for the future, and was thinking of visiting her in September and October. I decided to buy my air tickets early. But while discussing the duration of the visit, we would have a little argument about how long I should stay. Since I always stay in her flat, she wanted me to stay for only the weekend, while I wanted to stay at least a week. Her argument is that she didn’t want her family raising objections about my long stay. I eventually agreed to her suggestion. 

However I became very uncomfortable when she refused to honour her promise to come for a visit in August. She kept giving one excuse or the other why she wasn’t able to come. While I worried if we didn’t speak to each other in a day, she didn’t. 

Although our September date almost suffered a hitch due to the decisions of her employer to relief her of her job, I managed to go. I instantly noticed she had changed, she was more distant than my two previous visits…and somehow she took offence at things she previously didn’t mind. This led to some arguments. And it also seems that she took offence with some things we discussed and she didn’t let me know about this. 

 After the September visit, I returned to Austria and we agreed that she would come in October to visit me as she would be moving to a new town and she won’t have her own place, which meant that I won’t be able to visit her in October. Although it wasn’t the best news for me, I didn’t raise any objection to it as she had anticipated.

After I returned, we talked everyday and it seems that everything was fine, but then exactly one week later, she asked me to come on Skype as we needed to talk. 

She said she had been thinking about our relationship and felt we should give it a rest. I asked her why, and she said that there were “some things”, but that the issue with converting to the Catholic Church after we marry is something she didn’t want to do. She is Anglican.  

Of course I told her that this may be an issue, but we should be able to find a solution to it later on. And we shouldn’t throw everything we had away just because of the churches we attend. But she was adamant and didn’t want to change her mind…and it seems that whatever I tried to explain to her…she became more defensive. So I ended the call.

The next day I sent her an SMS asking her if she had found another guy, she said that there wasn’t anyone. I asked that we should at least give it a chance. She didn’t reply my SMS until two days later, telling me that she feels that we won’t be able to find any solution in the future and she is sure that later on in life she would regret not raising this issue.

 After that SMS I didn’t respond to her and we haven’t spoken for five weeks now. She also removed me from her Friends list on Facebook. She said it was a temporary measure to make things easier as she would still want to be friends but till today I haven’t been added back. I have feelings for this lady, but haven’t heard from her for five weeks. I don’t know if this is truly the end of our relationship. I don’t want to lose her even though I have no idea of how to get her back. 

Could you advise me on what you think? Do you think that I still have a chance? Do you think this relationship can be salvaged?

Worried Guy.

Dear Worried Guy, 

This lady’s mind appeared made up. There are certain relationships that are not just meant to be. Sincerely, I think this is one of them. You may love her but she appears not to love you as much as you do.

The fact that both of you are not physically together makes management of any crisis between the two of you difficult to resolve. Usually in this kind of relationship, it takes determination and sincerity on the part of the couple to make it work. Also, one person has to give more than the other to keep it going. 

At this junction, you have done your bit, given your best to make it work but if she feels that she cannot cope, painful as it may sound, allow her go. The danger of forcing her to do it your way lies in the future. Both of you are still young and have a lot of years ahead of you. It is easy for you to want to locate now but on the long run would you still be happy with the decision? Think about it!

However, if you think she is the right woman for you, make an effort to go and see her in person. Some issues are best discussed and resolved in person. Find time to go to her. It might make a lot of difference if both of you sit down to discuss her real fears because like you guessed, the issue of the church may just be an excuse to mask her real fears and reasons. 

Two things are obvious in your letter. Your willingness to submit to anything she says and ability to nag. As a man, this isn’t too good. While true relationship is a partnership, you should be able as the man to hold your own any day. For instance, you didn’t have to go to stay in her place on those days you visited. It wasn’t the ideal because it exposed both of you to situations you should have avoided early in the relationship. There are certain challenges in every relationship that should not come in the early stage else they would scare the couple from moving on especially with you two living some distances away. 

This time, if you go, stay in a hotel and refrain from imputing things that are not happening and face the issue at hand.

Don’t despair. If she is yours, no matter what, she will come back. Good luck. 

Before condoms in her bag knock me off…

Dear Agatha, 

I have been dating my girlfriend for close to four years. We are very close and have plans to marry her because she has the qualities I admire in a woman. But for Sanusi’s banking revolution we would have gotten married in June this year.

However, we are still planning for January next year. But something happened of recent that is making me reconsider my stance. Although she had tried explaining the incident but I am not convinced at all. Three weeks ago, she wasn’t by her bag when her phone kept ringing. She was in the bathroom so I decided to take the phone to her since the caller appeared desperate to talk to her. 

In the process of removing the phone from her bag, an opened packed of condoms fell from it. I initially didn’t notice it in my haste to give her the phone but when I came back to the room to pick the item that fell from her back, I was shocked to see it was a packet of condom. Since meeting her, I have never used a condom with her and don’t have any in my house.  Two sachets were missing from the packet. I decided not to read too much meaning into it until she came out of the bedroom.

I could sense fear in her the moment she saw what I was holding in my hands. She tried to bluff her way through it by asking what I was doing with a packet of condom but seeing the look on my face, she quickly changed her strategy and began to haltingly explain how she came about it. 

From her explanations, the only thing that I could grab was the fact that it belonged to her friend; that the said friend whose face I haven’t come across in my four years with her forgot it in her bag. 

When I demanded to know how her friend forget such incriminating thing in her hands, she said it was in the process of their discussions and that the two sachets that are missing was taken out by them when they were having funny discussions women usually have about men.

Ordinarily, knowing how witty she is and having listened to some of the things she and the friends I know say about men, I can imagine the things they can say when they are all alone. She and some of her friends are capable of saying anything about just anything. That I can handle because it is one of the things I cherish about her. 

But why I doubt her is identity of this so-called friend. I have never met her and I can say categorically that I have met most of her friends. This is what worries me. The identity of this friend! Although I tried to discreetly ask the friends I know with her if they can recognise the name of this friend, her two very good friends claim she is one of them and that she resides in South Africa, hence her absence from their scene. 

I am trying very much to believe them but you know how friends are, always in the habit of covering up for each other. I am very disturbed about it all. I haven’t discussed this with anybody for fear of making a fool of myself. 

I deflowered her and up till this moment, trust her. But Agatha, I don’t know what to believe: her words or the evidence in my hands. I love her so much. Please help me!

Ademola.

Dear Ademola, 

It is quite dicey but you just have to go by what you already know of her. Sometimes not all the evidences we think we have are real. In some cases they can really be wrong and misleading. If one is not careful and of a discerning mind, a lot of things would have missed target before one realises where the mistake is coming from.  To help you out of this, go back in time to what you know of her. Has she ever given you reason to doubt her; think she could be involved with another man? Do you think if she is that she would place such evidence in her bag, a place she knows you have access to anytime?

Women who cheat are not that careless. They are too smart to be caught; however, to convince yourself that you are not being taken for a ride, insist on speaking first with this friend. Without prior warning, ask her to dial the number of this friend of hers that you want to speak with her. Her reactions to this simple request would give you clearer picture into the game she is playing. If her story is true, she won’t hesitate to allow you speak with this friend and tell her what the packet of condoms she left with her is causing in her relationship. 

I sense a fear deep inside of you, the fear of not wanting her to know that you are capable of feeling insecure. It is your right to feel insecure when confronted with issues in your relationship that you don’t understand. It doesn’t make you less of a man but more of a human who can feel what every person who is in love feels.  Let her know how that incident affected you as well as its likely consequences on your relationship. She has to understand the breach of trust that incident has caused to happen in your relationship. Once you are able to ascertain that the friend is real, forget about the incident. Love has a way of healing every wound in a relationship. 

But if she still hesitates to allow you meet or speak with her, know there is more to the story than she is telling you. At that point, demand for honest explanations from her, insisting it would be best she tells you the truth no matter how much it would hurt you than for you to find out later; that by then it would be impossible for you to consider any plea. After this you can take a decision on what is best for you. However, entrust everything to God and allow His will be done. 

Good luck. 

Guys fume over my rigidity…

Dear Agatha, 
 I am a 23-year-old graduating student of one of the federal universities in the country. I have never really had a boyfriend. Without sounding immodest, I am pretty, light in complexion, slim and have a pointed nose, which I know is not common to Africans. 

The guys have actually been coming since my first year in the university. Some of them are workers but I refused because accepting was going to distract me and I discovered that when I accepted to make them just friends, they were still making advances and inviting me to their houses, which I refused. 

Some of them when they discovered I was the kind of girl they thought I was, stayed away. The ones I liked I tried to keep as friends by calling and asking after their welfare. In the cause of all these, some of them began to develop hatred for me, that I am too rigid and don’t have a heart at all. 

In all I really liked one of them who asked me out but I felt I was too naïve and a fresher, considering he was graduating then. Although we still kept contact until mid this year when he came to the city where my school is located on official visit and said he wanted to see me. 

I honoured the invitation but as usual, he was to busy with meetings that he did not have enough time for me instead he asked his cousin to make me comfortable. In fact, it was his cousin who picked me from the park. They both insisted that I pass the night but I refused. 

He had earlier promised he was going to see me during Xmas holiday, since I was always complaining he didn’t have my time. The following day out of annoyance at his attitude I sent an SMS telling him never to call to say he wants to see me when he knows he won’t have time for me. Since then he has not called me till date. 

I narrated this story just to tell you that it seems that I have lost the one friend I love. So what becomes of me now after graduation? No boyfriends, no husband, considering some of my friends are married. Life can really be lonely at times; I know what it means to be alone and you hear friends talk about their latest guys and you just pretend not to hear them. I need advice on how to really start this new phase of life I am about to enter and what do you think about this friend I am about to lose? Should I forget about him?
Angela

Dear Angela, 

This friend of yours is only following the instructions you gave him. He has not said it is over, you told him not to call you again.

If you have changed your mind about him, call him to apologise for the message you sent him. Tell him you desire to continue with him. But you must be sure you can cope with him and his official schedule.

A man his age, struggling to make a career out of his profession is bound to put in extra time to get noticed for promotion. As his woman, if you are constantly nagging him for doing what he is being paid to do, don’t understand that life is about seasons, cannot give him the kind of support he needs now to build a strong foundation for the days ahead, don’t bother to call him because you would only end up hurting both of you. He needs a woman ready to pay the sacrifice of this moment of struggle and proper foundation laying stage.  Relationship is not just about keeping each other’s company, but also being able to formulate the kind of life that would give a couple joy and peace later down the road.  Try putting yourself in his shoes; think of how you would feel if the man in your life cannot understand your dream; complains about the time you put into your career building and showing it to you that he cannot compete with your career? Don’t you think that would set you thinking of what kind of life you lay ahead of both of you cause you to fear for a future between the two of you?

That text message must have had the same effect on him, caused him to pause and reflect on the kind of woman you would be as well as the quality of support to expect from you. If he is the introspective kind of man, chances are that the tone of your message would make him consider his interest in you. Not many men can withstand a woman who does nothing but nag. 

Besides, there is the need for you to at all time control your temper. Granted that it could be so frustrating for any woman to have gone to visit her man and not have his attention, but you should have carefully considered your reactions before sending him that message. The fact that he detailed his cousin to keep you company showed that he cared and knew that you would be lonely but limited by the official assignment he came for.  So, you simply have to sit back and think of your own dreams first. What kind of man do you want in your life, the kind that would help you support your dream? 

Don’t contact him unless you know you have the maturity, ability and capacity to make it work.

As you begin a new phase in your life, learn to plan and approach things with maturity. Don’t act before thinking; always think before you act. Also be firm about issues that bother on your integrity as a woman and person. By this, ensure friendship in every relationship you enter into. Love without friendship is very cold. Friendship is what brings the glow and warmth into a relationship. Beyond all, place God above who and what you are. 

Even if at the end of the day, you decide not to continue with him, you owe him an apology. Call him in the spirit of friendship to apologise. 

Good luck. 

ost my virginity to his trickery…

Dear Agatha,    

I am a 25-year-old lady in a higher institution. I lost my virginity a few months ago to a deceitful guy, who dumped me soon afterwards. I have learnt my lessons and currently keep men at an arm’s length. I have two questions to ask. How can I identify a good man from a trickster? Is it true that prolonged abstinence enables a broken hymen to re-grow, making a repentant non-virgin pass for a virgin again? 

Worried Lady.

Dear Worried Lady, 

Unfortunately there are no visible signs on their foreheads to alert a woman that a particular man is out to rob her of her emotions as well as body.  However, there are a lot of signs that a woman who is discerning will pick from their behaviour or things they say. For instance, they have the most sugar coated tongues and know precisely what to say to get the woman eating out of their hands. Most of them are accomplished at making the right compliments to melt any lady’s resolve. 

These days, men have become wiser and could be so smooth till they get what they want. But one thing is for sure; unserious men won’t stay too long in a relationship without sex. Therefore, insist on a sex-free relationship. Only the man who has your interest at heart and who has his eyes on marriage would put up with the emotional pressures of staying with a woman without sleeping with her. 

Such a man knows that the woman would eventually become his, hence can wait the whole time for her to be ready. Therefore any man pressuring you to sleep with him under the pretence that it doesn’t matter if he does it now or on the night of your wedding isn’t for real. Be weary of such a man. 

Another thing is for you as a woman not to act desperate. Everyman knows that once a woman gets to a certain age, marriage becomes the major item on her agenda. Smart men have to realise this desperation in women and learnt to play most women for fool. If you are going into any relationship, don’t give the impression that you have marriage at the back of your mind. From the onset, make up your mind that it could work and may not. While giving it your best, be firm on so many things. Let the man see you for who you are as well as your position on the issue of marriage. Once he gets the message, that like him, you want to take a day at a time and that marriage isn’t the reason you agreed to dating him, he would learn to give you your respect.

To avoid emotional dupes, before going into a relationship, have a focus – a sort of master plan for yourself. This way you would be able to effectively control the relationship to your advantage.

However, experience remains the best way to know whose man is real or not. From the experience of what happened to you, I am sure you know what to believe, avoid and what to accept. More than anything else, you know from this whole thing that it is always wise for a woman to insist on having a non-sexual relationship until her wedding night.

As for you growing back your broken hymen, sorry to disappoint you, it is impossible. Once a woman’s seal is broken, it remains so. The only thing that can happen if you abstain from sex is the tightness of the virginal because of the elastic nature of the muscles. An experienced man can always tell a woman who is very active from the one who has abstained for a long time through the opening of her body. 

For now, it is more of you learning to appreciate who you are and not what a man wants you to be.

Good luck.

No respect for the marriage or me

Dear Agatha,

Please, kindly read this patiently and help me out with your sincere counsel.  I don’t want to make a decision I will regret for the rest of my life that is why I decided to write to you for your opinion.

In February this year, I met and started dating a man. He told me of his intentions to settle and I also wanted to settle down too, so we began courting. By May, we did introduction and by July we were married traditionally with plans to do the church wedding later when we could afford it. Now 3 months later, we are both tired of the marriage as we can’t tolerate each other anymore.

Sincerely, it’s partly my fault. I simply wanted to make my mother happy and was also desperate. I also craved for a man who would help me in my Christian journey. 

When we were dating, he attended services regularly and made a show of being God fearing. After the traditional marriage, he stopped going to church and when I tell him we should pray, he would refuse saying it’s not important we pray together.

Even when I the essence of us praying together as a couple,  he would still refuse and say salvation is personal; that I should pray on my own. 

Naturally this upsets me because I hoped for a strong Christian marriage. The only time he ever prayed with me was when I had a very negative dream in which a man was having sex with me and my husband was there with us, watching and enjoying the show. When I woke up, I knew it was a bad omen. I relayed the dream and insisted we prayed together.  At first he refused but when we both came back from work, I reminded him again and he said he doesn’t know what I am going to achieve with the prayer after which we prayed for the first time after three months of marriage. 

Secondly, he doesn’t appreciate anything I do. It seems he married me to be his slave. We live in a place where there is no water and so fetch water from the well. I do everything in the home, including washing of his clothes and he doesn’t assist me at all.

He also doesn’t think he should apologise when he offends me. For instance, about one month ago, he came back from work sick with headache and fever, I told him to give me money to buy drugs for him to take at least so he will go to the hospital in the morning, he refused.  I was worried and kept disturbing him for the money since I didn’t have any money on me, when he didn’t bulge, I taped him a little because he was falling asleep, he rose and said that I was planning to kill him so I can inherit his gratuity, I felt terribly bad and told him he had to apologise to me for that, he refused till date. 

Few days age, he called me a bad person and wife just because I was trying to encourage him to get rid of his marijuana smoking habit which he takes two to three times a week. He once told me that he wanted to stop and pleaded with me to help him in anyway I can. I felt one of the simplest ways is for him to stop mingling with the source and friends who he does it with. I told him to keep away from these persons only for him to accuse me of trying to keep him away from his family members so I can have him to myself. 

What manner of man is this, the one I cannot talk to? Who is insensitive to me who doesn’t care about me or what I feel? 

Agatha, I am 26 years old. Is this the kind of man I am expected to spend the rest of my life with? I can’t even discus issues with him because he will ridicule me.

I even borrowed him the money he used to pay my bride price and perform the marriage rites, and we are living in my apartment because his former apartment is small. Yet, he doesn’t have any form of respect for the marriage or for me? He behaves as if I forced or trapped him into it which I did not, he made his intention known but didn’t have money, he asked me to help him out which I did but now am regretting it all, I wish I had waited for him to have the money first before marrying him maybe I would have been able to escape it all. When we were dating, he never revealed any of these characters and finding the load unbearable.

I am yet to get pregnant. I reminded him that nothing was wrong with both of us that we only had to time my ovulation and that he shouldn’t smoke or drink during that time because of the effect they have on sperm cells. He didn’t change his mind and despite all my pleas, in my very last ovulation, he went to a party his “best friend” who is the major source of the marijuana invited him to, and came back by 11 pm.

I know people will ask if I am without blame.  Sincerely I have high regards and value for marriage and have always wished that God will give me a good man.  I respect him, cook very good meals for him, wash our clothes every Saturday, tidy up the house, make the bed, even take care f him more than myself. Yes, I have negative sides but do I really deserve this punishment all in the name of marriage? He has dirty habits, throws papers, water sachets all over the sitting room, drops his clothes anywhere, I have told him about keeping things where they belong but he says one of the reasons I am his wife is that it’s my duty to clean up the mess, yes I agree but does he have to intentionally punish me? Many times he urinates in my presence in the toilet, urine flows on his hands, when I tell him to wash his hands, he says there is nothing in his urine and that he will wash his hands when he want to bath! Being a medical practitioner, I know the implications of bad personal hygiene. I have told him repeatedly about living healthy, he just doesn’t listen. Because he is extremely good looking, he says that there are plenty of girls that would gladly marry him and that if he didn’t marry me, no man would have married me.

I believe in planning as it helps makes things easier for me but the man I am married to, doesn’t believe there is need for that. He lives in today and is extraordinarily careless with money, he makes decisions that baffles me and actually think like a baby most of the time.

He refused to tell me about his inherited house and land. He says he will only tell me about it when I give birth.   

I have made a resolve that am ready for anything that happens to the so called marriage. Luckily for me, he has been transferred to Port Harcourt. Initially the plan was for me to join him there by the end of the year but the whole thing is scary to me now. I am actually thinking of distant marriage. Maybe from there, God will do the rest and we will be separated since we haven’t done church wedding and he has refused to go to the marriage registry.

It may not be easy as it sounds, since I will have a lot of explaining to do to my family and friend and it will even be a shame on my part for not being able to stay in marriage and the chances of remarriage for me will be very slim but I am really tired and fed up with him and the whole marriage thing. 

I have never enjoyed the benefits that come with marriage. I still live my life as if am still single as I still do virtually everything on my own; even praying. The whole situation has even affected me psychologically as I no longer enjoy sex with him or get turned on. 

I really need assistance and real good counseling and advice. He refused and I stupidly went into the marriage without proper guidance and now see. Please what do I do? None of my family is aware of what is happening and I don’t want to involve them.

Since the marriage and my lending him my whole savings for the marriage rites, it’s as if am at a stand still, I really don’t know where I am, I earn a little more than him presently and so I contribute over half of my income, he doesn’t know how to manage so he is always borrowing from his colleagues. I told him about trying to manage properly and to pray against the habit of borrowing but he says it’s his way of life that I should love him for who he is. Honestly, I don’t know what I feel for him anymore as stress, bitterness and unhappiness has taken over.

I feel a bit better telling this as it has been a very heavy load on my mind. I hope to hear from you soon.

Worried Wife.

Dear Worried Wife,

You simply have to find ways of making this marriage work. Sincerely, there is nothing new in all that you have highlighted. What you have explained is typical of what most women are contending with. There is no perfect marriage only perfect determination to make it work at all cost.

If you allow such things like you have described scare you off marriage, then you are not really ready for the institution at all. Trust me, this is nothing compared to what most women are putting up with. Yes, he is selfish, untidy, doesn’t apologize but unlike some men isn’t violent or abusive. A lot of women who are afraid of what the world would say are enduring worse marriages.

They have learnt to cope through patience and tolerance of who their husbands are.   

Having made the mistake of not asking God before going into this marriage all because you were more concerned about pleasing your mother than your own happiness, learn to cope because the next man may not even have the enduring quality this one has.

There is no ready made marriage, couples work towards achieving whatever level of stability and happiness they have in their union.

These initial irritations are part of foundation laying of any marriage. Don’t forget both of you come from different backgrounds, have dissimilar attitudes and will for a while behave differently until you are both able to understand the technique of balancing in your marriage. 

Yours is also complicated because you were both virtually strangers when you got married. Unlike most couples who had all the time in the world to date, both of you didn’t at all. You rushed into something which ideally should be rushed at all.

So, the adjustment you should have used your relationship period to work at, is what you are doing now including all the other fine-tuning marriage brings along in the lives of married couples.

Living away from your man would only complicate the situation between the two of you. These early times are the very crucial in a relationship. You will only be complicating things if you stay away from him. Go with your husband and give this relationship your very best. Just like we women have our issues with men so do men too have theirs with us.

No sacrifice is too much to make for one’s home and happiness.

Don’t worry, if you learn to think less of yourself and the things you are doing for him and place all your hopes on God, you will achieve greater success in this marriage.

Good luck.