My mother-in-law denies me access to my daughter, wife

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, There is this lady that I started dating about three years ago. She is from Akwa Ibom. When she got pregnant for me in our first year of dating she could not tell her mother till the pregnancy was three months old. Even then, she was still contemplating aborting the pregnancy until I walked up to her mother to inform her about the pregnancy. She was naturally very angry because at that time she was running a diploma programme. After a lot of pleas and promises that I will take care of her daughter, she agreed but never hid her displeasure about the whole development. I was asked to bring two goats and other things for the pregnancy after which our families went through a formal introduction ceremony. It was only after this, that my woman and I could live together as man and woman. I promised to complete all the traditional wedding rites but my business crumbled after our daughter was born.   As a result, I started nagging and would starve her when she provokes me for that day. After sometime, she left the house for her mother’s place; that was when it dawned me on that I have really wronged her. So I went to beg but she insisted I should go and beg her mother first. I didn’t hesitate to do as she demanded. After several days, she came back home but she was not the same woman that left my house. This new woman she had become was determined to tussle power with me to the extent she would starve me of food for up to two weeks just because we had a fight and when we run out of foodstuff, she would demand for money for food without any apology and remorse. In this particular instance, I refused to give her feeding allowance for a week. One day I came back from work and discovered to my surprise that she had packed all her belongings including that of my daughter. I was perplexed by her actions that I went the next day to report the incident to her mother. From her reactions, she wasn’t so surprised by my visit and what I had to say because they were with her. Till date they are still with her. I subsequently went to my lawyer to seek legal advice. He told me to ignore her for one year. I tried to stay away from her and our daughter but since I was missing my child so much I visited after three months. But something terrible happened as her mother accused me of trying to steal my daughter. I had to fight my way to see my child. Agatha, I am tired of all these nonsense but I am scared for my daughter’s future. I don’t want to report this case to court or welfare, though I’m ready to accept her back if she so desires. But I won’t beg her because I didn’t send her away. What do you suggest?   Ike Michael Dear Ike Michael, Patience! Obviously there are some very fundamental issues in your union. The first being, you didn’t set out to marry each other but were forced into it by the accident of her getting pregnant. The second issue in your marriage is your lack of maturity, in the handling of attendant marital challenges that followed the collapse of your business investment. A man isn’t supposed to nag or deny his wife and child food. By starving her of food anytime she offends you, you are unwittingly eroding whatever kind of respect she may have for you as well as destroying the chances of survival of your marriage. Unfortunately, when you starve her of food, your child is also affected since she depends on the mother for food. Though she didn’t act right by coming back to pay you in your own coin but a wise man after everything that has happened would find ways of cementing the cracks in his home rather than heat up the already bad situation. Stubbornness doesn’t resolve marital problems, which is what is at work in your home. For this very union of yours to work, you and your woman must factor in the interest of that child who had nothing to do with your decisions to bring her into the world. Deep down you really care for her; just hurt by her attitude. She also cares for you but certain things have really gone wrong. I don’t know the efforts you have made to get her to continue with her studies. If you didn’t make any efforts to send her back to school, that could cause the displeasure of her mother who from the very beginning didn’t hide her desire to see her daughter complete her education. It could also be the basis for her change in attitude towards you, as she didn’t begin by being stubborn. I am sure if you managed your temper and frustration when your business went down, all these wouldn’t have happened. By right, should have been the one nagging and denying you food. But that she didn’t. She was rather compassionate with you until it got to a point she couldn’t take it anymore. Honestly, there is the need for you to clear the cloud about your real feelings for her. Don’t forget your decision to marry her came about as a result of the baby just as your desire to have her is based on your missing child. So where does she stand in all these? What is your true feeling for her? Be honest with yourself at this vital point because a lot of time, we make the most terrible mistakes of our lives by being lying about what we really need. You may get away with it now, but life has a way of reminding us of these mistakes every opportunity it gets. Before you can resolve this problem, you must first come to full acceptance of what you really feel for this woman. If you really love her, no sacrifice would be too much for you to make for both of you to find happiness. Every relationship deserves a chance to heal from its wounds inflicted by misunderstanding and mismanagement of issues. If you didn’t begin the process of hurting her, the way you did, chances are she may not have desired retaliation. A time would come when the things you count as being of importance to you will cease to be so, when you will look back and ask yourself why you acted the way you did. By then it would be too late to make amends. Having known her for three years, what do you really think about and feel for her? Do you think she has the qualities of being a good wife? These are more important than the issues you place on your front burner. Don’t forget that you are not the only man interested in her; someone else may just be waiting in the corner to grab her from your hands. This is why you must urgently consider your options before it is too late. Don’t allow pride stand between you and your ultimate happiness in life. There is plenty of time to play the boss in her life. There was no one between the two of you the day you met each other and the decision to consummate your relationship. Therefore, resist third party intervention. From all you have said there is nothing that cannot be changed if you as the head take the necessary steps of assuring your woman that you care so much for her with or without the baby. She is holding tightly to the baby because your conduct has made it obvious that you love your baby more than you do her. Remember, hell has no fury like a woman who is scorned. Your attitude to her is like rejecting her hence is ready to use the one person you care so much for to hurt you. This is the kernel of your problem with her. Once you are able to talk things over with her, it won’t matter so much what her mother says. The lesson embedded in all these for you, is one of wisdom. Learn to be more matured in the handling of your home. There is nothing patience cannot achieve; deploy it well in your marriage. No matter how strong willed she is, she will eventually change. Your lawyer is buying you time to make up with your family. Commit your plans and relationship to God at all times. Good luck.

Why is my love madly hostile and secretives?

With Agatha Edo ,Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, Why is my love madly hostile and secretive now I am 18 years of age and in love with a man who is 33. I love him to the extent I can kill myself for him. But after a while, he became harsh towards me; he stopped answering my calls. Even though we were sexually active, he never shared any of his problems with me. I met another man, who promised me marriage during this process of my challenge with my former man. I don’t know whether to accept this man’s offer or continue with the first man. I need your help. Worried Girl. Dear Worried Girl, Life is in stages and seasons. At 18, shouldn’t you be in school worrying more about your education, your empowerment than men? If at your age, you have started to busy yourself with the issue of men, what will you do when you are older and less attractive? Beg friends who were wise to properly situate their lives for money? What by then will you fall back on as a woman when you no longer have the looks and body to sustain the interest of men in you? What by then will be your source of income? There is no time as now for you to get serious with your studies with the aim of procuring for yourself an enviable future. Men and sex never go out of season but your chance to give your life a solid foundation to stand does. Once this stage passes you by, you may never be able to get it back. And even if you can, it takes more efforts to do that. The man of 33 years, sleeping with you and who is now refusing to take your calls, has got what he wants from you. He has registered his presence in your life. He is set to move on because marriage to you will be a liability to him which is what the majority men are running away from these days. What would he be discussing with you when it is obvious to him that you don’t think alike; lack the depth of knowledge and understanding needed to match his’? Men only share their problems, discuss with women they know can contribute positively to the issues worrying them. Beyond your body, he doesn’t think you have any other thing to offer him. His attitude mirrors the thoughts of every other man that would come your way if you don’t quickly sit down now to remodel your life positively. He is aware that you will later become a huge liability to his limited income. Given the kind of attention and placement you are giving to the improvement of your life educationally, what kind of help will you be able to offer him when he needs it? The burden of caring for his home will definitely be too much for him to bear alone. And he isn’t alone in this school of thoughts. The majority of men out there are life students of this school. That he slept with you is in itself clear evidence that he doesn’t have any plans for your future, is lacking in respect for you and doesn’t care what becomes of you. What if you get pregnant? Is he ready to marry you or is he going to tell you to abort the pregnancy, thereby putting your life in jeopardy and future at risk? If he really cares about you, he will not attempt to have sex with you; rather he would be the one urging you to sustain yourself until you are through with your education. A man who has plans for a woman would not mind the sacrifices he makes for her comfort and welfare. From this point, things will only degenerate between the two of you as he is set to move on with his life. You were a fine distraction for him. Even if he had plans for you in the beginning, your lack of focus; coupled with the absence of moral values are enough to make any man think twice about you. As for the other man, if he is interested in marrying you, let him wait for you while you pursue the issue of enhancing the quality of your life educationally. Non- availability of finance is no longer an excuse for those determined to improve on their educational qualification; a lot of children from poor homes with big dreams of a very bright future are these days doing odd jobs to sponsor themselves through school. Your ambition should be your first love: no one man will be able to take away from you. The power of education is such that you are almost certain of success; the kind that attracts quality men to a woman. Men like women who can step in effortlessly for them when things aren’t going to well with them. If this other man is ready to wait for you to finish your education, consider him but if not, let him go. By the time you finish, there will be a man ready to marry you. Always bear this in mind; time and season wait for no one at all. So make hay while the sun is still shinning. Good luck.

I resent my wife because of her past

With Agatha Edo ,Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, I got married to a complete stranger less than three months after we met. The more I know her, the more I resent her. I discovered that she lived a very careless and carefree life; lived with different men and did a lot of night clubbing while in school. She smoked and dressed immodestly. In fact she played her time away and in the process destroyed herself. She is also spoilt. I got to know a lot of things about her from her friends and those close to her. Some she told me herself. Living with her has been terrible. She argues and disagrees with me on everything. She favours going out and spending carelessly even when she has important things to do with money and time. Even though she is still re-sitting her exams, she hardly sits down to study. We are always at each other’s throats. I am close to hell. The smell coming from the core of her person is enough to drive one out of the bed and house. I am finding it very difficult to continue living with her. This is not my idea of a wife and I feel very bad and feel like killing myself. For now, no baby, I even like it that way. Please advise me on what to do, I am very miserable. Miserable Husband. Dear Miserable Husband, One thing you must appreciate about marriage generally is the fact that it comes in very attractive package. You don’t get to know what the package masks until opened. Some get very good deals, some others get moderate deals while another group gets very worst deals. But one thing is certain, whatever we find in our packages, we are expected to manage and make the best of. Your challenges are compounded by the shortness of your meeting and decision to get married. This is the tragedy of not taking the marriage institution serious. Most often than not, a lot of couples rush into marriages more for extraneous reasons that have nothing to do with love. This is why every intending couple must first of all take time out to study each other objectively. Getting married less than three months after your first meeting shows your lack of plan for the future as well as your naivety concerning marriage. It also underscores your ill preparation for the challenges ahead of you once you enter into the institution of married men. You must realise that having signed the document that binds you to your wife for life, there is no way you can hurry out of it with the same speed with which you entered into the agreement. Besides, being from different families, your values and outlook towards life are bound to be different. It takes time for such things to blend in any marriage even if you had all the time in the world to get to know yourselves well before signing the dotted lines. The tragedy of ill conceived plans is having to live with it. You must give your marriage a chance to work; by making out time to reposition and refocus. This is the real challenge in every marriage. The mistakes you see in your wife are the same things she sees in you. If you have one thing to complain about in her, you can be sure she has several things to say about you. This is natural. You are both humans and come with defective manuals from the creator’s work table. Marriage is lending to each other our strengths, thoughts and dreams. It is also learning from the other person. There is no way you can both think or act alike. Marriage and life for that matter would be really boring if the same things happen everyday of our lives. Your wife is your challenge and the link between you and your dream. Despite the short time of your knowing each other, something must have made you settle for her among the many ladies you must have met in your life. This is the time to explore your reasons. I appreciate all the confusion, laced with disappointments that must be going on in your head over the quality of woman you married, but if you are honest, are you without blemish? The kind of things you said about her aren’t things she could have hidden from you for long. Even if she did succeed to conceal the other things from you, the bits about her dress sense and attitude she couldn’t have been able to hide from you. If despite seeing the way she dressed you still went ahead to marry her, the same determination if applied to the protection of your marriage can change a lot of things in your lives. Doubtless, you have feelings for her; don’t deny this simply because you are disappointed with the package you have. If we all choose to walk away simply because there are too many defects in our packages, the entire marital system would have long collapsed completely. This is why you must make the essential sacrifice for this marriage. Besides what assurances do you have that if you give her and this marriage up, you will get someone better than she is? Life doesn’t work the way we plan or hope it would. Sometimes, it takes a very warped path to get us to promised land. Sit her down and tell her everything you feel is wrong with your marriage. Say it the way you feel and tell her what your decision is as well. It may not count for much now but overtime, she would begin to appreciate your kind of patience and selflessness in trying to make this marriage work. Having lived the kind of life you described, getting her to change her person may not be as easy as you think. She is no longer a spring chicken; she is old and already set in her ways. For this reason, her metamorphosis cannot be achieved overnight. It has to be done in phases. The issue of her offensive odour can be tackled first. She may not even know how bad the odour of her person is. This is something you can help her with without making a fuse out of it. It is a simple matter of suggesting you both take a bath together and in the process helping her to wash that vital part of her well. Let it come as romantic suggestions. For a woman who has been around, she will warm up to it. Follow this by buying her new pants. Insist she gets rid of her old ones. Using fresh lime juice, especially after menstruation can get rid of foul smell as a result of the different discharges women secrete at different times of the month. Encourage her to shave her pubic hair; to minimise the amount of discharges trapped in the hair on her pubic region. When a woman isn’t too neat, these can cause her to ooze. You can tell her your aim after these efforts for her to continue on her own. Advise her to soak her under-wears over night in detergent water. It will help keep them clean. Although you may wonder at the logic of teaching an old woman how to maintain a certain level of hygiene, the fact is, she is your wife and since her present condition is one of the issues affecting your home, doing it will help your marriage stabilise. On the issue of her sense of dressing, buy her the kinds of clothes you want her in. insist she wears them for you because it would make you very happy. The fact that you are not complaining openly about her choice of clothes; only insisting she makes you happy by wearing certain clothes to please you, will in time moderate her choice of attires. Most times, when you ignore someone, pretend that person doesn’t exist at all; issues like the person’s attitude, manners will cease to have the power to hurt. You notice she is rude and stubborn because you devote time to these issues. Adopt the attitude of walking away as well as being totally indifferent to her when she gets into this mood. Overtime, she will learn to guard her tongue properly. As long as she hasn’t gone back to her previous ways, rest her past life. Just as you have a past you are not too proud of, this is a side of her, you should overlook. Begin your assessment of her from the point you met her as it will be unfair to use her past to judge her. Importantly, develop a real relationship with her through constant conversations. This way you would be building a culture of talking your problems over as well as keeping in touch with happenings in each other’s life. Marriage isn’t a bed of roses; rather it is a thorny, bumpy and tortuous ride before it gets to the smooth part. Count yourself lucky to be experiencing all these at the kindergarten stage of your relationship and not at the secondary or tertiary stages when it is most difficult to resolve. What you are going through now is typical and if well managed by you especially; your marriage will end up being among the best. Learn to pray. God always listens. Divorce should never be the immediate option to any marital challenge. If you must consider it, consign it to the last option. Good luck.