Dear Agatha,
I enjoy reading your column. Someone approached me with this problem, so I decided to direct it to you for answer.
There is this friend of mine, who has been in a relationship with this guy for seven years and who recently proposed marriage to her.
However, her fear is, she feels the guy is too stingy and isn’t sure if the guy will ever change after they get married. She says the man has never for once given her a gift and when she asked him about it, he said it was all because she declined the first time she came to visit him when he offered her transport fare.
Even after they became very good friends the guy still doesn’t give even when she buys card for him to stimulate him.
She doesn’t know if the guy is pretending to be stingy as a way of testing her or is actually stingy.
Concerned Friend.
Dear Concerned Friend,Beyond not buying her gifts, how is his attitude to her generally? Does he love? Does he care, understanding, and always concerned about her welfare?
Having spent seven years with him, what sort of friend is he to her? What sort of temperament has he?
These are qualities that would help her properly decode the type of person he really is. Any man who is caring and understanding will never be stingy or selfish. He may be sensible about the application of money but not stingy.
Being careful about the application of money is thinking before spending, having the mind of necessities and not desires. Being stingy on the other hand means having difficulties spending money on even the bare essentials of life.
If he were stingy, there is no way she can invest seven years of her life in him and their relationship. She would have long vacated the relationship because a stingy person, is often brash, uncaring and lack the understanding of another person.
And even if he is stingy, can his other outstanding qualities swallow up this aspect of him? This is against the background that nobody has it all, not even your friend who is complaining.
She accepted his proposal to marry him because she found many aspects of his character agreeable to her way of life. This is one fundamental she should never forget in spite of what she feels about his attitude towards money.
Rejecting the transport fare on that first day may also have made him decided to see how far she goes in her portrayal of herself as an independent minded person. Some men actually react that way. Once a woman makes the mistake of rejecting their gifts, they either stop out of fear of being rejected again or simply to see how far she can go.
It could be fear of being rejected again. The ego of the average man cannot withstand rejection and once their kind hearted gesture towards the woman in their life is rejected by her, they simply crawl back into their shell until she begins a fresh request through pleas for him to come out.
Again the man too may think she rejected the money on account of it not being enough. Many meanings can be read into that gesture of her by a man questing for an excuse not to do certain things. There is also the possibility that he is not a gift buying man especially if he grew up in a home where such expressions are scarce or never happened. Not everybody had the pleasure of growing up in a home where gifts were exchanged. This doesn’t make such a man stingy but merely doing things the way he was brought up.
When a woman meets this type of man, she should be the one to change him, not by nagging but by telling him lovely what his duties to his wife or girlfriend entails. Such a man cannot be condemned for his upbringing at all. A sensible woman requires wisdom and imagination to transform him from who he is to what he should be. It is a simple case of buying him gifts and showering him with love to get him to reciprocate.
Since they have agreed to marry, she should sit him down to discuss her fears. This is one issue she should not take into marriage. He has to understand her fears and be given an opportunity by her to explain his attitude towards money and gifts.
From the discussion, she would know whether it is an inherent part of him or one he developed towards her personally.
Whatever the case may be talking about it as honestly as possible will help them appreciate what they each have to invest to make their journey into marriage more relaxing and enjoyable.
On her part, this is the crossroad of reality and frank decisions. If at this point she is aware that she cannot cope with his total person, best she declines the offer of marriage to avoid creating more complex problems later in future. This is because though marriage is a product of sentimental feelings, it requires undiluted reality to engage in it and make it work well.
She must have the boldness to discuss all cloudy issues and not defer them with the hope of things improving with time. The tragedy of refusing to nip a problem in the bud is that it only worsens with the time. Any issue that a couple refuses to tackle before marriage will end up consuming the union because the matter will steadily progress in a nightmare for the couple.
Finally, she should also, from this early beginning commit this relationship into the hands of God since He is the only one with the right key to a successful marriage.
Good luck.
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