With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I am in need of your candid advice. Please help me.
I am a guy of 32 years in age and have lived and worked in Germany since January 2000.
In January 2010, I came to Nigeria to get married to a lady of 23 years of age who claims to be a virgin.
Before the marriage ceremony, I told my wife-to-be and all those who cared to listen that she won’t be coming to Germany immediately after our wedding. I gave them my reasons.
The lady I married is the younger sister to one of my childhood friends. I loved her dearly but my feelings were fuelled by the relationship that existed between our families. My mother whom I love and respect so much played a vital role in my coming to marry in Nigeria as she told me time and again to come and marry from home.
We did traditional and church aspects of wedding. I postponed the court wedding pending when I am ready to bring her over.
Even though we didn’t date or knew ourselves too well prior to the marriage, I still went ahead to marry her not knowing that she and her family members were hiding their true identities. I trained her in some professional courses and I feel I have been actively playing my role as a husband ever since we married.
But in spite of all these, my wife and her family members are never contented. We spend time talking about our relationship instead of having one. Quarrels and arguments are ever so often. She is stubborn, arrogant, and very difficult to deal with. Her family members are always involved in our case. And most often, they will call me to emphasise on how young, important and special their daughter is to them.
But the real problem began in August last year when my wife moved to Abuja, got a job with a telecommunication company and was living with her elder sister, a divorcee. She kept complaining of how uncomfortable she was in her sister’s home. Being reluctant to rent an apartment for only her in Abuja, I called and pleaded with my uncle who has been very useful to me since I was a kid, to accommodate my wife, he agreed. My wife moved to my uncle’s home and said she was comfortable. She leaves for work in the morning and gets back home in the evening and so on.
On her way to work on this sad morning, she entered a wrong taxi. The guys on board of the taxi confused her to the extend that she went home (my uncle’s home), collected her chequebook, went to the bank and withdrew over N150,000 and went back into the same taxi and was driven to unknown location. The bad guys collected the money, which I paid into her account and asked her to pull off her clothes, which she did including her underpants. But said she was neither raped nor touched, and that they later asked her to put on her clothes and was set free.
Knowing the spiritual implications regarding this incident, I had no option but to inform my relatives including my mother. My mother then called my wife to come home for inquiries, she insisted she was neither raped nor touched. She went back to Abuja and I asked her to resign her work.
A month after that incident, she became ill and was diagnosed of posttraumatic stress disorder. Her brothers called me same day only to accuse my family and I of being responsible for her health condition. I was disturbed and at the same time perplexed by their attitude.
I went ahead to pay her hospital bills, but deep inside me, I knew that my relationship with her siblings was over. After she was discharged from the hospital, she relocated from Abuja. She went to stay with another sister of hers who incidentally is also a divorcee.
Steadily, her character became worse so much so she has completely changed from the woman I married. She has so many family issues that make me feel that my marriage to her shall be characterised by quarrels, argument, anger and sadness. I have no more trust for her and no longer interested in going ahead with the court wedding. Our mothers are no more in good terms, just as I am no longer in good terms with her siblings.
All her four sisters are divorcees. She prefers her siblings’ advice to mine. She told me she wasn’t working in Lagos, I visited her in May this year only to discover she lied. Now it is hard to believe all she told me in the past. Was she raped and decided to hide it from me? Whenever our situation becomes very tense to the extent of falling apart, she goes on her knees crying and pleading for forgiveness.
I am tired.
I just got my German nationality that I have been waiting for. I am supposed to be thinking of coming to Nigeria to conclude the court wedding and bring her over, but that clearly isn’t the case as worries of the unknown are digging at my heart. I am very suspicious of her attitudes now, I feel she and her family got some ulterior motives, and knowing that the laws here favour women makes my worries grow bigger and stronger. I didn’t get her pregnant while in Nigeria because I want my child born in Europe.
I just called her and expressed my lack of interest in continuing the marriage. And as always, she is back on her knees again pleading for forgiveness. She and her family members claim to be good Christians but their attitudes have proved the contrary. I cannot tolerate her anymore.
I desperately need your advice.
Worried Husband.
Dear Worried Husband,
First, I like to say there is no marriage without challenges and that what you are going through is normal to most marriages. The strain in your marriage is more profound because you are both living apart. Had you been around her, your presence would have helped weaned her of her family’s influence. But as it is now, she cannot avoid listening to them, because at 23 she lacks the knowledge and wisdom to allocate her loyalty appropriately.
Be fair to her, at 23, she lacks your kind of experience, doesn’t know how to relate with a husband especially one who isn’t around her. Your absence is making her dependent on her family the more. Don’t also forget the possibility that she may not have planned to marry when she did. For most 23-year olds, exploring the world a little bit and building their careers are what they have in mind. For any person, especially a woman to make her marriage work, she must have prepared herself psychologically. From what you said, it is obvious that she wasn’t planning on getting married when she did.
Like you, her mother may also have put her into it. She needs help to understand that there is world of difference between being a single and married. Frankly, you should have allowed her to stay with your mother. Staying with your mother would have helped prepared her properly for marriage.
However, if there is anybody that should be blamed your mother is, not this girl or her family members, who are only acting out who they have always been. If as you say your mothers were good family friends, there is no way your mother can claim ignorance of the attitude and thinking of your wife’s family.
For whatever reasons, she deliberately ignored these flaws in your in-laws when she encouraged you to marry this girl.
Sit down and ask your mother some questions. Why did she mislead you into marrying this girl with all the issues you are now noticing about the family? She must have known that the family is overbearing and that her four elder sisters are all divorcees. From her relationship with this girl’s mother, she must have known what her attitude is towards money as well as all the other reasons that have been militating against successful marriages of her friend’s daughters.
Your mother and not your wife be blamed for the kind of marriage you are having.
In addition, you also share in the blame. At 32, you must have had a clear picture of the kind of marriage that would work for you. With this comes the knowledge of the kind of woman to support your dreams to come true. Your mother isn’t you, hence would never know, despite giving birth to you, the kind of woman that would fit into your plans for the future. Giving your mother the sole responsibility of choosing a wife for you was a mistake in the first place. Parents can only assist with the right kind of counsel but not to be given the entire job of looking for one’s future partner.
Ideally, if your mother weren’t too involved in the matter, she would have been able to arbitrate positively now that the union faces a hard time. Having compromised herself from the beginning, there is little she can do for you in this matter.
You must act as a man and face the burden of the decision your mother took on your behalf. There will always be issues in marriages. Determination to succeed is what makes the difference in life. You must have the concomitant strength of mind to make this marriage work.
The story she told you may not be a lie. Several ladies who have fallen victims of these kinds of dubious persons have similar stories to tell.
Learn to trust her, as it appears you don’t, from the tone of your mail. You said she claimed to be a virgin: wasn’t she one when you met her? If she was, it wasn’t a claim. For this marriage to work, endeavour to give her the benefit of doubt.
If you have the opportunity of taking her to Germany, do so, but not before discussing the attitude and several demands of her family members. Only a talk premised on a desire to make this marriage work and not to trade blames would work.
In addition, invite God into your marriage and hearts.
Good luck.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
He wants us to continue secretly
With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
My boyfriend and I broke up after six years due to the pressures on him by his family that we can’t marry because I am an Esan woman.
I love him so much and can’t do without him.
He proposed that we continue to see each other secretly, I am so confused.
Please, tell me on what to do.
Omo.
Dear Omo,
If he is not man enough to insist it is you he wants and willing to give up a relationship of six years to please his family what other assurances do you have he would marry you at the end of the day?
Even if his family members are right in their misconception about your people, having known and dated you for six years or more, he should have been able to put up a stout defense of you so much so he would have won two or more sympathies for his love for you.
If at this early stage in your relationship, he is unable to defend what he feels for you, vouch for your character and insist on his opinion of you, this man may never be able to give you the happiness you deserve.
Love and relationship lacking in boldness and loyalty don’t last, no matter how much one desires it.
As a matter of fact, you should view his offer for a secret relationship as pathetic and insulting.
Why should you be locked in the cupboard, away from the public to satisfy him and protect his cowardice at being unable to define what he wants?
Deep down, do you think him capable of accepting responsibilities arising from this secret arrangement when he couldn’t accept responsibility for his love for you the first time?
Sincerely, this secret arrangement, if you allow it is a recipe for more pains and heartaches for you. Being kept in the cupboard means he has to date another lady who has the backing of his family. It also means the family has the franchise to source and kick-start his wedding plans when they like. It also means he is incapable of controlling the tyranny of his family members who at every turn can come and go as they like in his affairs.
Despite your currently inability to do without him, is this the type of like you really want? A man you don’t have a measure of control over, one who has little disregard for your feelings? One who once his family makes an appearance on his life consigns you to the second position in his life or jettisons any plan you both have for his families?
His lack of concern for all the plans you both made, your joint dreams and hopes for the future over his family’s position should be warning for you to count your loss and look else where for a man who values you.
Doubtless, this arrangement provides you with the short-term option of continuing in the security of an old love, but in the long term, it may not be so noble because the pains and loneliness you are running from would come if not from him but from his family members who would feel the need to tighten their hold over him more than ever before if you show up again in his life.
The family position wouldn’t have made any difference if the man you have business with is determined or have the guts to protect you, maintain a fair balance between you and his family. That he gave you up to please his family makes this proposition of his laden with apprehension and cautions for you to be careful.
Besides, what does this offer you in terms of future security and happiness? Are you simply going to remain a shadow in his life while he pursues his other interests? What plans has he for you?
What makes you so sure he would have the guts he lacks now to defend you later? Any relationship that is shrouded in trial or ethnic controversies is always difficult to execute because issues, both real and imagined would always be brought up by its opposition to defend their stance. It takes the grace of God to even smile in such situations.
To gauge the depth of his feelings for you, insist he either continues to date you as his sole girlfriend while he looks for people who would help him convince his family about you or he completely forgets you.
His first option would have been to do and use every opportunity to change his family opinion of you, not to second you to a secret arrangement.
If at the end of the day, he insists on his options being better than your suggestions, let go.
Don’t worry about the attendant pains of bereavement you will feel at losing the love and familiarity of the man you gave six years of your life. Life is always a gamble where we win some and lose some.
God isn’t without a reason for this development but you have to give time the chance to heal you for hidden truth and beauty of this moment to show in your life.
The confusion is in your pains, not the divine reason this is happening to you. This is not the time to depend on your wisdom and strength, Go to God in prayers for proper definition of why this is so.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
My boyfriend and I broke up after six years due to the pressures on him by his family that we can’t marry because I am an Esan woman.
I love him so much and can’t do without him.
He proposed that we continue to see each other secretly, I am so confused.
Please, tell me on what to do.
Omo.
Dear Omo,
If he is not man enough to insist it is you he wants and willing to give up a relationship of six years to please his family what other assurances do you have he would marry you at the end of the day?
Even if his family members are right in their misconception about your people, having known and dated you for six years or more, he should have been able to put up a stout defense of you so much so he would have won two or more sympathies for his love for you.
If at this early stage in your relationship, he is unable to defend what he feels for you, vouch for your character and insist on his opinion of you, this man may never be able to give you the happiness you deserve.
Love and relationship lacking in boldness and loyalty don’t last, no matter how much one desires it.
As a matter of fact, you should view his offer for a secret relationship as pathetic and insulting.
Why should you be locked in the cupboard, away from the public to satisfy him and protect his cowardice at being unable to define what he wants?
Deep down, do you think him capable of accepting responsibilities arising from this secret arrangement when he couldn’t accept responsibility for his love for you the first time?
Sincerely, this secret arrangement, if you allow it is a recipe for more pains and heartaches for you. Being kept in the cupboard means he has to date another lady who has the backing of his family. It also means the family has the franchise to source and kick-start his wedding plans when they like. It also means he is incapable of controlling the tyranny of his family members who at every turn can come and go as they like in his affairs.
Despite your currently inability to do without him, is this the type of like you really want? A man you don’t have a measure of control over, one who has little disregard for your feelings? One who once his family makes an appearance on his life consigns you to the second position in his life or jettisons any plan you both have for his families?
His lack of concern for all the plans you both made, your joint dreams and hopes for the future over his family’s position should be warning for you to count your loss and look else where for a man who values you.
Doubtless, this arrangement provides you with the short-term option of continuing in the security of an old love, but in the long term, it may not be so noble because the pains and loneliness you are running from would come if not from him but from his family members who would feel the need to tighten their hold over him more than ever before if you show up again in his life.
The family position wouldn’t have made any difference if the man you have business with is determined or have the guts to protect you, maintain a fair balance between you and his family. That he gave you up to please his family makes this proposition of his laden with apprehension and cautions for you to be careful.
Besides, what does this offer you in terms of future security and happiness? Are you simply going to remain a shadow in his life while he pursues his other interests? What plans has he for you?
What makes you so sure he would have the guts he lacks now to defend you later? Any relationship that is shrouded in trial or ethnic controversies is always difficult to execute because issues, both real and imagined would always be brought up by its opposition to defend their stance. It takes the grace of God to even smile in such situations.
To gauge the depth of his feelings for you, insist he either continues to date you as his sole girlfriend while he looks for people who would help him convince his family about you or he completely forgets you.
His first option would have been to do and use every opportunity to change his family opinion of you, not to second you to a secret arrangement.
If at the end of the day, he insists on his options being better than your suggestions, let go.
Don’t worry about the attendant pains of bereavement you will feel at losing the love and familiarity of the man you gave six years of your life. Life is always a gamble where we win some and lose some.
God isn’t without a reason for this development but you have to give time the chance to heal you for hidden truth and beauty of this moment to show in your life.
The confusion is in your pains, not the divine reason this is happening to you. This is not the time to depend on your wisdom and strength, Go to God in prayers for proper definition of why this is so.
Good luck.
His attitude towards me has changed
With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I am 16 years of age, in love with a 22 year old boy whom I really care about. Our relationship is five months of age and he has indicated desire to marry me.
However, some weeks ago, I noticed a change in the love we have for each other. His calls as well as text messages have stopped. To cap it all he even instructs that I should stop not visit him for sometime because he is busy.
I however suspect another woman is the reason for his new attitude towards me. We have not had sex.
But I don’t know if I should wait for him with the hope that he would come back to me because I care so much about him. Please help me.
Worried Girl.
Dear Worried Girl,
At 16, your world is just evolving. Men would come and go with many promises. Your feelings like you are changing every second. The secret of your age is not to take yourself or any man coming to you too serious because like a newly hatched butterfly, you are beautiful, attractive and exciting to look at.
Men, both young and old who want something fresh, untouched would naturally find you irresistible. Don’t be deceived many have only the motive to tamper with your innocence, suck your fresh juice, leave you after they finish for another attractive flower.
It is a pattern that is as old as time which many innocent girls of your age has fallen victims to.
Be grateful, this man has the conscience not to have slept with you before putting up this barrier.
Your age calls not only for caution but focus because what you do today will determine the hues tomorrow would take.
Love is beautiful only when it comes in its season and with the right person. This man hasn’t done anything but helped you in a way to appreciate the dynamism of life, the reality that entrenched in a man/woman relationship.
Unless you take the step to position your life along the line of success, this would become a pattern in your life,
The time now is for you to protect your future by focusing on your education. Love is a consuming emotion. Sincerely, at your age you lack the stamina to combine it with your compulsory season of acquiring sound education. There is simply no way you can combine these two time consuming facets of life.
Your education requires your full concentration to give you value and serve you properly in life. Without you concentrating on it fully now, a time would come when you would require it but would lack the courage and time to be its devotee.
Love and relationship never ceases to be out of fashion but education does. After a while, the shame of seeing your friends passing out of school while you lack behind would frustrate any resolve you may nurture to go on. The torture of sitting in class with younger ones; some, old enough to be one’s children makes reading when the right season has passed very unattractive as well as aching.
Believe me the aches you feel now at being left by this man would be nothing compared to the pains of unfulfilled dreams as well as the constant lonely tears of missed opportunities. These tears are like cancerous wounds that never heal of its freshness and intensity especially when you see your once classmates in very prominent positions in the world.
Being young once, I know the feelings of first disappointment. I know all about the dim in the stars but with experience has come a very profound understanding that those feelings, both the love and its attendant disappointments are nothing compared to the real thing.
In time, you would meet your real destiny, one that has the potency of changing your life completely.
When it comes, you won’t need anybody to tell you. But for it to make sense, you have to prepare the foundation now for it. Forget this man and everything he represents. Even if he comes back, insist you want time to devote to your education and that your life has no space for him until you have achieved your educational goals.
This is not saying you cannot be friends with men but the limits have to be well defined; no commitments until you are able to balance the scale without one suffering for the other.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I am 16 years of age, in love with a 22 year old boy whom I really care about. Our relationship is five months of age and he has indicated desire to marry me.
However, some weeks ago, I noticed a change in the love we have for each other. His calls as well as text messages have stopped. To cap it all he even instructs that I should stop not visit him for sometime because he is busy.
I however suspect another woman is the reason for his new attitude towards me. We have not had sex.
But I don’t know if I should wait for him with the hope that he would come back to me because I care so much about him. Please help me.
Worried Girl.
Dear Worried Girl,
At 16, your world is just evolving. Men would come and go with many promises. Your feelings like you are changing every second. The secret of your age is not to take yourself or any man coming to you too serious because like a newly hatched butterfly, you are beautiful, attractive and exciting to look at.
Men, both young and old who want something fresh, untouched would naturally find you irresistible. Don’t be deceived many have only the motive to tamper with your innocence, suck your fresh juice, leave you after they finish for another attractive flower.
It is a pattern that is as old as time which many innocent girls of your age has fallen victims to.
Be grateful, this man has the conscience not to have slept with you before putting up this barrier.
Your age calls not only for caution but focus because what you do today will determine the hues tomorrow would take.
Love is beautiful only when it comes in its season and with the right person. This man hasn’t done anything but helped you in a way to appreciate the dynamism of life, the reality that entrenched in a man/woman relationship.
Unless you take the step to position your life along the line of success, this would become a pattern in your life,
The time now is for you to protect your future by focusing on your education. Love is a consuming emotion. Sincerely, at your age you lack the stamina to combine it with your compulsory season of acquiring sound education. There is simply no way you can combine these two time consuming facets of life.
Your education requires your full concentration to give you value and serve you properly in life. Without you concentrating on it fully now, a time would come when you would require it but would lack the courage and time to be its devotee.
Love and relationship never ceases to be out of fashion but education does. After a while, the shame of seeing your friends passing out of school while you lack behind would frustrate any resolve you may nurture to go on. The torture of sitting in class with younger ones; some, old enough to be one’s children makes reading when the right season has passed very unattractive as well as aching.
Believe me the aches you feel now at being left by this man would be nothing compared to the pains of unfulfilled dreams as well as the constant lonely tears of missed opportunities. These tears are like cancerous wounds that never heal of its freshness and intensity especially when you see your once classmates in very prominent positions in the world.
Being young once, I know the feelings of first disappointment. I know all about the dim in the stars but with experience has come a very profound understanding that those feelings, both the love and its attendant disappointments are nothing compared to the real thing.
In time, you would meet your real destiny, one that has the potency of changing your life completely.
When it comes, you won’t need anybody to tell you. But for it to make sense, you have to prepare the foundation now for it. Forget this man and everything he represents. Even if he comes back, insist you want time to devote to your education and that your life has no space for him until you have achieved your educational goals.
This is not saying you cannot be friends with men but the limits have to be well defined; no commitments until you are able to balance the scale without one suffering for the other.
Good luck.
My wife mustn’t hear another woman carries my baby
With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I am facing a problem over which I need your help. You are always doing a good job that you cannot be rewarded for by any man here on earth.
I got married to a lady who is very nice and decent. Out of impatience, she is currently nursing a baby girl.
There is this other lady I am very much in love with who claims she is pregnant for me. However, she insists on aborting the child and has gone further to say if I refuse to give her money to do it she would die.
I already have a child from my wife and she can’t come in as the second wife. I am now confused. Can I get any assistance from you?
Any contribution from you can assist me to handle this problem. I am 27 years of age. My wife is not aware of this.
Godwin.
Dear Godwin,
In the first instance what were you looking for outside your home? No matter the challenge you have in your marriage or issues with your wife, the solution have never been or will ever be infidelity.
Unfaithfulness is too high a price for couples to pay for wrong choices or problems within the marriage.
This is because it doesn’t just end with the unfaithful party looking for emergency happiness or satisfactions in the arms of an available person, it is an open invitation to many sundry problems some which if not properly managed could cause permanent pains to both the guilty and the innocent.
In retrospect, which would have been easier to manage, confronting and resolving the issues with your wife and marriage or going into this relationship? in going with this woman, you forget that marriage is never expected to be smooth sailing; that it comes with very wide and deep gullies which only patience and time can even out.
With the current development, you would have since realized that nobody is perfect and that no situation in life comes without prices to pay. When you decided to date this other lady, you probably thought you were being smart and wise in solving your matrimonial problem.
What is the confusion? When a man sleeps with a woman, the expected result is a baby. What did you expect when you went into a relationship and slept with her without protection? You knew you had a wife and child at home and that you weren’t ready to marry two wives, yet you didn’t see anything wrong in having an affair and unprotected sex with another woman?
You are matured enough to know that when a woman and man come together in intimacy a lot of things result from the union. For her, it is immaterial whether you have a baby and wife at home or not. What she concerns her is that pregnancy and what you must do to help her get out of the impending social doom that comes from such a situation.
It is obviously too late to have regrets. The deed has been done. You both need full-blown understanding to tackle this issue. First is to find ways of calming her down to prevent rash and life-threatening incidents. If she is already threatening suicide, don’t ignore or tempt her into doing it. No matter what it takes, be very patient and understanding of her situation until the disaster is averted.
If she is also insisting on abortion, hear her out for the reason she is nursing taking her own life. This is certainly not time for you to insist on doing anything your way. Demand to know why she wants the baby aborted. Pretend to go with her on it. This is to give you time to wear her stubbornness down, to come up with an alternative that would produce another result different from what she is intending.
From this beginning know that abortion is out of the picture since you both didn’t bother to prevent it. But wisely refrain from telling her this now since it would only aggravate the current situation.
However, you have to think up something to sway her from harming herself. What precisely do you intend to do with mother and child? If you cannot bring them to the house, how do you want to incorporate them into your life that would be fair to everyone concerned?
Whatever, conclusions you come up with this woman, put the issue of the child first especially if you told her from the beginning that you were married with a child. It means you don’t have many obligations to her since you gave her the option through your declaration of your marital status to opt out or not.
This means she cannot blackmail you into marrying her or providing fully for her. When an unmarried woman goes knowingly into a relationship with a married man and proceeds to having sex with him without insisting on protection, she cannot solely blame the man for not fully being responsible when pregnancy occurs because it is more of the responsibility of the woman to protect her body and life from situations that can harm her plans in life.
Even though you acted irresponsibly by going out of your matrimonial home, she is also not blameless hence must be ready to play her part in contributing to the welfare of the child having made the choice to selected a married man as its father.
But if you didn’t, you owe this woman more than that because it means you deceitfully lured her into a relationship you knew from the beginning lacked substance and future.
In this situation, you must not only make provisions for the baby but give her all the assurances she needs to continue with her life with limited consequences and liabilities.
This would involve you telling your wife irrespective of how unpalatable the situation it would generate. To shield your wife from this knowledge is to create a more complex situation in future and cause a permanent enmity and rivalry between the women and their children.
Naturally, your wife would not find the situation comfortable but she has to know to enable her adjust appropriately. This might require you introducing the two women to each other but make sure you don’t do this alone because it has the tendency of it boomeranging on you. There is no way your wife is going to be reasonable about sharing her man with another woman who has a child for him.
To achieve this, you would need the help of people very close to the two of you to gently break the news and talk her into meeting the other woman. But don’t expect instant solutions. It would take a long time to get there because the foundation is already defective.
It also means you have to bury whatever issues you have with her. Even if she through her own attitude drove you into the waiting arms of another woman, with what has happened, you have become the guilty one. A man has to be able at all times to manage his home and woman to have peace in his life.
At 27, you have to work extra hard not to be frustrated by the responsibilities involved in having two homes to prevent a situation where going from one woman to the other would become a pattern in your life. if you allow the seeming huge responsibilities to providing for these two women get at you, there is the tendency of you wanting to escape from it by going into the arms of another woman. It is a temptation, you must resist.
Furthermore, you have to make the effort to grow into the responsibilities your desires have brought you into by refusing to listen or capitulate to pressures of people who may want to divert you from doing what is right which is accepting your responsibilities for your actions.
Pray God gives you the wisdom and strength to overcome this challenge.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I am facing a problem over which I need your help. You are always doing a good job that you cannot be rewarded for by any man here on earth.
I got married to a lady who is very nice and decent. Out of impatience, she is currently nursing a baby girl.
There is this other lady I am very much in love with who claims she is pregnant for me. However, she insists on aborting the child and has gone further to say if I refuse to give her money to do it she would die.
I already have a child from my wife and she can’t come in as the second wife. I am now confused. Can I get any assistance from you?
Any contribution from you can assist me to handle this problem. I am 27 years of age. My wife is not aware of this.
Godwin.
Dear Godwin,
In the first instance what were you looking for outside your home? No matter the challenge you have in your marriage or issues with your wife, the solution have never been or will ever be infidelity.
Unfaithfulness is too high a price for couples to pay for wrong choices or problems within the marriage.
This is because it doesn’t just end with the unfaithful party looking for emergency happiness or satisfactions in the arms of an available person, it is an open invitation to many sundry problems some which if not properly managed could cause permanent pains to both the guilty and the innocent.
In retrospect, which would have been easier to manage, confronting and resolving the issues with your wife and marriage or going into this relationship? in going with this woman, you forget that marriage is never expected to be smooth sailing; that it comes with very wide and deep gullies which only patience and time can even out.
With the current development, you would have since realized that nobody is perfect and that no situation in life comes without prices to pay. When you decided to date this other lady, you probably thought you were being smart and wise in solving your matrimonial problem.
What is the confusion? When a man sleeps with a woman, the expected result is a baby. What did you expect when you went into a relationship and slept with her without protection? You knew you had a wife and child at home and that you weren’t ready to marry two wives, yet you didn’t see anything wrong in having an affair and unprotected sex with another woman?
You are matured enough to know that when a woman and man come together in intimacy a lot of things result from the union. For her, it is immaterial whether you have a baby and wife at home or not. What she concerns her is that pregnancy and what you must do to help her get out of the impending social doom that comes from such a situation.
It is obviously too late to have regrets. The deed has been done. You both need full-blown understanding to tackle this issue. First is to find ways of calming her down to prevent rash and life-threatening incidents. If she is already threatening suicide, don’t ignore or tempt her into doing it. No matter what it takes, be very patient and understanding of her situation until the disaster is averted.
If she is also insisting on abortion, hear her out for the reason she is nursing taking her own life. This is certainly not time for you to insist on doing anything your way. Demand to know why she wants the baby aborted. Pretend to go with her on it. This is to give you time to wear her stubbornness down, to come up with an alternative that would produce another result different from what she is intending.
From this beginning know that abortion is out of the picture since you both didn’t bother to prevent it. But wisely refrain from telling her this now since it would only aggravate the current situation.
However, you have to think up something to sway her from harming herself. What precisely do you intend to do with mother and child? If you cannot bring them to the house, how do you want to incorporate them into your life that would be fair to everyone concerned?
Whatever, conclusions you come up with this woman, put the issue of the child first especially if you told her from the beginning that you were married with a child. It means you don’t have many obligations to her since you gave her the option through your declaration of your marital status to opt out or not.
This means she cannot blackmail you into marrying her or providing fully for her. When an unmarried woman goes knowingly into a relationship with a married man and proceeds to having sex with him without insisting on protection, she cannot solely blame the man for not fully being responsible when pregnancy occurs because it is more of the responsibility of the woman to protect her body and life from situations that can harm her plans in life.
Even though you acted irresponsibly by going out of your matrimonial home, she is also not blameless hence must be ready to play her part in contributing to the welfare of the child having made the choice to selected a married man as its father.
But if you didn’t, you owe this woman more than that because it means you deceitfully lured her into a relationship you knew from the beginning lacked substance and future.
In this situation, you must not only make provisions for the baby but give her all the assurances she needs to continue with her life with limited consequences and liabilities.
This would involve you telling your wife irrespective of how unpalatable the situation it would generate. To shield your wife from this knowledge is to create a more complex situation in future and cause a permanent enmity and rivalry between the women and their children.
Naturally, your wife would not find the situation comfortable but she has to know to enable her adjust appropriately. This might require you introducing the two women to each other but make sure you don’t do this alone because it has the tendency of it boomeranging on you. There is no way your wife is going to be reasonable about sharing her man with another woman who has a child for him.
To achieve this, you would need the help of people very close to the two of you to gently break the news and talk her into meeting the other woman. But don’t expect instant solutions. It would take a long time to get there because the foundation is already defective.
It also means you have to bury whatever issues you have with her. Even if she through her own attitude drove you into the waiting arms of another woman, with what has happened, you have become the guilty one. A man has to be able at all times to manage his home and woman to have peace in his life.
At 27, you have to work extra hard not to be frustrated by the responsibilities involved in having two homes to prevent a situation where going from one woman to the other would become a pattern in your life. if you allow the seeming huge responsibilities to providing for these two women get at you, there is the tendency of you wanting to escape from it by going into the arms of another woman. It is a temptation, you must resist.
Furthermore, you have to make the effort to grow into the responsibilities your desires have brought you into by refusing to listen or capitulate to pressures of people who may want to divert you from doing what is right which is accepting your responsibilities for your actions.
Pray God gives you the wisdom and strength to overcome this challenge.
Good luck.
I love her but she doesn’t think so
With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.comTel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
Thanks a million for the wonderful medium you use in changing people’s lives for the better.
I am involved in a friendship is a year old. I love my partner deeply despite coming from different social class. I come from a very wealthy family while she comes from a struggling family in which only her widowed mother is the sole provider.
When we met last year and agreed to a relationship, our different backgrounds didn’t seem to matter so much to her but I noticed after a while, she started being uncomfortable around me. She first started by comparing her family with mine which naturally came with its own problems.
I have severally sat her down to desist from such self destructive thoughts; that life is full of challenges and difficulties. I also told her that with God, all things are possible but she is so adamant and has continued to put herself and family down.
Agatha, I love her so very much making me so helpless and confused about all these.
Mike.
Dear Mike,
You are on the right path which shows a very caring and loving heart. Don’t be discouraged; continue to encourage her to trust and belief in God.
Certain experiences and talks may have informed her attitude especially from friends who think such a relationship is impossible between the two of you. The onus is and would be on you for a long time to convince her that you indeed love her and that what you feel for her is solid enough to withstand the challenges of your different social classes.
Assure her that your love doesn’t come with tags of unequal social class because what you see in her is priceless. She has to have faith in you and your love to make her overcome her inherent fears of being hurt by you or rejection by your family on account of her social background.
You cannot convince alone by mere words. She has to feel your sincerity in all the various ways a woman knows her man cherishes her.
She has to see and feel it in your cares, your protection, your placement of her in your scale of preference, your concern for her welfare and understanding of her needs.
If you advertise sex as being the only reason you want her by your side, you will never be able to convince her of your truthfulness and desires for her.
Continue to be selfless and self serving to her and your love for each other by telling her that money has nothing to do with the feelings of love.
Overtime she would come to understand how much you mean to her.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
Thanks a million for the wonderful medium you use in changing people’s lives for the better.
I am involved in a friendship is a year old. I love my partner deeply despite coming from different social class. I come from a very wealthy family while she comes from a struggling family in which only her widowed mother is the sole provider.
When we met last year and agreed to a relationship, our different backgrounds didn’t seem to matter so much to her but I noticed after a while, she started being uncomfortable around me. She first started by comparing her family with mine which naturally came with its own problems.
I have severally sat her down to desist from such self destructive thoughts; that life is full of challenges and difficulties. I also told her that with God, all things are possible but she is so adamant and has continued to put herself and family down.
Agatha, I love her so very much making me so helpless and confused about all these.
Mike.
Dear Mike,
You are on the right path which shows a very caring and loving heart. Don’t be discouraged; continue to encourage her to trust and belief in God.
Certain experiences and talks may have informed her attitude especially from friends who think such a relationship is impossible between the two of you. The onus is and would be on you for a long time to convince her that you indeed love her and that what you feel for her is solid enough to withstand the challenges of your different social classes.
Assure her that your love doesn’t come with tags of unequal social class because what you see in her is priceless. She has to have faith in you and your love to make her overcome her inherent fears of being hurt by you or rejection by your family on account of her social background.
You cannot convince alone by mere words. She has to feel your sincerity in all the various ways a woman knows her man cherishes her.
She has to see and feel it in your cares, your protection, your placement of her in your scale of preference, your concern for her welfare and understanding of her needs.
If you advertise sex as being the only reason you want her by your side, you will never be able to convince her of your truthfulness and desires for her.
Continue to be selfless and self serving to her and your love for each other by telling her that money has nothing to do with the feelings of love.
Overtime she would come to understand how much you mean to her.
Good luck.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
I’m dying due to low self-esteem…
With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.comTel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I have a very low self-esteem despite my educational qualification. I am a graduate of Mass Communication.
From an early age, my sisters and I were given the impression by our parents that we were worth nothing, that only male children were the real children.
While we the female children were sent to public schools, the male children who are far younger were sent to good schools with boarding facilities. We grew up with the impression of being second hand citizens.
We were forbidden to have friends, both males and females. Our routine was house to school or church and then back to the house. We were not even allowed to visit relations.
Apart from this, we were often forced by beatings to admit to something we never did. So, whenever any issue comes up and our parents accuse us, we simply admit to doing it because whether we did it or not, we would still be punished, to the extent of acquiring injuries. Even as an adult today, the scares of those injuries are still very visible on my body.
Throughout my university days, I could not make any friend, even though I would have loved to have a good and reliable one. So often times I was labelled very proud an arrogant. No matter how hard I tried, I could not mingle.
Now, I am out of the university and working. I find it difficult relating with people the way I should. Because of this, some people think I am arrogant while others say I am aggressive but I know the truth of it all is that I am being hunted by a very high degree of low self-esteem and lack of confidence.
I cannot look at any body straight in the eyes. I feel very shy, even though I am not an introvert, yet I am not humorous. I don’t know how to make people around me warm and laugh.
My boss had told me to be more amiable and friendly but no matter how hard I try, it always seemed faked.
Besides this, I am a very fearful person. Any little thing scares me, makes me shiver and keeps me off balance. My boss and every other person at my office have noticed this weakness in me. Often times, I see myself as an underdog, I allow people to cheat me and go away unable to fight for my right.
Generally, I am very boring. I also think I am not very wise, smart and intelligent even though I am very beautiful.
Please I need your help, teach me to be a good and wholesome lady to everyone around me and even to my very self.
Joy.
Dear Joy,
There is no help anybody can render if you refuse to help yourself. If you continue to put yourself down, it is only expected that people would follow your example. You are what you say are. If you say you are worthless, unintelligent, dull and uninteresting, people will hook on to the signals you are transmitting to place you.
Deep down do you think, given the type of parents you have they would have wasted their resources on you if you weren’t intelligent or didn’t give them sufficient reasons to know they weren’t wasting their money on an unproductive investment? And do you think your boss would have kept you if he weren’t gaining anything from employing you? That he is only concerned about your disposition shows he is very satisfied with the quality of your job.
What happened has happened. The only way to change a bad past is with determined success. You must do everything within you to refocus your life from the path of hatred, low self-esteem to happiness for your sake as well as for the sake of your future children.
You must resolve to do things differently and successfully too by shunning everything that brings back those painful memories of yesteryears.
It is the only way to show your parents that they were wrong and unjust in the way they responded and treated you and your sisters as well as make them remorseful for all the things they did to you all.
What you are battling with is no longer the attitude of your parents but the memories of all the things they did to you. Your parents you can cope with by either avoiding them completely or challenging them with your success and forcing them to apologise to you and your sisters.
But you cannot confront your memories without a determination not to allow it affect the way you respond to things around you now that you are an adult. Memories are very powerful and potent so much so it can ruin success if not well managed.
The only way you can challenge these painful reminders of your past is remembering the good side of these people. Yes, the pains may be more but at least they didn’t stop you girls from acquiring an education. That you are today a graduate is a testimony of their acknowledgment of your rights as a human being. Many female children of parents like yours were never given a chance to go to school. Many of them became premature mothers even before they left their diaper years.
Be grateful that you didn’t have to struggle to get an education on your own or wife to a man you don’t love as well as mother to children you aren’t emotionally prepared or matured enough to nurture. Had any of these happened, your story could have been worse so be grateful that your parents despite their way of thinking still saw the need to send you to school.
Perhaps if you look at their attitude from another angle, the memory of your time with them might change a little with better understanding of why they did certain things.
Their willingness to sponsor your education to the university level, even if you attended public schools shows they were not totally indisposed to your welfare as a woman. Only a set of parents with sound educational value would sponsor their girls to school. Therefore their attitude could have been informed by other factors they were not prepared to disclose to you and your sisters.
One possibility is fear. The girl child is very delicate and the nightmare of many parents, who never cease to worry about the unexpected happening. Although, it is something they never admit to, the fear of a girl child being sexually abused or getting pregnant before her time is never far from the mind of a parent. From the beginning of creation, parents have had the challenge of how best to control and manipulate the hormonal influence on the girl child. This has led to parents and the society taking many measures, some very dehumanising, like circumcision to put the girl child under control.
Your parents may have adopted harshness and an uncaring attitude to put your sisters and you in check, a sort of measure to ensure you don’t get derailed. The used the weapon of fear to instil discipline. It is their way of ensuring you a solid moral ground. It is the only way they know.
You may not have found it funny but if you look at your experience as the desperation of a set to ensure their girls don’t go astray, your memories won’t hurt so much.
You need to feed your mind with something positive to neutralise whatever pains your past has imprinted on your mind.
In a way, you may never completely get over the memories but giving yourself the opportunity to trust in those around you would go a long way in helping your come to terms with your past as well as the peace to be happy with who you are, those around you and your choices.
Your parents were too hampered by their own fears to trust their daughters, hence their attitude. To overcome, you must learn to trust. With trust comes faith and with it come friendship and an understanding to do the impossible.
You don’t have to be a social butterfly to be friendly, but offering understanding and a smile could change the way a lot of people regard you. With it also comes the confidence to do the impossible.
Importantly, use whatever disadvantage of your past to build a new focus of strength for yourself. A lot of people have turned experiences like yours to their strength. God never allows anything to happen without a reason.
You are now an adult, no longer a child, hence cannot continue to blame your parents for your own decisions. You no longer have an excuse to blame your past because you are now responsible for your choices as well as the future. Very soon people around would get tired of you using your past as an excuse for your failure to do certain things. Then it wouldn’t be your parents’ problem but yours.
At this stage in your life, nobody can put you down if you don’t allow him or her. Nobody has the right to make your decisions for you if you don’t give them the right to. You are past the age of permission and have everything in you to effect changes in your life in the areas you don’t like. You don’t have to fight to have your rights restored. By simply and politely insisting on your rights and decisions would warn people against taking liberties with you.
Yes, your parents made a lousy job of parenting you. Since then, what have you done beyond blaming your parents for your woes, to give your life the colours it deserves to be happy?
Getting rid of your fears begins with believing in yourself and your abilities as a person. You are afraid because you have failed to identify what you are good at. Recognising it would give you the confidence to terminate fear in your life.
Asking God for His reasons as well as His desires would provide you with new dreams that might help secure the understanding of parents for their female children.
Our experiences in life are always meant to build us as well as help the society become better.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I have a very low self-esteem despite my educational qualification. I am a graduate of Mass Communication.
From an early age, my sisters and I were given the impression by our parents that we were worth nothing, that only male children were the real children.
While we the female children were sent to public schools, the male children who are far younger were sent to good schools with boarding facilities. We grew up with the impression of being second hand citizens.
We were forbidden to have friends, both males and females. Our routine was house to school or church and then back to the house. We were not even allowed to visit relations.
Apart from this, we were often forced by beatings to admit to something we never did. So, whenever any issue comes up and our parents accuse us, we simply admit to doing it because whether we did it or not, we would still be punished, to the extent of acquiring injuries. Even as an adult today, the scares of those injuries are still very visible on my body.
Throughout my university days, I could not make any friend, even though I would have loved to have a good and reliable one. So often times I was labelled very proud an arrogant. No matter how hard I tried, I could not mingle.
Now, I am out of the university and working. I find it difficult relating with people the way I should. Because of this, some people think I am arrogant while others say I am aggressive but I know the truth of it all is that I am being hunted by a very high degree of low self-esteem and lack of confidence.
I cannot look at any body straight in the eyes. I feel very shy, even though I am not an introvert, yet I am not humorous. I don’t know how to make people around me warm and laugh.
My boss had told me to be more amiable and friendly but no matter how hard I try, it always seemed faked.
Besides this, I am a very fearful person. Any little thing scares me, makes me shiver and keeps me off balance. My boss and every other person at my office have noticed this weakness in me. Often times, I see myself as an underdog, I allow people to cheat me and go away unable to fight for my right.
Generally, I am very boring. I also think I am not very wise, smart and intelligent even though I am very beautiful.
Please I need your help, teach me to be a good and wholesome lady to everyone around me and even to my very self.
Joy.
Dear Joy,
There is no help anybody can render if you refuse to help yourself. If you continue to put yourself down, it is only expected that people would follow your example. You are what you say are. If you say you are worthless, unintelligent, dull and uninteresting, people will hook on to the signals you are transmitting to place you.
Deep down do you think, given the type of parents you have they would have wasted their resources on you if you weren’t intelligent or didn’t give them sufficient reasons to know they weren’t wasting their money on an unproductive investment? And do you think your boss would have kept you if he weren’t gaining anything from employing you? That he is only concerned about your disposition shows he is very satisfied with the quality of your job.
What happened has happened. The only way to change a bad past is with determined success. You must do everything within you to refocus your life from the path of hatred, low self-esteem to happiness for your sake as well as for the sake of your future children.
You must resolve to do things differently and successfully too by shunning everything that brings back those painful memories of yesteryears.
It is the only way to show your parents that they were wrong and unjust in the way they responded and treated you and your sisters as well as make them remorseful for all the things they did to you all.
What you are battling with is no longer the attitude of your parents but the memories of all the things they did to you. Your parents you can cope with by either avoiding them completely or challenging them with your success and forcing them to apologise to you and your sisters.
But you cannot confront your memories without a determination not to allow it affect the way you respond to things around you now that you are an adult. Memories are very powerful and potent so much so it can ruin success if not well managed.
The only way you can challenge these painful reminders of your past is remembering the good side of these people. Yes, the pains may be more but at least they didn’t stop you girls from acquiring an education. That you are today a graduate is a testimony of their acknowledgment of your rights as a human being. Many female children of parents like yours were never given a chance to go to school. Many of them became premature mothers even before they left their diaper years.
Be grateful that you didn’t have to struggle to get an education on your own or wife to a man you don’t love as well as mother to children you aren’t emotionally prepared or matured enough to nurture. Had any of these happened, your story could have been worse so be grateful that your parents despite their way of thinking still saw the need to send you to school.
Perhaps if you look at their attitude from another angle, the memory of your time with them might change a little with better understanding of why they did certain things.
Their willingness to sponsor your education to the university level, even if you attended public schools shows they were not totally indisposed to your welfare as a woman. Only a set of parents with sound educational value would sponsor their girls to school. Therefore their attitude could have been informed by other factors they were not prepared to disclose to you and your sisters.
One possibility is fear. The girl child is very delicate and the nightmare of many parents, who never cease to worry about the unexpected happening. Although, it is something they never admit to, the fear of a girl child being sexually abused or getting pregnant before her time is never far from the mind of a parent. From the beginning of creation, parents have had the challenge of how best to control and manipulate the hormonal influence on the girl child. This has led to parents and the society taking many measures, some very dehumanising, like circumcision to put the girl child under control.
Your parents may have adopted harshness and an uncaring attitude to put your sisters and you in check, a sort of measure to ensure you don’t get derailed. The used the weapon of fear to instil discipline. It is their way of ensuring you a solid moral ground. It is the only way they know.
You may not have found it funny but if you look at your experience as the desperation of a set to ensure their girls don’t go astray, your memories won’t hurt so much.
You need to feed your mind with something positive to neutralise whatever pains your past has imprinted on your mind.
In a way, you may never completely get over the memories but giving yourself the opportunity to trust in those around you would go a long way in helping your come to terms with your past as well as the peace to be happy with who you are, those around you and your choices.
Your parents were too hampered by their own fears to trust their daughters, hence their attitude. To overcome, you must learn to trust. With trust comes faith and with it come friendship and an understanding to do the impossible.
You don’t have to be a social butterfly to be friendly, but offering understanding and a smile could change the way a lot of people regard you. With it also comes the confidence to do the impossible.
Importantly, use whatever disadvantage of your past to build a new focus of strength for yourself. A lot of people have turned experiences like yours to their strength. God never allows anything to happen without a reason.
You are now an adult, no longer a child, hence cannot continue to blame your parents for your own decisions. You no longer have an excuse to blame your past because you are now responsible for your choices as well as the future. Very soon people around would get tired of you using your past as an excuse for your failure to do certain things. Then it wouldn’t be your parents’ problem but yours.
At this stage in your life, nobody can put you down if you don’t allow him or her. Nobody has the right to make your decisions for you if you don’t give them the right to. You are past the age of permission and have everything in you to effect changes in your life in the areas you don’t like. You don’t have to fight to have your rights restored. By simply and politely insisting on your rights and decisions would warn people against taking liberties with you.
Yes, your parents made a lousy job of parenting you. Since then, what have you done beyond blaming your parents for your woes, to give your life the colours it deserves to be happy?
Getting rid of your fears begins with believing in yourself and your abilities as a person. You are afraid because you have failed to identify what you are good at. Recognising it would give you the confidence to terminate fear in your life.
Asking God for His reasons as well as His desires would provide you with new dreams that might help secure the understanding of parents for their female children.
Our experiences in life are always meant to build us as well as help the society become better.
Good luck.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Won’t air ticket to visit him sound too pushy?
With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.comTel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I keep wondering how you sit everyday to reply all the numerous mails you get. You are really doing an amazing work. I wish I could do this too. The lord will continue to strengthen you.
I met this guy online a year ago. He is 38 years of age, while I am 26. We are always chatting, and he is always calling me.
He recently promised to visit me in my base here in the United States, but only for him after a while to say he wouldn’t be able to come due to work pressure.
But I am thinking of asking him to buy me a ticket to visit him instead.
This is why I am writing to you. Do you think he would think I am too pushy? Agatha, I truly love this guy and would love to spend the rest of my life with him. He calls me everyday to declare his love for me, but I don’t know if he means it. He told me he wants us to get married next year, but I don’t know his family he doesn’t mine.
How can we be talking about marriage in that condition? Besides, I don’t know if he is real or mean what he tells me.
I am of the opinion that if he really loves me, he should trust me enough to buy me a ticket to come and see him.
I don’t want to lose this guy. I don’t want to stay in this country (USA) fooling myself that I have a man in Nigeria that everything is well between us. I want to know what my man looks like, know if he is married or not and if he is serious about me.
I am very confused.
Joycelyn
Dear Joycelyn,
You are right to be apprehensive about this arrangement. There is no way you can be discussing marriage with an abstract person, someone you know next to nothing about beyond what he tells you. Someone you have only met through phone, who only calls when he is at his best or you call when you are at your best.
How can you live with an image of each other which deep in your hearts you know isn’t real?
Using yourself as an example of the deceit we all put into telephone and internet conversation, do you think you are getting the worst of him or he getting that side of you that you both know is very ugly – one you keep in the darkest part of your cupboard which only very close people know about?
It is only logical that when we are striving for something like a relationship with the person we desperately want, we always put our best foot forward. There is no way you would show him especially through telephone conversation that side of you that might make him run away. He too would be careful not to tell you things or give you any inkling of things in his character that would make you put a distance between the two of you.
In marriage, the best side of a couple is usually not what sustains a relationship but the ability of the couple to manage the worst side of each other.
A lot is involved in making marriage work. Don’t forget marriage is about two completely different persons with dissimilar cultures, values, perceptions and family orientation coming together under one roof to form a home. Though they may really love each other but usually the dynamism of these inherent individual struggles most times put a big damper on things and a couple whose understanding of each other is very limited may find these discrepancies daunting and insurmountable.
Marriage is not all about laughs and happy endings. It is a twine of the bad, ugly and good. Before it can be called marriage it has to undergo pains, sacrifices, tolerance, patience, understanding, stressful moments and a lot of other hard work to be perfect.
If you don’t know what makes him laugh to be able to laugh with him when you really feel like crying or he doesn’t know what to say to get you out of a nasty mood, such a relationship risks going into extinction.
Quality trust too goes into making it work. With some many doubts swimming in your mind, further fuelled by the distance and the circumstances under which you met and still striving, the two of you must do something dramatic to give a foundation to the relationship.
These are things you don’t get to know through telephone conversations or emails. You both need to give yourselves physical time to develop as a couple.
By this, I am not implying sex but evolving a friendship that would frighten whatever challenges your different natures might bring into the relationship.
You need to know for instance what degree his real temperament is, just like he must also know about your attitude to things.
Marriage is more serious than two people talking over the phone everyday. If there is anyway you can afford the trip to and fro Nigeria, don’t ask him for money. Simply tell him you would like to come and visit your family here in Nigeria.
Asking him for money would probably frighten him off you especially if he has something to hide. He may also come up with an excuse on why he is unable to send the money. There are a lot of seemingly genuine excuses to give at any given time to deter from a true intention.
If your heart is really in this man, finding the money to pay your way would not be so difficult because when the hearts seeks something special, it doesn’t mind the cost and inconveniences that come with such desire.
Besides, it would give you the much-needed opportunity to find out the nagging issues bothering you.
If at 38 he remains unmarried your visit would unearth the real reason.
It would also help both of you build into the relationship the much needed trust to move beyond the point you are in now. This is because you would not just be helping yourself solve the puzzles you feel but him as well.
Granted, he may be truly busy, but it is still wise for both of you to formally meet after one year of dating through the Internet.
However, if you are not completely in a position to pay your full ticket to and fro Nigeria, let him know of your desire to come as well as your inability to completely fund your way. Without you asking, if he is really in love with you and curious to meet the woman he desires to marry, he would offer to share the fare with you.
But don’t ask if he doesn’t make the offer. Curiosity is part of love. He too should naturally be anxious to see and meet the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with.
As a matter of fact, you should be the only one who is inquisitive about knowing how your future partner looks and thinks.
However, you can know if you put your mind to it if he is hiding something from you by observing the particular time he calls you. If his calls are timed to fit a particular time, change it by calling him at a time when he should be at home sleeping.
If you haven’t asked before, demand to know why he is still single at 38. Listen to what he is not telling you rather than what he is telling you.
Allow sometime to pass before asking him again some patent questions about his true marital status. Take note of any inconsistency in his story.
A lot of time we ignore obvious signs because we have convinced ourselves to believe otherwise. Are you sure deep inside of you, you don’t already know the answers to the questions now bothering you?
This is the time for absolute honesty on your part to avoid a costly future mistake.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I keep wondering how you sit everyday to reply all the numerous mails you get. You are really doing an amazing work. I wish I could do this too. The lord will continue to strengthen you.
I met this guy online a year ago. He is 38 years of age, while I am 26. We are always chatting, and he is always calling me.
He recently promised to visit me in my base here in the United States, but only for him after a while to say he wouldn’t be able to come due to work pressure.
But I am thinking of asking him to buy me a ticket to visit him instead.
This is why I am writing to you. Do you think he would think I am too pushy? Agatha, I truly love this guy and would love to spend the rest of my life with him. He calls me everyday to declare his love for me, but I don’t know if he means it. He told me he wants us to get married next year, but I don’t know his family he doesn’t mine.
How can we be talking about marriage in that condition? Besides, I don’t know if he is real or mean what he tells me.
I am of the opinion that if he really loves me, he should trust me enough to buy me a ticket to come and see him.
I don’t want to lose this guy. I don’t want to stay in this country (USA) fooling myself that I have a man in Nigeria that everything is well between us. I want to know what my man looks like, know if he is married or not and if he is serious about me.
I am very confused.
Joycelyn
Dear Joycelyn,
You are right to be apprehensive about this arrangement. There is no way you can be discussing marriage with an abstract person, someone you know next to nothing about beyond what he tells you. Someone you have only met through phone, who only calls when he is at his best or you call when you are at your best.
How can you live with an image of each other which deep in your hearts you know isn’t real?
Using yourself as an example of the deceit we all put into telephone and internet conversation, do you think you are getting the worst of him or he getting that side of you that you both know is very ugly – one you keep in the darkest part of your cupboard which only very close people know about?
It is only logical that when we are striving for something like a relationship with the person we desperately want, we always put our best foot forward. There is no way you would show him especially through telephone conversation that side of you that might make him run away. He too would be careful not to tell you things or give you any inkling of things in his character that would make you put a distance between the two of you.
In marriage, the best side of a couple is usually not what sustains a relationship but the ability of the couple to manage the worst side of each other.
A lot is involved in making marriage work. Don’t forget marriage is about two completely different persons with dissimilar cultures, values, perceptions and family orientation coming together under one roof to form a home. Though they may really love each other but usually the dynamism of these inherent individual struggles most times put a big damper on things and a couple whose understanding of each other is very limited may find these discrepancies daunting and insurmountable.
Marriage is not all about laughs and happy endings. It is a twine of the bad, ugly and good. Before it can be called marriage it has to undergo pains, sacrifices, tolerance, patience, understanding, stressful moments and a lot of other hard work to be perfect.
If you don’t know what makes him laugh to be able to laugh with him when you really feel like crying or he doesn’t know what to say to get you out of a nasty mood, such a relationship risks going into extinction.
Quality trust too goes into making it work. With some many doubts swimming in your mind, further fuelled by the distance and the circumstances under which you met and still striving, the two of you must do something dramatic to give a foundation to the relationship.
These are things you don’t get to know through telephone conversations or emails. You both need to give yourselves physical time to develop as a couple.
By this, I am not implying sex but evolving a friendship that would frighten whatever challenges your different natures might bring into the relationship.
You need to know for instance what degree his real temperament is, just like he must also know about your attitude to things.
Marriage is more serious than two people talking over the phone everyday. If there is anyway you can afford the trip to and fro Nigeria, don’t ask him for money. Simply tell him you would like to come and visit your family here in Nigeria.
Asking him for money would probably frighten him off you especially if he has something to hide. He may also come up with an excuse on why he is unable to send the money. There are a lot of seemingly genuine excuses to give at any given time to deter from a true intention.
If your heart is really in this man, finding the money to pay your way would not be so difficult because when the hearts seeks something special, it doesn’t mind the cost and inconveniences that come with such desire.
Besides, it would give you the much-needed opportunity to find out the nagging issues bothering you.
If at 38 he remains unmarried your visit would unearth the real reason.
It would also help both of you build into the relationship the much needed trust to move beyond the point you are in now. This is because you would not just be helping yourself solve the puzzles you feel but him as well.
Granted, he may be truly busy, but it is still wise for both of you to formally meet after one year of dating through the Internet.
However, if you are not completely in a position to pay your full ticket to and fro Nigeria, let him know of your desire to come as well as your inability to completely fund your way. Without you asking, if he is really in love with you and curious to meet the woman he desires to marry, he would offer to share the fare with you.
But don’t ask if he doesn’t make the offer. Curiosity is part of love. He too should naturally be anxious to see and meet the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with.
As a matter of fact, you should be the only one who is inquisitive about knowing how your future partner looks and thinks.
However, you can know if you put your mind to it if he is hiding something from you by observing the particular time he calls you. If his calls are timed to fit a particular time, change it by calling him at a time when he should be at home sleeping.
If you haven’t asked before, demand to know why he is still single at 38. Listen to what he is not telling you rather than what he is telling you.
Allow sometime to pass before asking him again some patent questions about his true marital status. Take note of any inconsistency in his story.
A lot of time we ignore obvious signs because we have convinced ourselves to believe otherwise. Are you sure deep inside of you, you don’t already know the answers to the questions now bothering you?
This is the time for absolute honesty on your part to avoid a costly future mistake.
Good luck.
Guess she thinks I’m a gullible guy
With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.comTel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
There is this girl I really wish to marry. We started dating eight months ago. However, much as I love her there are certain flaws I have noticed in her character.
One of the flaws is her inability to take a firm decision on issues. For instance, unless she has the express permission of her aunty she is staying with she would refuse to do anything or take a decision.
It is so painful that even matters I consider to be confidential between us she shares with her aunty and does only what the aunty tells her to do about the matter.
Agatha, I am afraid that this attitude of hers can cause problems in future between us.
Another thing is while she enjoys confiding in her aunty, she doesn’t tell me anything and unless I accidentally find out and confront her with it, she won’t tell me a thing.
Naturally, this raises the issue of the quality of her feelings towards me. I think she doesn’t love me the way I love her.
It is painful because not only have I proposed to her but have refrained from any other relationship since I started dating her. Furthermore, I have shown her respect by telling her I won’t have sex with her until our wedding night especially as she claims to be a virgin.
But if her conduct is anything to go by, I am beginning to doubt this claim as she keeps receiving calls from different men every hour of the day.
I honestly don’t know what to make of this.
Agatha, in view of all these, do you think she is telling the truth about being a virgin or is she just playing me for a fool? How do I know if she is telling the truth and if she is the right woman for me?
Festus.
Dear Festus,
Trust is fundamental to the success of a relationship. That she gets calls from different men often doesn’t make her a liar. Don’t forget, she is still single. Hence, considered a free woman by all these men who also want her as much as you do.
She is at that age, when a woman is at her best, when it seems all the men in the world are magnetised by her beauty and scent. It is something she cannot help or prevent. It is a process everywoman goes through. These men would keep calling her, demanding for her attention and desiring her for a wife – whether she encourages them men or not. This is simply her prime when she is the most sought after flower in the garden. Just like you cannot prevent the pollination of flowers by the bees, so also you cannot prevent the thirst of men for a woman in her prime.
To distrust her on account of this would be most unfair. She cannot prevent the calls. Yes, you have the right to be angry over her liberally giving out her number to these men, but don’t use it as a benchmark to judge her loyalty to you.
The best thing you can do is to call her and let her know how you feel about the numerous male calls she regularly receives. Let her know precisely how you feel and the impressions these calls give you of her.
There is no way she would know, guess at your pains and despair if you don’t tell her. Don’t forget both of you grew up in different homes, under different morals, cultural and family beliefs. What may look right to you may be wrong where she is concerned. The period of a relationship is to help both parties fuse their differences; accommodate those things they cannot change and plan for their tomorrows.
Pointing out your discomfort with the calls she receives would help moderate her responses to these calls but you should also be careful over your attitude else it would drive her into keeping secrets from you. The best way to pass across your message is not to give her a fiat. If you do that you would simply be pushing her to be on the defensive, which may drive her away from you. Nobody likes to be put on the spot so be careful how you pass across your unease at the number of male admirers she has.
Merely teasing her about it is enough to convey your thoughts on the matter to her and would be most effective than any quarrel or orders you may give.
Knowing if she is telling the truth or not, would depend on what you place on the front burner. Her character would become apparent to you if you place the right values before you. For instance, if you base everything on her physical appearances, neglecting her moral values as well as those things she holds important, you may never get to know who she is.
Look beyond what she tells you and focus on her character as a person. Examine what she says and does. Is there a lot of difference? In the spirit of relationship building, point out any difference you observe between what she says and does or things you don’t understand.
This would not only give you a broader view into her person but enable you judge her fairly.
Many a time, we make the costly mistake of judging others from the premise of our own inadequacies as a person. We all come with patent faults and unless we allow ourselves to be corrected of those faults, we cannot change others around us. To know if this lady is telling the truth, examine yourself for lies and half-truths you have also told her. What are you hiding from her? What are those things you are not telling her? Clear your wardrobe first of any cobwebs before attempting to examine hers. You must learn first to trust yourself before you can trust in another person.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
There is this girl I really wish to marry. We started dating eight months ago. However, much as I love her there are certain flaws I have noticed in her character.
One of the flaws is her inability to take a firm decision on issues. For instance, unless she has the express permission of her aunty she is staying with she would refuse to do anything or take a decision.
It is so painful that even matters I consider to be confidential between us she shares with her aunty and does only what the aunty tells her to do about the matter.
Agatha, I am afraid that this attitude of hers can cause problems in future between us.
Another thing is while she enjoys confiding in her aunty, she doesn’t tell me anything and unless I accidentally find out and confront her with it, she won’t tell me a thing.
Naturally, this raises the issue of the quality of her feelings towards me. I think she doesn’t love me the way I love her.
It is painful because not only have I proposed to her but have refrained from any other relationship since I started dating her. Furthermore, I have shown her respect by telling her I won’t have sex with her until our wedding night especially as she claims to be a virgin.
But if her conduct is anything to go by, I am beginning to doubt this claim as she keeps receiving calls from different men every hour of the day.
I honestly don’t know what to make of this.
Agatha, in view of all these, do you think she is telling the truth about being a virgin or is she just playing me for a fool? How do I know if she is telling the truth and if she is the right woman for me?
Festus.
Dear Festus,
Trust is fundamental to the success of a relationship. That she gets calls from different men often doesn’t make her a liar. Don’t forget, she is still single. Hence, considered a free woman by all these men who also want her as much as you do.
She is at that age, when a woman is at her best, when it seems all the men in the world are magnetised by her beauty and scent. It is something she cannot help or prevent. It is a process everywoman goes through. These men would keep calling her, demanding for her attention and desiring her for a wife – whether she encourages them men or not. This is simply her prime when she is the most sought after flower in the garden. Just like you cannot prevent the pollination of flowers by the bees, so also you cannot prevent the thirst of men for a woman in her prime.
To distrust her on account of this would be most unfair. She cannot prevent the calls. Yes, you have the right to be angry over her liberally giving out her number to these men, but don’t use it as a benchmark to judge her loyalty to you.
The best thing you can do is to call her and let her know how you feel about the numerous male calls she regularly receives. Let her know precisely how you feel and the impressions these calls give you of her.
There is no way she would know, guess at your pains and despair if you don’t tell her. Don’t forget both of you grew up in different homes, under different morals, cultural and family beliefs. What may look right to you may be wrong where she is concerned. The period of a relationship is to help both parties fuse their differences; accommodate those things they cannot change and plan for their tomorrows.
Pointing out your discomfort with the calls she receives would help moderate her responses to these calls but you should also be careful over your attitude else it would drive her into keeping secrets from you. The best way to pass across your message is not to give her a fiat. If you do that you would simply be pushing her to be on the defensive, which may drive her away from you. Nobody likes to be put on the spot so be careful how you pass across your unease at the number of male admirers she has.
Merely teasing her about it is enough to convey your thoughts on the matter to her and would be most effective than any quarrel or orders you may give.
Knowing if she is telling the truth or not, would depend on what you place on the front burner. Her character would become apparent to you if you place the right values before you. For instance, if you base everything on her physical appearances, neglecting her moral values as well as those things she holds important, you may never get to know who she is.
Look beyond what she tells you and focus on her character as a person. Examine what she says and does. Is there a lot of difference? In the spirit of relationship building, point out any difference you observe between what she says and does or things you don’t understand.
This would not only give you a broader view into her person but enable you judge her fairly.
Many a time, we make the costly mistake of judging others from the premise of our own inadequacies as a person. We all come with patent faults and unless we allow ourselves to be corrected of those faults, we cannot change others around us. To know if this lady is telling the truth, examine yourself for lies and half-truths you have also told her. What are you hiding from her? What are those things you are not telling her? Clear your wardrobe first of any cobwebs before attempting to examine hers. You must learn first to trust yourself before you can trust in another person.
Good luck.
I’m in love with my friend’s sister…
With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I am 15 years old and I am in love with a girl who is two years younger. Her brother is my best friend and he doesn’t want the two of us to date. Please what should I do?
Worried boy.
Dear Worried Boy,
At 15, what do you know about and by love? What do you understand it to be? Do you know the responsibilities that come with the feelings of love? Do you know the self-denial that goes with falling in love, at your age especially? Do you know the havoc an unguarded moment can bring to your life and the girl’s in particular?
There is no contesting the fact that at your age, love is one big field of beautiful colours, sign of maturity, licence of freedom and liberty. Yes, love is all these but it is much more. Behind all the beautiful features you see, there are reality signposts hidden beneath.
For instance, what happens if you and this girl, who is barely a baby herself, get into a compromising situation and do what you should not do? Are you ready for the responsibilities that come from a man and woman sleeping together? Behind the euphoria of expression of this sexual excitement is one big issue – the arrival of an unplanned baby.
Do you have what it takes to care for yourself, the lady and the baby that would come from the process of expressing your love for each other?
Doubtless love is wonderful feeling but it has to be packaged into the jacket of responsibility for it to remain wonderful.
The issue here is not whether you have a right to fall in love with her or not, but if you should allow the feelings overflow? Clearly, at 15, you are not equipped spiritually, financially, physically, emotionally and materially to cope with the attendant complications that come with being in love.
At the age you are in now, your hormones are at their most, exciting, destructive and unfortunately at their most aggressive. This is because they make you so aware and conscious of your sexuality and potentials. Giving in to their demands may give you temporary freedom, but in the long run they leave you empty and vulnerable when pregnancy occurs, when you are made to fend for the premature family these hormones caused you to have while your mates are busying pursuing their education.
This is the reason her brother and every other adult near you both would never support the relationship.
She especially has more to lose. Her dignity, innocence, freedom, future, respect and life are just a few of the things she would lose. Would you ever be able to compensate her for all these losses if you get her pregnant now? Would you ever be able to regain all the opportunities that would be forfeited by both of you if you allow this untimely love take root?
This is a feeling that should never be given the opportunity to grow because the season for it has not come yet.
At 13 she is nothing but a baby. Like you, she is not knowledgeable about the consequences of the bedroom game beyond the on the spot excitement she would enjoy being with you.
Love at your age is a bitter pill. It is infatuation, a deadly chemical substance that is very harmful to your life and soul.
Love is selflessness, respect, tolerance, patience, care, understanding and support. Which of these do you feel for this girl? Do you feel the need to put on hold your desires for her and support her instead to realise her dream? Do you have the desire to protect her, care for her at all times beyond having her in your bed and arms?
If your libido is what is propelling you to her, please don’t infect her life. There is no harm to be friends with her provided whatever you do with her is done in public. The regrets associated with premature lovemaking never go away – lives on forever. What she needs is a friend, be that friend, not a lover. If you indeed love her, you would bury whatever feelings you have for her until the reason is right because a flower plucked before its season is useless to itself and the person that plucked it.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I am 15 years old and I am in love with a girl who is two years younger. Her brother is my best friend and he doesn’t want the two of us to date. Please what should I do?
Worried boy.
Dear Worried Boy,
At 15, what do you know about and by love? What do you understand it to be? Do you know the responsibilities that come with the feelings of love? Do you know the self-denial that goes with falling in love, at your age especially? Do you know the havoc an unguarded moment can bring to your life and the girl’s in particular?
There is no contesting the fact that at your age, love is one big field of beautiful colours, sign of maturity, licence of freedom and liberty. Yes, love is all these but it is much more. Behind all the beautiful features you see, there are reality signposts hidden beneath.
For instance, what happens if you and this girl, who is barely a baby herself, get into a compromising situation and do what you should not do? Are you ready for the responsibilities that come from a man and woman sleeping together? Behind the euphoria of expression of this sexual excitement is one big issue – the arrival of an unplanned baby.
Do you have what it takes to care for yourself, the lady and the baby that would come from the process of expressing your love for each other?
Doubtless love is wonderful feeling but it has to be packaged into the jacket of responsibility for it to remain wonderful.
The issue here is not whether you have a right to fall in love with her or not, but if you should allow the feelings overflow? Clearly, at 15, you are not equipped spiritually, financially, physically, emotionally and materially to cope with the attendant complications that come with being in love.
At the age you are in now, your hormones are at their most, exciting, destructive and unfortunately at their most aggressive. This is because they make you so aware and conscious of your sexuality and potentials. Giving in to their demands may give you temporary freedom, but in the long run they leave you empty and vulnerable when pregnancy occurs, when you are made to fend for the premature family these hormones caused you to have while your mates are busying pursuing their education.
This is the reason her brother and every other adult near you both would never support the relationship.
She especially has more to lose. Her dignity, innocence, freedom, future, respect and life are just a few of the things she would lose. Would you ever be able to compensate her for all these losses if you get her pregnant now? Would you ever be able to regain all the opportunities that would be forfeited by both of you if you allow this untimely love take root?
This is a feeling that should never be given the opportunity to grow because the season for it has not come yet.
At 13 she is nothing but a baby. Like you, she is not knowledgeable about the consequences of the bedroom game beyond the on the spot excitement she would enjoy being with you.
Love at your age is a bitter pill. It is infatuation, a deadly chemical substance that is very harmful to your life and soul.
Love is selflessness, respect, tolerance, patience, care, understanding and support. Which of these do you feel for this girl? Do you feel the need to put on hold your desires for her and support her instead to realise her dream? Do you have the desire to protect her, care for her at all times beyond having her in your bed and arms?
If your libido is what is propelling you to her, please don’t infect her life. There is no harm to be friends with her provided whatever you do with her is done in public. The regrets associated with premature lovemaking never go away – lives on forever. What she needs is a friend, be that friend, not a lover. If you indeed love her, you would bury whatever feelings you have for her until the reason is right because a flower plucked before its season is useless to itself and the person that plucked it.
Good luck.
My wife is ungodly
With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I am a reasonable man that has a bright future but got married to an ungodly wife determined to ruin my life.
It took me a while to notice that she isn’t the person I thought she was. This is because her mien is innocent and gentle. However underneath is a very volatile person, one people close to her try so much to avoid.
To cut the story short we are separated. She actually ran away with our children.
If I don’t part with money, she won’t allow me see my children.
What pains me the most is the fact that she isn’t taking good care of the children. I want to enroll the eldest one in a good school but she is refusing my request.
Agatha, what can I do now because I am fed up with this woman? She isn’t hiding the fact that she plans to injure me whenever I come near my children. My children are my future; my family members have tried their best to settle the matter but it was in vain.
I need your assistance. Please help me by giving me the best way to solve this problem. I am too young for this problem and don’t know how to handle this. I don’t want to die untimely.
Bode.
Dear Bode,
This matter has gone beyond your family alone. Her family must be involved in this matter too.
Besides involving her family, you must also be truthful to yourself. Granted she may have her faults but there is no way she could have done it alone.
Somewhere along the line, you may have done one or two things to provoke her reaction.
When issues get this complicated in a marriage or relationship, the best approach remains dialogue.
Given the attendant bitterness and trading of blames that accompany every troubled marriage or relationship, you won’t achieve any success if you insist on discussing anything with her on your own. She is still hurting just as you are and only time would help both of you heal sufficiently to come to an agreement that would suit you both.
To insist on her listening to you in her present state of mind is to drive a wedge further between the two of you. Irrespective of what you currently feel about each other, the presence of the children makes it inevitable for both of you to continue to relate as friends.
You may have decided to live your lives separately but resist allowing your soured feelings get into the way of the welfare of the children. You can forgive each other but those children will never forgive you both if they end up becoming the victims of your troubled marriage.
For this reason, you may have to stop forcing her to allow you visit the children. Presentation matters a lot. Your current approach maybe the reasons she is resisting your request. Both of you are still too raw to be able to deal with seeing each other.
Understandably, a lot of things went wrong while you were living together as a couple. The fact that both of you lacked the patience and determination not to allow your differences and disappointments tear both of you apart, be careful these same factors don’t make your children your enemies eventually.
Whether you or she likes it or not, both of you cannot continue to ignore the presence of each other. A time would come when you would need to create the avenue for discussion because of the children. The way you handle your current impasse would determine how far you go in getting that cooperation from her.
The reason being she currently has the children living with her. To the outside world, she is the one who has been traumatized and is forced to run for safety. Even though you say you are the victim, not many people would believe you.
Going to her to insist on seeing the children would ultimately lead to a major disagreement between the two of you and that would definitely work against you. How many people are you going to try to convince that she is the real problem?
For this reason you have to be tactical because what you think is her fault, others may see as her strength.
Besides, when it comes to marital dispute, nobody is ever blameless.
As a man you are to blame for being unable to understudy your wife, know when to ignore her, turn her negative side to her strength, grow the determination to be her friend and as such wean her of what you consider a threat to the peace of your home. The fact that you lacked what it takes to manage a woman with her kind of temper is itself a fault on your part. Selflessness and sacrifices are what make the difference between marital success and failure.
The kind of temper you say she has, isn’t the kind that can go unnoticed. You must have felt the heat of her temper during your courtship days. That you ignored it or had the courage to put up with it at that time without pausing to think of the long term implication of living with her kind of person, couldn’t have been her making. It was your choice and the ideal thing and way forward is to accept your own mistakes in the mess your marriage to her has become.
You should have realized that for those children to grow into the kind of persons you want them to be, they would need stability in your reactions to their mother’s temperament.
Being honest with yourself at this difficult juncture of your life would help you to put things in proper perspective.
It is the only way to let go of all the built up bitterness and tensions your marriage went through as well as provide you with the energizer you need to face your new marital challenges.
After speaking with members of her family and explaining what you want for the time being, seek the help of a mutual friend to be the in-between. This friend, apart from trying to appeal your case to her would be your witness in future. He or she would be able to answer for you when the children begin to ask questions concerning the efforts you made to see or get them.
This friend should also witness all the financial transaction between your wife and you concerning the welfare of the children.
If she isn’t taking care of them the way you want, get an accommodation for her, discuss the kind of school you want the child to enroll with her on the phone without making her appear inadequate or insensitive to the needs of the children.
Being their mother, she is naturally equipped to care for the children but this isn’t to say that if you notice things you don’t like, you should keep quiet. She has friends and family members you can talk to.
Beyond the issue of preserving the welfare of your children, there is also the need for you to rethink your options.
Isn’t there anything you can do to pull your marriage out of the woods? What lessons have you learnt from all these things happening by her packing out and the welfare of the children? Is there a possibility that the two of you can come back to make it work? What sacrifices are you willing to make?
There is always that point in our lives when we look back with regrets at some of our actions in the past.
In a decade from now, how would you feel about this woman and the decision to end the marriage?
Whatever you are going through, good wisdom demands you tarry to enable you think clearly of your options.
There is no one that is perfect. We all come with defective manuals from God. Marriage provides us with the support base to be near perfect. Couples are supposed to learn from each other. You are to help this woman overcome her weakness just as she is supposed to help you overcome yours.
Going back to your starting point would help both of you, especially you recall the important things in your union. She couldn’t have been this bad when you started out with her. If she has become absolutely bad, pause to ask yourself your own contributions to her present state of the mind.
Knowing where you went wrong would help point you at the solution. It would assist you to understand how much support you must give her to get the kind of results you need to be happy with her.
I say this because you aren’t sure what kind of woman you are going to meet after her. What if she turns out to be worse than this one you are leaving?
Even if she is ungodly like you say, there is nothing prayers cannot do. If you really trust in your God, these habits are things you can really pray out of her life. A lot of times we fight over things that can easily be resolved through prayers.
If you made a mistake marrying without first asking God, don’t make another one by leaving her without first seeking the face of God. It is very important to avoid huge regrets in your life later in life.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I am a reasonable man that has a bright future but got married to an ungodly wife determined to ruin my life.
It took me a while to notice that she isn’t the person I thought she was. This is because her mien is innocent and gentle. However underneath is a very volatile person, one people close to her try so much to avoid.
To cut the story short we are separated. She actually ran away with our children.
If I don’t part with money, she won’t allow me see my children.
What pains me the most is the fact that she isn’t taking good care of the children. I want to enroll the eldest one in a good school but she is refusing my request.
Agatha, what can I do now because I am fed up with this woman? She isn’t hiding the fact that she plans to injure me whenever I come near my children. My children are my future; my family members have tried their best to settle the matter but it was in vain.
I need your assistance. Please help me by giving me the best way to solve this problem. I am too young for this problem and don’t know how to handle this. I don’t want to die untimely.
Bode.
Dear Bode,
This matter has gone beyond your family alone. Her family must be involved in this matter too.
Besides involving her family, you must also be truthful to yourself. Granted she may have her faults but there is no way she could have done it alone.
Somewhere along the line, you may have done one or two things to provoke her reaction.
When issues get this complicated in a marriage or relationship, the best approach remains dialogue.
Given the attendant bitterness and trading of blames that accompany every troubled marriage or relationship, you won’t achieve any success if you insist on discussing anything with her on your own. She is still hurting just as you are and only time would help both of you heal sufficiently to come to an agreement that would suit you both.
To insist on her listening to you in her present state of mind is to drive a wedge further between the two of you. Irrespective of what you currently feel about each other, the presence of the children makes it inevitable for both of you to continue to relate as friends.
You may have decided to live your lives separately but resist allowing your soured feelings get into the way of the welfare of the children. You can forgive each other but those children will never forgive you both if they end up becoming the victims of your troubled marriage.
For this reason, you may have to stop forcing her to allow you visit the children. Presentation matters a lot. Your current approach maybe the reasons she is resisting your request. Both of you are still too raw to be able to deal with seeing each other.
Understandably, a lot of things went wrong while you were living together as a couple. The fact that both of you lacked the patience and determination not to allow your differences and disappointments tear both of you apart, be careful these same factors don’t make your children your enemies eventually.
Whether you or she likes it or not, both of you cannot continue to ignore the presence of each other. A time would come when you would need to create the avenue for discussion because of the children. The way you handle your current impasse would determine how far you go in getting that cooperation from her.
The reason being she currently has the children living with her. To the outside world, she is the one who has been traumatized and is forced to run for safety. Even though you say you are the victim, not many people would believe you.
Going to her to insist on seeing the children would ultimately lead to a major disagreement between the two of you and that would definitely work against you. How many people are you going to try to convince that she is the real problem?
For this reason you have to be tactical because what you think is her fault, others may see as her strength.
Besides, when it comes to marital dispute, nobody is ever blameless.
As a man you are to blame for being unable to understudy your wife, know when to ignore her, turn her negative side to her strength, grow the determination to be her friend and as such wean her of what you consider a threat to the peace of your home. The fact that you lacked what it takes to manage a woman with her kind of temper is itself a fault on your part. Selflessness and sacrifices are what make the difference between marital success and failure.
The kind of temper you say she has, isn’t the kind that can go unnoticed. You must have felt the heat of her temper during your courtship days. That you ignored it or had the courage to put up with it at that time without pausing to think of the long term implication of living with her kind of person, couldn’t have been her making. It was your choice and the ideal thing and way forward is to accept your own mistakes in the mess your marriage to her has become.
You should have realized that for those children to grow into the kind of persons you want them to be, they would need stability in your reactions to their mother’s temperament.
Being honest with yourself at this difficult juncture of your life would help you to put things in proper perspective.
It is the only way to let go of all the built up bitterness and tensions your marriage went through as well as provide you with the energizer you need to face your new marital challenges.
After speaking with members of her family and explaining what you want for the time being, seek the help of a mutual friend to be the in-between. This friend, apart from trying to appeal your case to her would be your witness in future. He or she would be able to answer for you when the children begin to ask questions concerning the efforts you made to see or get them.
This friend should also witness all the financial transaction between your wife and you concerning the welfare of the children.
If she isn’t taking care of them the way you want, get an accommodation for her, discuss the kind of school you want the child to enroll with her on the phone without making her appear inadequate or insensitive to the needs of the children.
Being their mother, she is naturally equipped to care for the children but this isn’t to say that if you notice things you don’t like, you should keep quiet. She has friends and family members you can talk to.
Beyond the issue of preserving the welfare of your children, there is also the need for you to rethink your options.
Isn’t there anything you can do to pull your marriage out of the woods? What lessons have you learnt from all these things happening by her packing out and the welfare of the children? Is there a possibility that the two of you can come back to make it work? What sacrifices are you willing to make?
There is always that point in our lives when we look back with regrets at some of our actions in the past.
In a decade from now, how would you feel about this woman and the decision to end the marriage?
Whatever you are going through, good wisdom demands you tarry to enable you think clearly of your options.
There is no one that is perfect. We all come with defective manuals from God. Marriage provides us with the support base to be near perfect. Couples are supposed to learn from each other. You are to help this woman overcome her weakness just as she is supposed to help you overcome yours.
Going back to your starting point would help both of you, especially you recall the important things in your union. She couldn’t have been this bad when you started out with her. If she has become absolutely bad, pause to ask yourself your own contributions to her present state of the mind.
Knowing where you went wrong would help point you at the solution. It would assist you to understand how much support you must give her to get the kind of results you need to be happy with her.
I say this because you aren’t sure what kind of woman you are going to meet after her. What if she turns out to be worse than this one you are leaving?
Even if she is ungodly like you say, there is nothing prayers cannot do. If you really trust in your God, these habits are things you can really pray out of her life. A lot of times we fight over things that can easily be resolved through prayers.
If you made a mistake marrying without first asking God, don’t make another one by leaving her without first seeking the face of God. It is very important to avoid huge regrets in your life later in life.
Good luck.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Should I intervene in my brother’s marriage?
Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I have written to you about the challenges in my marriage in the past, and thank God for the advice you gave me. I followed it and although the problems are not yet fully solved, but I believe we are moving in the right direction. God Bless you real good.
I am writing you now because of my younger and only brother. I have never been very close to him and although I knew he had problems with his wife. Who hasn’t? I did not realise how bad it was until last week when I learnt that he had asked his wife of 19 years, who gave him five children, to leave the house. When she refused, he hit her and that was when she called me. When I tried to involve my mother, aunt, and other sisters, I learnt all of them were in agreement she should leave the house. If not for my intervention, her parents were going to involve the police in this latest quarrel.
I understand that they have not lived together as man and wife for more than two years now, and that my brother has accused her of adultery and insisted he can never have anything else to do with her. I am not holding brief for her because I know that a woman left for over two years without her man is open to all kinds of temptation. However, I do not support her leaving the house because I know that the moment she does so, another woman will move in and bring on all the problems of a polygamous home. Fortunately for me, she also is adamant to leave.
I do not know all the details, but in conversation with a few of my siblings, they heaped all manner of accusations on her - some of which I know are true.
She is very arrogant and considers herself superior to her husband, she has a doctorate degree while he has master.
She does not keep the house well – both in the town and the village – being the only wife with my other sisters married and my mother away from the village.
She does not consider herself a part of the family after so long – she has never bought anything for the home in the village and all her income goes to her people.
She has exhibited some of these behaviours towards me, but being the person that I am, I overlooked them. And when she tried to come closer to me, I welcomed her not knowing it was because she had quarrelled with all the others that she came to make peace with me.
My own understanding of the problems is:
There is a very bitter rivalry between my brother and my mother who has been widowed for a long time and his wife. My brother is her only son.
My brother is not a Christian and his wife claims to be.
It is well known that people from her state consider themselves superior to people from mine. Also, as a general rule, they are also used to channelling all their income to their maiden homes rather than to their married homes.
She is by nature a very untidy/dirty person.
However, I am aware that it takes two to quarrel and that even I have had difficulties in managing my relationship with both my brother and my mother, because of our differences in ideology. In that regard, I understand that my sister-in-law may not have done the right things, she is also up against a daunting task in managing these two.
Considering that I am not close to my brother, I am not sure if I should intervene, especially as he has not told me, and that I do not know all the facts. Because of the bitter rivalry between my mother and my sister-in-law, I know my mother is the wrong person, to be fair, and that’s the reason I involved my aunt. However, it looks like my aunt is also towing the line of my sisters, having gone there once to mediate and coming away to tell me that our in-laws annoyed her by the way and manner they behaved. She said rather than try to mediate, they were giving conditions to my brother.
What I want you to advise me on is:
Do you think I should intervene even at the risk of getting a brush off from my brother?
If you advise me to intervene, how do I tackle this issue? What angle do I tackle it from?
Concerned Sister.
Dear Concerned Sister,
No matter the quality of relationship that exists between you and your brother, please intervene. From all that you have said, you appear to be the only person who has the right frame of mind to help your brother resolve this issue amicably.
Since you already know what to expect from him, refuse to be offended by him or his response to your efforts at making him see reason.
It would help a great deal if you anchor your intervention on the welfare of his children. Try to make him understand that whatever support as well as assurances he may be getting from your mother and other siblings that they would help with the children may not always be there because your sisters have families of their own and your mother will not be around forever.
Besides, as the only boy, his children are the only ones to carry your father’s name, hence the need to ensure everything is done by him to protect your father’s legacy. It is important he realises that the children are usually the ones that suffer most when parents are having problems. He must have a favourite among his children. It will help a great deal if you are able to enlist the help of the children, especially the one closet to his heart to present the case of your sister-in-law.
With the help of the children, you would at least succeed in making him listen to whatever you have to say. Don’t count on him agreeing with you on anything you say immediately. But it would help you assess how much damage has been done by both parties to the union and how best to salvage a very bad situation. It would also give you the right picture in your brother’s mindset.
For now, sidetrack your brother, aunt and mother. See how you can get your nieces and nephews first. Tell him of your mission and how they think you can get their parents to agree with you. Being insiders, listen to their views concerning their parents. In talking to them, you will see the full picture of the task before you. They would act as your middle persons in the task of bringing their parents together. Your talk with them will help you to establish the truth concerning this situation. There is no way they would all take sides with a particular parent against the other. No matter how divided the children are, by the time you listen to all five of them, you would get a near perfect understanding of what is happening.
Having them on your side would make it possible to talk senses into your brother as well a sister-in-law who also has to change if she hopes to stay in her husband’s house. It is one thing for you to convince your brother to allow his wife stay, while it is another thing getting her to change her ways. There is no way you can negotiate her stay if she insists her ways are the only one known to her. Having lived with your brother for 19 years, she ought to know by now those things that make him angry. There are sacrifices she must be ready to make for the sake of her home and her children.
This is one point you must make clear to her. Granted, she is up against a formidable opponent in your mother, but if she is wise and humble, she can overcome it. To help her to stay, it is pertinent she gives respect to whom respect is due. She is a mother and would one day become a mother-in-law. How would she feel if her daughter-in-law tries to cause a division between her and her son? Mothers-in-law are often than not huge problems in most marriages, but given their respect and dues, they can be contained. She must be ready to be more accommodative of your mother whose only son she is married to.
It is also important you get to speak with her family. Call the mother especially and appeal to her to ensure she helps her daughter stay in that house. Once she isn’t getting the right kind of support from her family, chances are she would settle down to make her marriage work.
Be fair to both your brother and her. Where you have to apportion blame, don’t hesitate it is the only way to make both of them see reasons.
Your brother has to understand that leaving his wife isn’t a solution but knowing where to draw the line between his mother and wife. He must understand that, even if his present wife leaves, the next woman may not be able to cope if the situation remains same.
If he insists she should go, ask him what he would do if it were your husband asking you to go? Don’t try to justify anything either of them has done to the other. The simple truth remains that no marriage is without its challenges. By sharing some of yours with them would further help them come to the need for both of them to talk, no matter how unpleasant it may be.
Once he sees your intervention as sincere, not meant to ridicule him, he will overtime come to appreciate your involvement.
To get the best out of these two, begin by asking to find out from them what the problems really are. This approach is to earn you their confidence. It underscores your concern as well as resolution to be fair to everybody.
Whatever happens, it is important you don’t feel offended by any of them if you really want to restore peace in this home. It is also necessary for you to talk to your mother. She too should allow her son make his mistakes and grow his marriage.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I have written to you about the challenges in my marriage in the past, and thank God for the advice you gave me. I followed it and although the problems are not yet fully solved, but I believe we are moving in the right direction. God Bless you real good.
I am writing you now because of my younger and only brother. I have never been very close to him and although I knew he had problems with his wife. Who hasn’t? I did not realise how bad it was until last week when I learnt that he had asked his wife of 19 years, who gave him five children, to leave the house. When she refused, he hit her and that was when she called me. When I tried to involve my mother, aunt, and other sisters, I learnt all of them were in agreement she should leave the house. If not for my intervention, her parents were going to involve the police in this latest quarrel.
I understand that they have not lived together as man and wife for more than two years now, and that my brother has accused her of adultery and insisted he can never have anything else to do with her. I am not holding brief for her because I know that a woman left for over two years without her man is open to all kinds of temptation. However, I do not support her leaving the house because I know that the moment she does so, another woman will move in and bring on all the problems of a polygamous home. Fortunately for me, she also is adamant to leave.
I do not know all the details, but in conversation with a few of my siblings, they heaped all manner of accusations on her - some of which I know are true.
She is very arrogant and considers herself superior to her husband, she has a doctorate degree while he has master.
She does not keep the house well – both in the town and the village – being the only wife with my other sisters married and my mother away from the village.
She does not consider herself a part of the family after so long – she has never bought anything for the home in the village and all her income goes to her people.
She has exhibited some of these behaviours towards me, but being the person that I am, I overlooked them. And when she tried to come closer to me, I welcomed her not knowing it was because she had quarrelled with all the others that she came to make peace with me.
My own understanding of the problems is:
There is a very bitter rivalry between my brother and my mother who has been widowed for a long time and his wife. My brother is her only son.
My brother is not a Christian and his wife claims to be.
It is well known that people from her state consider themselves superior to people from mine. Also, as a general rule, they are also used to channelling all their income to their maiden homes rather than to their married homes.
She is by nature a very untidy/dirty person.
However, I am aware that it takes two to quarrel and that even I have had difficulties in managing my relationship with both my brother and my mother, because of our differences in ideology. In that regard, I understand that my sister-in-law may not have done the right things, she is also up against a daunting task in managing these two.
Considering that I am not close to my brother, I am not sure if I should intervene, especially as he has not told me, and that I do not know all the facts. Because of the bitter rivalry between my mother and my sister-in-law, I know my mother is the wrong person, to be fair, and that’s the reason I involved my aunt. However, it looks like my aunt is also towing the line of my sisters, having gone there once to mediate and coming away to tell me that our in-laws annoyed her by the way and manner they behaved. She said rather than try to mediate, they were giving conditions to my brother.
What I want you to advise me on is:
Do you think I should intervene even at the risk of getting a brush off from my brother?
If you advise me to intervene, how do I tackle this issue? What angle do I tackle it from?
Concerned Sister.
Dear Concerned Sister,
No matter the quality of relationship that exists between you and your brother, please intervene. From all that you have said, you appear to be the only person who has the right frame of mind to help your brother resolve this issue amicably.
Since you already know what to expect from him, refuse to be offended by him or his response to your efforts at making him see reason.
It would help a great deal if you anchor your intervention on the welfare of his children. Try to make him understand that whatever support as well as assurances he may be getting from your mother and other siblings that they would help with the children may not always be there because your sisters have families of their own and your mother will not be around forever.
Besides, as the only boy, his children are the only ones to carry your father’s name, hence the need to ensure everything is done by him to protect your father’s legacy. It is important he realises that the children are usually the ones that suffer most when parents are having problems. He must have a favourite among his children. It will help a great deal if you are able to enlist the help of the children, especially the one closet to his heart to present the case of your sister-in-law.
With the help of the children, you would at least succeed in making him listen to whatever you have to say. Don’t count on him agreeing with you on anything you say immediately. But it would help you assess how much damage has been done by both parties to the union and how best to salvage a very bad situation. It would also give you the right picture in your brother’s mindset.
For now, sidetrack your brother, aunt and mother. See how you can get your nieces and nephews first. Tell him of your mission and how they think you can get their parents to agree with you. Being insiders, listen to their views concerning their parents. In talking to them, you will see the full picture of the task before you. They would act as your middle persons in the task of bringing their parents together. Your talk with them will help you to establish the truth concerning this situation. There is no way they would all take sides with a particular parent against the other. No matter how divided the children are, by the time you listen to all five of them, you would get a near perfect understanding of what is happening.
Having them on your side would make it possible to talk senses into your brother as well a sister-in-law who also has to change if she hopes to stay in her husband’s house. It is one thing for you to convince your brother to allow his wife stay, while it is another thing getting her to change her ways. There is no way you can negotiate her stay if she insists her ways are the only one known to her. Having lived with your brother for 19 years, she ought to know by now those things that make him angry. There are sacrifices she must be ready to make for the sake of her home and her children.
This is one point you must make clear to her. Granted, she is up against a formidable opponent in your mother, but if she is wise and humble, she can overcome it. To help her to stay, it is pertinent she gives respect to whom respect is due. She is a mother and would one day become a mother-in-law. How would she feel if her daughter-in-law tries to cause a division between her and her son? Mothers-in-law are often than not huge problems in most marriages, but given their respect and dues, they can be contained. She must be ready to be more accommodative of your mother whose only son she is married to.
It is also important you get to speak with her family. Call the mother especially and appeal to her to ensure she helps her daughter stay in that house. Once she isn’t getting the right kind of support from her family, chances are she would settle down to make her marriage work.
Be fair to both your brother and her. Where you have to apportion blame, don’t hesitate it is the only way to make both of them see reasons.
Your brother has to understand that leaving his wife isn’t a solution but knowing where to draw the line between his mother and wife. He must understand that, even if his present wife leaves, the next woman may not be able to cope if the situation remains same.
If he insists she should go, ask him what he would do if it were your husband asking you to go? Don’t try to justify anything either of them has done to the other. The simple truth remains that no marriage is without its challenges. By sharing some of yours with them would further help them come to the need for both of them to talk, no matter how unpleasant it may be.
Once he sees your intervention as sincere, not meant to ridicule him, he will overtime come to appreciate your involvement.
To get the best out of these two, begin by asking to find out from them what the problems really are. This approach is to earn you their confidence. It underscores your concern as well as resolution to be fair to everybody.
Whatever happens, it is important you don’t feel offended by any of them if you really want to restore peace in this home. It is also necessary for you to talk to your mother. She too should allow her son make his mistakes and grow his marriage.
Good luck.
I’m a single mother in need of companionship
Agatha Edowomaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com, 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I am an ardent reader of your column and I must say that you are a blessing to humanity.
I need your honest advice on this matter. I am a single mother of one; this is as a result of separation from my husband who eventually died before we could be reconciled.
I was separated from my husband for about three and a half years before he died. I didn’t have any other relationship with any other man until after his death.
I was a Christian before the tragedy. The pains of his death were so deep that I actually backslid and started dating a married man with the hope of becoming his second wife.
As God would have it, three years into the relationship, I became conscious of the mess I was in after certain things happened which gave me the strength to retrace my steps and break up the unholy union.
Since breaking the relationship, some other men have come and gone but I’ve not been able to make up my mind about any of them because of fear.
Then, sometime last year, a neighbour told me about her husband’s friend who lives in the United Kingdom who was looking for a wife.
According to her, she recommended me to him on the strength of my cordial relationship with her. She told me the man was eager to speak with me on the phone. At first, I rebuffed him since I didn’t believe in long distant relationships but, I changed my mind when we began to talk on the phone every night. I actually began to develop interest in him and hope in the relationship.
After a while, I discovered I could not sleep or go a day without speaking to him and all of a sudden his calls ceased and all attempts to reach him were fruitless. He neither picked my calls nor replied my numerous text messages or e-mails. I was really devastated. When I mentioned it to my neighbour, she was speechless and offered to call him but she never did.
Two weeks after, I decided to try his line and he picked the call but to my surprise, he sounded as if nothing ever happened. When I asked him what happened and why he wasn’t picking my calls, he said he just didn’t feel like picking any call that week. He also denied telling my neighbour to look for a wife for him but only asked her to look for a professional friend for him. I felt very insulted but not wanting to sound desperate I agreed to be his friend.
Now, he calls me whenever he feels like but any time I travel outside Lagos, he calls me every night with the intentions of monitoring my movement in the hotel.
I later got to know he was married before but that it didn’t work out. He hasn’t said a word about this to me so I also didn’t bother to ask. I also did not tell him about my son but he got to know and when he asked I told him about my son.
Agatha, do you think any thing good can come out of this relationship?
Mary.
Dear Mary,
It would depend on how honest both of you are to each other and your pasts. You cannot accuse him of being disloyal to you for refusing to tell you about his past because you too weren’t honest with yours.
You can only feel bad if you had told him everything about your past. There is no way he would be sensitive to your feelings, appreciate your fears and give you the assurances you need to overcome this period of your life if he doesn’t know anything about your separation and subsequent death of your former husband.
He would continue to treat you anyhow because he doesn’t know that you are back in the relationship market as a result of your unfortunate experiences. He has to know you are like him; that yesterday’s pains, betrayals and disappointments have made you very vulnerable and apprehensive.
Telling him would enable him know that he just cannot treat you like a young single woman.
Whosoever gave him the information about your son must have told him about your marital status so this was your cue to tell him everything about that time of your life was when he asked about your son. It was not only your son he was asking you about, he was also indirectly demanding you trust him with the story of your past.
Maybe if you had told him everything about you, he might also have told you about his failed marriage.
Like you, he has his reasons for not telling you but that shouldn’t have made you keep quiet about yours. It is most difficult for a man to trust a woman than it is for a woman to trust a man. Your failure to tell him about your late husband may have driven some fears into him about your type of person. He isn’t sure he can trust you.
Although his feelings and attitude may not hold water given he is as guilty as you are but, it still should not stop you from telling him the truth. Even as friends, you owe each other honesty.
There is no way you can build a relationship on dishonesty, shadows of fear and hurts of the past. You both have experiences and issues you should bury in the past.
He has to do away with the attendant disappointments that coloured his first marriage while you too must overcome all the experiences that first led you to leave your matrimonial home and the feelings of guilt that you are battling with over the death of your husband.
Although, you didn’t expressly say, the guilt of not being by his side as his wife when he died may be the reason you are refusing to discuss him or the incidents that happened with this man, but you cannot continue to blame yourself for the decisions you took then. He died because it was his time to go, there was no way your presence by his side could have prevented it.
Not talking about it would not make the guilt less or delete it from your memory. You just must find the strength to go on by being very honest about all the issues in your life.
It is not just about this man who also may not be very serious but because of another man who may really like to start something serious and permanent with you. The information would help men who come your way treat you with more tenderness than other women.
As for this man, don’t build too much hope on your friendship. Take each day as it comes and when someone else comes you way, consider that person but only after you have reconciled with God in every way.
Remember you made your choices; God didn’t make them for you so don’t injure yourself by laying the blames of your disappointments in life or the death of your husband on Him. Yes, He could have prevented him from dying but who are we to question the authority of God?
You are making too many mistakes because you are refusing to take the loving hands God is offering you. Go to Him in prayers and repentance if you want to be happy again.
Starting again after a failed marriage or the death of a loved spouse isn’t easy. Sometimes, the experiences are so bitter and frustrating. This is the time you need to be at peace with God and to be at your wisest so you don’t end up acting out of desperation which appears to be the stage you are in now. Desperation can make one susceptible to deadly mistakes.
Slow down, take stock and revaluate your visions for your tomorrows. Between the time you first got married and now, a lot of things must have changed. It would do you a world of good to factor in your new perspectives on life into your new dreams as well as that of your son. It is only when you get this new vision that you would know with all clarity, who among the many men swimming around you would make you most happy.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I am an ardent reader of your column and I must say that you are a blessing to humanity.
I need your honest advice on this matter. I am a single mother of one; this is as a result of separation from my husband who eventually died before we could be reconciled.
I was separated from my husband for about three and a half years before he died. I didn’t have any other relationship with any other man until after his death.
I was a Christian before the tragedy. The pains of his death were so deep that I actually backslid and started dating a married man with the hope of becoming his second wife.
As God would have it, three years into the relationship, I became conscious of the mess I was in after certain things happened which gave me the strength to retrace my steps and break up the unholy union.
Since breaking the relationship, some other men have come and gone but I’ve not been able to make up my mind about any of them because of fear.
Then, sometime last year, a neighbour told me about her husband’s friend who lives in the United Kingdom who was looking for a wife.
According to her, she recommended me to him on the strength of my cordial relationship with her. She told me the man was eager to speak with me on the phone. At first, I rebuffed him since I didn’t believe in long distant relationships but, I changed my mind when we began to talk on the phone every night. I actually began to develop interest in him and hope in the relationship.
After a while, I discovered I could not sleep or go a day without speaking to him and all of a sudden his calls ceased and all attempts to reach him were fruitless. He neither picked my calls nor replied my numerous text messages or e-mails. I was really devastated. When I mentioned it to my neighbour, she was speechless and offered to call him but she never did.
Two weeks after, I decided to try his line and he picked the call but to my surprise, he sounded as if nothing ever happened. When I asked him what happened and why he wasn’t picking my calls, he said he just didn’t feel like picking any call that week. He also denied telling my neighbour to look for a wife for him but only asked her to look for a professional friend for him. I felt very insulted but not wanting to sound desperate I agreed to be his friend.
Now, he calls me whenever he feels like but any time I travel outside Lagos, he calls me every night with the intentions of monitoring my movement in the hotel.
I later got to know he was married before but that it didn’t work out. He hasn’t said a word about this to me so I also didn’t bother to ask. I also did not tell him about my son but he got to know and when he asked I told him about my son.
Agatha, do you think any thing good can come out of this relationship?
Mary.
Dear Mary,
It would depend on how honest both of you are to each other and your pasts. You cannot accuse him of being disloyal to you for refusing to tell you about his past because you too weren’t honest with yours.
You can only feel bad if you had told him everything about your past. There is no way he would be sensitive to your feelings, appreciate your fears and give you the assurances you need to overcome this period of your life if he doesn’t know anything about your separation and subsequent death of your former husband.
He would continue to treat you anyhow because he doesn’t know that you are back in the relationship market as a result of your unfortunate experiences. He has to know you are like him; that yesterday’s pains, betrayals and disappointments have made you very vulnerable and apprehensive.
Telling him would enable him know that he just cannot treat you like a young single woman.
Whosoever gave him the information about your son must have told him about your marital status so this was your cue to tell him everything about that time of your life was when he asked about your son. It was not only your son he was asking you about, he was also indirectly demanding you trust him with the story of your past.
Maybe if you had told him everything about you, he might also have told you about his failed marriage.
Like you, he has his reasons for not telling you but that shouldn’t have made you keep quiet about yours. It is most difficult for a man to trust a woman than it is for a woman to trust a man. Your failure to tell him about your late husband may have driven some fears into him about your type of person. He isn’t sure he can trust you.
Although his feelings and attitude may not hold water given he is as guilty as you are but, it still should not stop you from telling him the truth. Even as friends, you owe each other honesty.
There is no way you can build a relationship on dishonesty, shadows of fear and hurts of the past. You both have experiences and issues you should bury in the past.
He has to do away with the attendant disappointments that coloured his first marriage while you too must overcome all the experiences that first led you to leave your matrimonial home and the feelings of guilt that you are battling with over the death of your husband.
Although, you didn’t expressly say, the guilt of not being by his side as his wife when he died may be the reason you are refusing to discuss him or the incidents that happened with this man, but you cannot continue to blame yourself for the decisions you took then. He died because it was his time to go, there was no way your presence by his side could have prevented it.
Not talking about it would not make the guilt less or delete it from your memory. You just must find the strength to go on by being very honest about all the issues in your life.
It is not just about this man who also may not be very serious but because of another man who may really like to start something serious and permanent with you. The information would help men who come your way treat you with more tenderness than other women.
As for this man, don’t build too much hope on your friendship. Take each day as it comes and when someone else comes you way, consider that person but only after you have reconciled with God in every way.
Remember you made your choices; God didn’t make them for you so don’t injure yourself by laying the blames of your disappointments in life or the death of your husband on Him. Yes, He could have prevented him from dying but who are we to question the authority of God?
You are making too many mistakes because you are refusing to take the loving hands God is offering you. Go to Him in prayers and repentance if you want to be happy again.
Starting again after a failed marriage or the death of a loved spouse isn’t easy. Sometimes, the experiences are so bitter and frustrating. This is the time you need to be at peace with God and to be at your wisest so you don’t end up acting out of desperation which appears to be the stage you are in now. Desperation can make one susceptible to deadly mistakes.
Slow down, take stock and revaluate your visions for your tomorrows. Between the time you first got married and now, a lot of things must have changed. It would do you a world of good to factor in your new perspectives on life into your new dreams as well as that of your son. It is only when you get this new vision that you would know with all clarity, who among the many men swimming around you would make you most happy.
Good luck.
Re: I want a child of my own
Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Lady T,
In addition to the great advice Auntie Agatha has offered, please kindly allow me to offer my own little experience, and results of various studies.
It will be nice and very productive, if you can pay a little more attention to your spiritual life. Use this opportunity to draw closer to God through Christ Jesus. Pray everyday, at least 10 minutes between 12am and 1am, pray like Hannah, don’t voice out your petitions. One difference between God and Satan is that Satan cannot read the heart: that is why silent prayers are more potent, since he won’t know where you are coming from.
Visit some anointed, tested, and trusted men of God and let them pray with you.
Remove your mind from desperation, anxiety and how bad your situation is. There are people out there you are by far better than, at least, from your write up you are not to be blamed for the situation. Flexing about the situation can only cause the release of counter-productive hormones; that will damage your body and worsen the situation, leading to more complex abnormal behaviour. So, try and relax to avoid messing up and destabilising the normal functions of your body and reproductive system.
Whenever despair, desperation and anxiety flood your mind, for it must come, wave them aside by telling yourself things like: “Is it a must that every one must have children?”, “Is having children the main purpose of my existence?”, “The main purpose of my existence is to serve God, improve my quality of life and those of people around me”, “having a child is a privilege not a right.” Tell yourself these to resist the demon of worry, but that doesn’t mean you will stop working quietly, silently and seriously towards having your own child.
If people are mounting pressure on you, overcome by demonstrating acceptance of your situation as well as confidence in the abilities of your God to do all things. If you give people clue you are bothered about your situation, they will bother you the more, but if you show them that it doesn’t matter, every body will allow you be. After all, this is 21st Century; how you live your life is no one’s business, as long as you are not causing anyone pains.
Reduce the frequency of your intercourse with your husband a bit to once in every three to five days. Since the doctors said you and your husband are all right, it means you are wearing your husband down with frequent sex demand, which is making that healthy semen lack quality. Allow his body to build quality sperms, thick and milky, which happens every three to five days and can shoot down any woman both fertile and infertile alike by faith.
Have sex more during your ovulation (I think Auntie Agatha said that), two days before and two days after. I hope you can pinpoint your ovulation?
For the premature ejaculation, make sure you have an orgasm or two before your hubby goes in.
Concerning semen coming out of your system after action, I have to humbly add, my personal study has shown that this malady is more common in women that are not fully aroused, wet and genitally ready before intercourse. When a woman if fully aroused the end of the birth canal, where it joins with the cervix (uterus/womb) tips downwards and forms a little loop or cup, ready to take the semen. I have watched a video on how this happens. But if the woman is not fully aroused this place is just relaxed and straight when semen comes it is easy to slip back, especially if the woman stands up.
So allow yourself to get aroused, very wet, get into the action, mind, body, and soul, and if possible, have an orgasm or two before the main cuisine. Studies have shown that the various fluids (juices) women secrete/release during foreplay/orgasm stage helps the semen to have enough swimming pool space to swim in while rushing to meet the ovum/egg. It is simple, liquid flow well and longer on a wet surface than on a dry surface, which tends to absorb them up or block their flow. As well, they have the correct ph value, texture etc for various varying body conditions, to aid conception by preparing the way for the mighty semen to pass. The vaginal wall has been found to absorb semen.
In fact sex selection techniques are based on pinpointing ovulation and manipulating the characteristics of these juices women secrete. So allow yourself to get in the mood, relax and enjoy the show, it is one of the ways nature pays women back for the pains they go through at childbirth, before long one or two beautiful bundles will be whimpering and smiling in your arms.
The best position for conception, in addition to placing a pillow under you in missionary position is the notorious doggy style or going from behind. This offers the deepest penetration, thereby the deposition of the semen as close as possible, sometimes even directly inside the uterus. Studies have shown that missionary position, no matter how deep, causes the deposition of the semen outside and underneath the mouth of the cervix. The downwards-bended position already assumed by you in this position, offers a steep slope for the semen to easily flow downwards, and easily into the uterus, especially if you maintain the position for five to 15 minutes after ejaculation, without immediate penile withdrawal.
But no matter what in every action some amount of seed will still leak out but these are by far very irrelevant to the quantity that has already gone in.
Pay attention to your body too, eat more fruits, healthy fluids like fresh juice, vegetables and less salt, carbohydrates, fats and these chemically processed foods that are now in vogue in Nigeria. Exercise 30 minutes of brisk walking three times a week is okay. If you come back after this, you feel so refreshed as if drained of excess baggage and stuff, it feels great, eases stress and lowers blood pressure.
Let your husband eat more fruit also at least one apple per day, the sperm is made basically of vitamins, hormones, with some body protein and little fats/oil. That is why it works wonders as facial cream.
Fruits and vegetable loving people have very healthy and physically beautiful kids. Cook vegetable soup more often, and eat it with garri mixed with soybean powder (1 cup of garri to 2 cups of soybean), they works wonders on the body.
But, above all these, God still holds the say in what we have or have not (Romans 9:15-16), plead for His kindness and faithful mercy everyday.
Finally and truthfully, remember, having a child isn’t a must it is just a privilege some of us may not obtain. So don’t let it stop you from enjoying the sweetness of life. For definitely I tell you, life is good.
Collins.
Dear Lady T,
In addition to the great advice Auntie Agatha has offered, please kindly allow me to offer my own little experience, and results of various studies.
It will be nice and very productive, if you can pay a little more attention to your spiritual life. Use this opportunity to draw closer to God through Christ Jesus. Pray everyday, at least 10 minutes between 12am and 1am, pray like Hannah, don’t voice out your petitions. One difference between God and Satan is that Satan cannot read the heart: that is why silent prayers are more potent, since he won’t know where you are coming from.
Visit some anointed, tested, and trusted men of God and let them pray with you.
Remove your mind from desperation, anxiety and how bad your situation is. There are people out there you are by far better than, at least, from your write up you are not to be blamed for the situation. Flexing about the situation can only cause the release of counter-productive hormones; that will damage your body and worsen the situation, leading to more complex abnormal behaviour. So, try and relax to avoid messing up and destabilising the normal functions of your body and reproductive system.
Whenever despair, desperation and anxiety flood your mind, for it must come, wave them aside by telling yourself things like: “Is it a must that every one must have children?”, “Is having children the main purpose of my existence?”, “The main purpose of my existence is to serve God, improve my quality of life and those of people around me”, “having a child is a privilege not a right.” Tell yourself these to resist the demon of worry, but that doesn’t mean you will stop working quietly, silently and seriously towards having your own child.
If people are mounting pressure on you, overcome by demonstrating acceptance of your situation as well as confidence in the abilities of your God to do all things. If you give people clue you are bothered about your situation, they will bother you the more, but if you show them that it doesn’t matter, every body will allow you be. After all, this is 21st Century; how you live your life is no one’s business, as long as you are not causing anyone pains.
Reduce the frequency of your intercourse with your husband a bit to once in every three to five days. Since the doctors said you and your husband are all right, it means you are wearing your husband down with frequent sex demand, which is making that healthy semen lack quality. Allow his body to build quality sperms, thick and milky, which happens every three to five days and can shoot down any woman both fertile and infertile alike by faith.
Have sex more during your ovulation (I think Auntie Agatha said that), two days before and two days after. I hope you can pinpoint your ovulation?
For the premature ejaculation, make sure you have an orgasm or two before your hubby goes in.
Concerning semen coming out of your system after action, I have to humbly add, my personal study has shown that this malady is more common in women that are not fully aroused, wet and genitally ready before intercourse. When a woman if fully aroused the end of the birth canal, where it joins with the cervix (uterus/womb) tips downwards and forms a little loop or cup, ready to take the semen. I have watched a video on how this happens. But if the woman is not fully aroused this place is just relaxed and straight when semen comes it is easy to slip back, especially if the woman stands up.
So allow yourself to get aroused, very wet, get into the action, mind, body, and soul, and if possible, have an orgasm or two before the main cuisine. Studies have shown that the various fluids (juices) women secrete/release during foreplay/orgasm stage helps the semen to have enough swimming pool space to swim in while rushing to meet the ovum/egg. It is simple, liquid flow well and longer on a wet surface than on a dry surface, which tends to absorb them up or block their flow. As well, they have the correct ph value, texture etc for various varying body conditions, to aid conception by preparing the way for the mighty semen to pass. The vaginal wall has been found to absorb semen.
In fact sex selection techniques are based on pinpointing ovulation and manipulating the characteristics of these juices women secrete. So allow yourself to get in the mood, relax and enjoy the show, it is one of the ways nature pays women back for the pains they go through at childbirth, before long one or two beautiful bundles will be whimpering and smiling in your arms.
The best position for conception, in addition to placing a pillow under you in missionary position is the notorious doggy style or going from behind. This offers the deepest penetration, thereby the deposition of the semen as close as possible, sometimes even directly inside the uterus. Studies have shown that missionary position, no matter how deep, causes the deposition of the semen outside and underneath the mouth of the cervix. The downwards-bended position already assumed by you in this position, offers a steep slope for the semen to easily flow downwards, and easily into the uterus, especially if you maintain the position for five to 15 minutes after ejaculation, without immediate penile withdrawal.
But no matter what in every action some amount of seed will still leak out but these are by far very irrelevant to the quantity that has already gone in.
Pay attention to your body too, eat more fruits, healthy fluids like fresh juice, vegetables and less salt, carbohydrates, fats and these chemically processed foods that are now in vogue in Nigeria. Exercise 30 minutes of brisk walking three times a week is okay. If you come back after this, you feel so refreshed as if drained of excess baggage and stuff, it feels great, eases stress and lowers blood pressure.
Let your husband eat more fruit also at least one apple per day, the sperm is made basically of vitamins, hormones, with some body protein and little fats/oil. That is why it works wonders as facial cream.
Fruits and vegetable loving people have very healthy and physically beautiful kids. Cook vegetable soup more often, and eat it with garri mixed with soybean powder (1 cup of garri to 2 cups of soybean), they works wonders on the body.
But, above all these, God still holds the say in what we have or have not (Romans 9:15-16), plead for His kindness and faithful mercy everyday.
Finally and truthfully, remember, having a child isn’t a must it is just a privilege some of us may not obtain. So don’t let it stop you from enjoying the sweetness of life. For definitely I tell you, life is good.
Collins.
Should I stop bothering him?
Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
Thank you for the good work you have been doing. Please I need your advice urgently. I am a 20-year-old undergraduate and in a relationship with a boy who, like me, is also a student. I am not the demanding type, but my boyfriend doesn’t call or send me text messages often. We hardly spend time together, lies about personal information especially his present and his past. Sometimes, I feel lonely and as though am with a stranger, because I don’t think we communicate enough, because if I don’t do the calling he wouldn’t bother for about three weeks or one month. I really love this guy but he’s totally different now, all these have been going on for about six months now. Do you think I should still give him some time or should I call it quits? Thank you.
Lonely Girl.
Dear Lonely Girl,
Let him chase you a bit. You are the woman and he is the man. It is his duty to run after you. I appreciate that it might be a difficult thing to do considering the fact that you actually love him, but resist calling him for sometime. It would enable you gauge his true feelings for you. If he misses you so much, he would definitely come back after sometime.
If he doesn’t, forget him and move on. You are still young and able to begin again. It would be such a waste of time if you spend precious time at 20 running after a man who isn’t ready to be serious with you.
You still have a long way in life to go so don’t waste your time and youth on someone who isn’t sure of what he wants from you.
By ignoring him, you make it clear he isn’t as important to you as he thinks he is, a clear message to him that you can really do without him.
Staying away would also help you evaluate your feelings for him. Chances are you are enduring his attitude because of fear of loneliness. The truth is, when we let go of something we think we need desperately, we open more our chances of better choices. This man may be the least qualified in your life but because you are timid in letting go of him, the better man may not have the chance to come into your life.
Never be afraid of making the right choice when it comes to the issue of your happiness. It is something you must learn to guard jealously.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
Thank you for the good work you have been doing. Please I need your advice urgently. I am a 20-year-old undergraduate and in a relationship with a boy who, like me, is also a student. I am not the demanding type, but my boyfriend doesn’t call or send me text messages often. We hardly spend time together, lies about personal information especially his present and his past. Sometimes, I feel lonely and as though am with a stranger, because I don’t think we communicate enough, because if I don’t do the calling he wouldn’t bother for about three weeks or one month. I really love this guy but he’s totally different now, all these have been going on for about six months now. Do you think I should still give him some time or should I call it quits? Thank you.
Lonely Girl.
Dear Lonely Girl,
Let him chase you a bit. You are the woman and he is the man. It is his duty to run after you. I appreciate that it might be a difficult thing to do considering the fact that you actually love him, but resist calling him for sometime. It would enable you gauge his true feelings for you. If he misses you so much, he would definitely come back after sometime.
If he doesn’t, forget him and move on. You are still young and able to begin again. It would be such a waste of time if you spend precious time at 20 running after a man who isn’t ready to be serious with you.
You still have a long way in life to go so don’t waste your time and youth on someone who isn’t sure of what he wants from you.
By ignoring him, you make it clear he isn’t as important to you as he thinks he is, a clear message to him that you can really do without him.
Staying away would also help you evaluate your feelings for him. Chances are you are enduring his attitude because of fear of loneliness. The truth is, when we let go of something we think we need desperately, we open more our chances of better choices. This man may be the least qualified in your life but because you are timid in letting go of him, the better man may not have the chance to come into your life.
Never be afraid of making the right choice when it comes to the issue of your happiness. It is something you must learn to guard jealously.
Good luck.
Days to our wedding his family say I can’t be trusted
By Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
I just came across your e-mail and your blunt response to this guy that said he married for money. The article is very blunt.
I don’t know if you can help me. There is this old friend of mine in school, even though we are so much in love with each other, we cannot express it because we are in other relationships.
We again met last year after we lost contact for seven years. It was three months to my wedding day. Naturally, I was very happy to hear from him. Besides being an old friend, I still have some feelings for him.
One thing led to the other and he promised to marry me if I leave the man I was going to marry in three months time.
After much thoughts and knowing I love him more than the man I was going to marry, I gave in to him.
But I also decided to ask God for help through prayers. If the signs that followed my request were anything to go by, it would appear that God chose the first man. The second man started complaining about lack of money to continue with our wedding plans, which led to him saying he wanted the wedding ceremony postponed.
Gladly, I accepted since it was in response to my request. I also tried to keep up with the relationship but he wasn’t forthcoming with an alternative date for reasons best known to him. Well, his attitude gave me room to concentrate on my relationship with my old friend.
Things were really going on well between us until we had a disagreement. Being unable to resolve them on our own, I decided to involve his family in the matter. I honestly thought their involvement was for the better. Though they actually helped in resolving the first issue between us, it became another matter entirely when the second disagreement between my boyfriend and I came up.
Rather than resolve the issue at hand, they raked up an issue, which happened when we were in school eight years ago. It has to do with me dating a married man. I haven’t seen this man since I left school, but my boyfriend’s family is pegging their stance on that. They say we cannot get married because I dated a married man while in school.
In their opinion, any girl with such tendency is not only a flirt but cannot be trusted to be faithful in her own marriage.
To my pains, I later discovered that the information of my relationship with this married man came from my boyfriend and just two months to our wedding ceremony, the family has cancelled every plan.
Despite all this, I still love him, and I can bet my life he loves me and want me just like I want him, but he has kept saying that it would be suicidal for him to go against the wishes of his people since in his side of the country, marriage is not an individual thing but a communal arrangement.
His people very much in support of our relationship until the episode of me dating the married man came up. It is one month now since we have been having this problem.
We no longer talk like we used to. I get tempted to call him on a daily basis but I find myself holding back. The last time we talked he promised to be my backbone and my best friend. He said God knows everything and that He alone has the final say.
Agatha, the issue is, I cannot bring myself to forget him. He is constantly on my mind. I see him in everything I do and in my dreams. I feel him going through the same emotional turmoil I am going through. I truly love him.
I know only God sees the hearts of men but I want him in my life.
I have a feeling the mother is behind all our problems because he keeps saying unless he has his family’s support he cannot come back.
I pray day and night that God would show me signs and lead me on what to do. It is so hard for me. I know he truly loves me till this issue came up. We are both in our late 20s. I know if his mother tells him to come back he would because he loves me.
Agatha, I don’t know what to do. Do I keep waiting till he comes back or what? What should I do? I am so confused.
Confused Lady.
Dear Confused Lady,
What do you want from life? What do you understand by love? What values do you hold precious? What makes you think God would answer you this time when you didn’t listen to Him the first time?
Deep inside your mind, you have succeeded in misrepresenting the word love. Love isn’t selfish and painful like you to think. If this man really loves you as you have convinced yourself he does, why did he tell his family about a past he knows they would never approve of?
What were his intentions when he was telling them? To edify you or to destroy within his family circle? This is a question you should ask him. demand to know what he wanted to achieve by telling his family, especially his mother about a past he knows would count against you.
If he were truly in love with you as you seem to think, even if his family got to know about this from other sources, he would be the one denying on your behalf to protect you from ridicule and condemnation from his family members.
He knows his mother more than you and can tell what would upset her moral judgment. For him to have told her about your escapades as a young lady is to give him a perfect excuse to back out of the relationship without being obvious he is the one who cannot get over the type of life you lived as a young lady.
Also your willingness to jettison your boyfriend three months to your wedding ceremony with him for him when he came along could also be a reason for his apprehension. To be frank, what man would take a woman who had no qualms serious about abandoning a man she was altar bound to in three months for another man serious?
Your excitement at leaving your former boyfriend for him at short notice coupled with your past life are enough to him wonder at the type of woman he was getting married to and ponder on what moral values you really have.
Though he gladly puts the blame of his inability to keep up with your marriage plans on the laps of his mother, the truth is, deep down he doesn’t trust you to be a woman he can depend on.
He is afraid the same reasons you had for abandoning the other man for him may arise somewhere in your future and he would find himself gazing after your shadows because you didn’t stop to consider the feeling of others.
That woman you were dating her husband, how did you think she felt all those times her husband was with you, denying her and the children his time, resources and attention for you?
How did you think the man who was to marry you felt when he heard days after he started having problems, you were already in another relationship planning marriage?
You may think he knew nothing about what happened but there is nothing hidden under the sun. How did you think he felt when he complained about lack of money to continue with the wedding plans and instead of you to come up with alternative plans you left him alone to carry the burden. A wife material would do anything within her power to cover the shame of her man.
Love is about selflessness, it is about giving yourself and experiencing yourself in another human being. If you ever loved any of these men, you would put their interest before yours.
What is happening isn’t the making of this man’s mother. he is the unseen hands beating the drums. He doesn’t want you anymore having had second thoughts about your moral values.
You took a gamble and you have lost it. Forget both of them and move on. This time be honest with yourself by listening to what God tells you. Pray for forgiveness and allow His will prevail.
To completely free yourself of the burden of the past, go back to your other boyfriend and beg for forgiveness. You may have hurt him in more ways than you know. Leaving him three months to the wedding couldn’t have been easy on him, his family members and friends. From your own experiences with this other man, you now know much pains he endured when you left him.
Cleaning the slate of the past through apology to him would help the mercy and grace of God flow into your life.
There is no chance of him coming back to you. If he couldn’t convince his family not to cancel your wedding plans two months to the time, how can he now convince them to change their minds about you? He has told you he doesn’t have the will to go against the family’s decisions. What more evidence do you need to know this man’s feelings for you aren’t as strong as you think?
When next you get to speak to him, inform him about your decision to let him be.
To help yourself fair better in your next relationship, know what love entails as well as what type of man would give you the most happiness in life.
Good luck.
Dear Agatha,
I just came across your e-mail and your blunt response to this guy that said he married for money. The article is very blunt.
I don’t know if you can help me. There is this old friend of mine in school, even though we are so much in love with each other, we cannot express it because we are in other relationships.
We again met last year after we lost contact for seven years. It was three months to my wedding day. Naturally, I was very happy to hear from him. Besides being an old friend, I still have some feelings for him.
One thing led to the other and he promised to marry me if I leave the man I was going to marry in three months time.
After much thoughts and knowing I love him more than the man I was going to marry, I gave in to him.
But I also decided to ask God for help through prayers. If the signs that followed my request were anything to go by, it would appear that God chose the first man. The second man started complaining about lack of money to continue with our wedding plans, which led to him saying he wanted the wedding ceremony postponed.
Gladly, I accepted since it was in response to my request. I also tried to keep up with the relationship but he wasn’t forthcoming with an alternative date for reasons best known to him. Well, his attitude gave me room to concentrate on my relationship with my old friend.
Things were really going on well between us until we had a disagreement. Being unable to resolve them on our own, I decided to involve his family in the matter. I honestly thought their involvement was for the better. Though they actually helped in resolving the first issue between us, it became another matter entirely when the second disagreement between my boyfriend and I came up.
Rather than resolve the issue at hand, they raked up an issue, which happened when we were in school eight years ago. It has to do with me dating a married man. I haven’t seen this man since I left school, but my boyfriend’s family is pegging their stance on that. They say we cannot get married because I dated a married man while in school.
In their opinion, any girl with such tendency is not only a flirt but cannot be trusted to be faithful in her own marriage.
To my pains, I later discovered that the information of my relationship with this married man came from my boyfriend and just two months to our wedding ceremony, the family has cancelled every plan.
Despite all this, I still love him, and I can bet my life he loves me and want me just like I want him, but he has kept saying that it would be suicidal for him to go against the wishes of his people since in his side of the country, marriage is not an individual thing but a communal arrangement.
His people very much in support of our relationship until the episode of me dating the married man came up. It is one month now since we have been having this problem.
We no longer talk like we used to. I get tempted to call him on a daily basis but I find myself holding back. The last time we talked he promised to be my backbone and my best friend. He said God knows everything and that He alone has the final say.
Agatha, the issue is, I cannot bring myself to forget him. He is constantly on my mind. I see him in everything I do and in my dreams. I feel him going through the same emotional turmoil I am going through. I truly love him.
I know only God sees the hearts of men but I want him in my life.
I have a feeling the mother is behind all our problems because he keeps saying unless he has his family’s support he cannot come back.
I pray day and night that God would show me signs and lead me on what to do. It is so hard for me. I know he truly loves me till this issue came up. We are both in our late 20s. I know if his mother tells him to come back he would because he loves me.
Agatha, I don’t know what to do. Do I keep waiting till he comes back or what? What should I do? I am so confused.
Confused Lady.
Dear Confused Lady,
What do you want from life? What do you understand by love? What values do you hold precious? What makes you think God would answer you this time when you didn’t listen to Him the first time?
Deep inside your mind, you have succeeded in misrepresenting the word love. Love isn’t selfish and painful like you to think. If this man really loves you as you have convinced yourself he does, why did he tell his family about a past he knows they would never approve of?
What were his intentions when he was telling them? To edify you or to destroy within his family circle? This is a question you should ask him. demand to know what he wanted to achieve by telling his family, especially his mother about a past he knows would count against you.
If he were truly in love with you as you seem to think, even if his family got to know about this from other sources, he would be the one denying on your behalf to protect you from ridicule and condemnation from his family members.
He knows his mother more than you and can tell what would upset her moral judgment. For him to have told her about your escapades as a young lady is to give him a perfect excuse to back out of the relationship without being obvious he is the one who cannot get over the type of life you lived as a young lady.
Also your willingness to jettison your boyfriend three months to your wedding ceremony with him for him when he came along could also be a reason for his apprehension. To be frank, what man would take a woman who had no qualms serious about abandoning a man she was altar bound to in three months for another man serious?
Your excitement at leaving your former boyfriend for him at short notice coupled with your past life are enough to him wonder at the type of woman he was getting married to and ponder on what moral values you really have.
Though he gladly puts the blame of his inability to keep up with your marriage plans on the laps of his mother, the truth is, deep down he doesn’t trust you to be a woman he can depend on.
He is afraid the same reasons you had for abandoning the other man for him may arise somewhere in your future and he would find himself gazing after your shadows because you didn’t stop to consider the feeling of others.
That woman you were dating her husband, how did you think she felt all those times her husband was with you, denying her and the children his time, resources and attention for you?
How did you think the man who was to marry you felt when he heard days after he started having problems, you were already in another relationship planning marriage?
You may think he knew nothing about what happened but there is nothing hidden under the sun. How did you think he felt when he complained about lack of money to continue with the wedding plans and instead of you to come up with alternative plans you left him alone to carry the burden. A wife material would do anything within her power to cover the shame of her man.
Love is about selflessness, it is about giving yourself and experiencing yourself in another human being. If you ever loved any of these men, you would put their interest before yours.
What is happening isn’t the making of this man’s mother. he is the unseen hands beating the drums. He doesn’t want you anymore having had second thoughts about your moral values.
You took a gamble and you have lost it. Forget both of them and move on. This time be honest with yourself by listening to what God tells you. Pray for forgiveness and allow His will prevail.
To completely free yourself of the burden of the past, go back to your other boyfriend and beg for forgiveness. You may have hurt him in more ways than you know. Leaving him three months to the wedding couldn’t have been easy on him, his family members and friends. From your own experiences with this other man, you now know much pains he endured when you left him.
Cleaning the slate of the past through apology to him would help the mercy and grace of God flow into your life.
There is no chance of him coming back to you. If he couldn’t convince his family not to cancel your wedding plans two months to the time, how can he now convince them to change their minds about you? He has told you he doesn’t have the will to go against the family’s decisions. What more evidence do you need to know this man’s feelings for you aren’t as strong as you think?
When next you get to speak to him, inform him about your decision to let him be.
To help yourself fair better in your next relationship, know what love entails as well as what type of man would give you the most happiness in life.
Good luck.
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