Does Success In Marriage Obey Tribal Bias?

Dear Agatha,

I have been reading your column with great interest for sometime now.

There is this notion that some tribes are a no-go-area (dangerous zone) when it comes to love and marriage. For instance there is this thinking that Bini women are either wicked or diabolical irrespective of whether or not they come from Christian families or not. 

What then is or are the options for someone in a situation like, one in love?

Ebi.

 

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Dear Ebi,

True love has no creed, colour, tribe or biases whatsoever. When it happens it doesn’t discriminate against the feelings of the two people involved.

However, certain influences and submission have made love very subjective. For instance, there is no where in the world where there is a draught of wicked people. Right from the beginning of time, wickedness has reigned supreme yet this has not stopped people from getting married and having children.

Africa, Nigeria in particular, is not without its fair share of wicked people in high places. It is particularly bad in Nigeria where too many sentiments, ethnicity as well as nepotism have been allowed to take over our fair sense of judgement in very crucial matters.

We are products of a wicked world, wicked ancestry as well as nefarious foundation. What makes the difference is our own resolution over the path we want to tread in life. So also is our relationship with God.

If you place all that you have heard about a particular set of people forward in your choice of a live partner, you might end up never getting married or getting any woman for that matter to marry you. This is because there is no tribe or people in the world that haven’t been stigmatised. So when we stand in judgement against other people; it means we are pointing accusing fingers at each other endlessly and needlessly.

If love is what you feel, don’t listen to the voice of people but the language of your heart. What is your heart telling you about your love? What are the qualities that make her so outstanding and endearing to you? What is the tribe of her character? Of the happiness she brings into your life or the peace you get being with her?
Do these things make you absolutely happy at being a man?

When you compare her with all the other girls you have dated or know; what conclusions do you come up with? Do you see yourself aging gracefully together and is she the friend you need to be wholesome?

These are values you should focus more on. Simply because someone decides to brand one or your ancestors as being wicked or fetish doesn’t mean something good and beautiful cannot come out of you.

The heart of the person you are in love with is what matters most. Many people who today are powerful servants of God have foundations that emanated in occult and very fetish practices.

Not even the western world despite its mental and technological advancement is without such practices. If worship centres devoted to devil flourish in such societies, how much more in a society such as ours which is still struggling to define religion?

Don’t lose the chance because of what others say or think, you may lose the opportunity of being happy in an institution where most people are unhappy.

Rather than listen to the voice of men, take your case to God and listen only to what He tells you on this matter.

Good luck. 

He’s Pompous, Even To My Parents

Dear Agatha

I am 25 years of age dating a 30-year old guy. I love and cherish him but his attitude puts me off. He doesn't talk to people in the compound we live and even refuses to greet my parents. If I demand to know why he puts up that attitude, especially towards my parents, he would ask me if I have parents. To avoid trouble, I would simply allow the words wash over me.

Agatha, do you think he would change?

Concerned Lady.

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Dear Concerned Lady,

At 30! I doubt it very much. At his age, he is old enough to know what is good or not. At his age, he doesn’t need anybody to remind him of the basic social etiquette. Any person properly schooled in moral and social values know that elders must be treated with reverence at all times.

More so if the elders in questions are the parents of the one we claim to love. There is no way he can claim to love you without recognising the position of your parents (his potential in-laws) in your life. This is not negotiable irrespective of whatever reasons he may have for not greeting your parents.

If he loves you as much as you say, he would never, not matter what, treat your parents the way he is doing.

One thing is for someone to be reserved but another thing altogether if that person’s behaviour bothers on rudeness. He has no right to ask you that question about your parents. Even if your parents are the worst kind of human beings on earth, the most humble, he has no right to debase them the way he is doing. If he is demonstrating this type of contempt for your parents now when he is supposed to be showing them respect, what would happen if he goes ahead to marry you? Do you think he would ever welcome your parents to your house or give them the recognition they deserve as the people who brought you into this world? Would he be able to endure the disrespect as time goes on?

To be fair to him, he is giving you all the time in the world to know what you are getting into. He is not pretending to be who he is not so there is no way you can pretend or complain that he deceived you into anything.

The choice is yours; to either continue with a man who has no grain of respect for you or leave him for good. You are the one wearing the shoes; you know your limits. Therefore, do you think you have the emotional ability to cope with him or his behavior? Mind you, he might not change because after a certain age change becomes almost impossible for us to make. At 30, it might be difficult if not impossible to do away with a habit he has kept for three decades. It is like asking him to go for a complete mental surgery; he is like a dried fish and any attempt to exact too much pressure on him might make you lose him completely especially if you are certain about him being the most important person in your life.

Since he has not concealed from you this attitude of his, the ball is in your court to either continue to stomach his obvious rudeness to you and the persons of your parents or to develop the thick skin to ignore him.

If you do decide to continue with him, you must put mental structures in place to deal with this aspect of him. The first thing you do is to learn to ignore him absolutely and to plead with your parents to also pretend he doesn’t exist by alerting them on this major defect in his character. Warning them would make them not take him serious and stop them from getting agitated over his attitude.

You also have to prepare for the possibility of him insisting you adopt his life-style of keeping to himself. Marriage is a life time journey hence the need to be very serious when deciding who you spend the rest of your life with. With a man like yours, you must go the extra mile in thoughts because you would suffer the consequences of any ill-conceived decision. If you don’t begin from now to weigh all your options with the seriousness they deserve; situations may arise later in life which you may not be able to cope with.

Like I said, he has given you enough room to navigate; for this reason it would be totally out of place for you to weep over any unpleasant development in the future.

Your decision on him would determine whether you need to work on your shock absorbers or not. If your verdict is to stay on with him, do the wise thing of making up your mind to expect the worst; a situation wherein he forbids you the freedom to continue to visit your parents at will. Although it may seem far-fetched now but it could happen in the future. And unless you have prepared your mind now; you may never be able to cope with the shock of being denied the freedom to visit your parents as you like or be able to forgive him of the offence.

This is where you have to solicit the extra grace from God to be able to smile and continue to be yourself in this relationship. When you have the grace of God; apparently difficult things or people become possible. Therefore you need to focus on those areas of his person as well as attitude that would enable you cope with him. For instance what quality has he in abundance; something that swallows up the irritations but also very scarce in another man? Sincerely speaking you need something extra outstanding about him to be able to continue with him especially when the bile builds at his treatment of your folks.

Because we all need emotional equilibrium in our lives as well as relationships, don’t take a decision without first considering all the issues involved because you would have to live with the decisions as well as regrets of anything hasty.

To help, go to God in prayers to avert a major emotional disaster later in life.

Good luck. 

I’ve Lost My Elasticity

Dear Agatha,

My husband complained that I have lost some of my elasticity. This happened after the birth of our third child. Keeping in mind my husband’s reputation of with women, I am fearful if I don’t do something about my elasticity he would be forced to go outside our home for pleasure.

Please help me. How do I regain my elasticity and keep him from straying? I am desperate.

Desperate wife.

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Dear Desperate Wife,

Do not allow yourself to be put down by what your husband has said. Refuse to develop complex or anxiety over his observation because it would make solution very difficult. When a situation as tricky as this rears itself in a marriage; the ideal thing to do is to look at its merits and demerits.

That he has mentioned it doesn’t mean he is about to have an affair so bury this line of thought because it would only complicate things between you. In the first place, it would make it difficult for you to listen to the real plea behind his complaint.

Second, it would make you suspicious of every move he makes, including suspecting him of being with another woman when he is not with you.

This is one danger you must avoid. He has not accused you of not being good enough for him as a wife or not good in bed. Rather, he thinks you need help to improve on your love life. He must care and love you to have taken the risk of telling you this. Not many men would tell a wife this.

Like you, his body is also going through changes. As we grow older, we lose some of the elasticity of our youth. But this is not to say you should ignore what he has to say.

Unlike the male anatomy, which isn’t affected by the wear of childbirth, the woman’s body as well as anatomy goes through dramatic changes as she starts to give birth. Her body, due to all the pressures of birth as well as complications like tears, episiotomy as well as Cesarean, goes through constant wear and tear. Not all women can snap back into shape after childbirth.

Again, the elasticity level of one woman to the other varies. It is an individual thing. While some women remain ‘tight’ even after several childbirths, others, including some who haven’t even experienced childbirth, are not that lucky.

Since he is the one who has noticed, enlist his help by insisting he tells you precisely how bad your condition is. The essence of this is to help you both arrive at a solution that would work for both of you.

Having mentioned it to you; it means he feels seriously about it. Discussing it with him means you are taking his complaints seriously.

It would also give him the confidence to come up with positive suggestions. Don’t be ashamed or angry at him. Your body is his property and he has the right of an opinion.

In addition to whatever you come up with, there are one or two things you can do to help yourself. One of the most effective in tightening the pelvic muscles is to stop urine at top flow; after a while, release it for the urine to flow again. Do this repeatedly, even when you are not urinating. This simple exercise of voluntarily tightening up the pelvic muscles at intervals helps tone up the muscles as well as improves the quality of sex.

Another way is to go for a simple surgery to tighten both the inner muscles as well as the outer muscles of the vagina.

Whatever you both decide ensure that it is a solution you both agree on to avoid future complications that border on trust.

Good luck.

The Father Of My Son Is A Casanova

Dear Agatha,

I am in love with a boy with whom I have a son. My problem with him is his love for women.  He goes about denying having anybody serious in his life and even when I am around, he denies me as well as his son in the presence of these women.

But he would come back to apologise later after the ladies have left. I really want to leave him but I love him. What do I do?

Ufuoma.

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Dear Ufuoma,

The earlier you realised that you have your destiny right in your hands the better for you.

Yes, you have made the mistake of having a child for a man outside wedlock but don’t make another mistake of having another child for the same man when it is obvious he doesn’t know what he wants from life.

Although the choice of leaving him might be bitter but you must do it for your sake as well as your child’s.

A man who denies his child in the presence of another woman doesn’t sound responsible or one who has plans for you. To continue to endure his disrespect and act of irresponsibility is to expose your son to the life you should protect him against.

The issue now goes beyond you to the future of your son. Children pick their habits and build on the examples of those around them. If he grows up to an irresponsible father, one who delights in changing women like used tissue papers, who doesn’t care about respect and responsibility to him and his mother, it follows too he would grow up to pick one or two habits from his father.

This would happen because you appear not to be in the right position to offer him a good cover, a firm foundation to neutralise the negative influence of his father. Unless you do that, the chances of you ever being able to wrestle his freedom or future from the mistakes of you and his father entrusted on him through your decision to have him at the time you did may be very difficult.

To be frank with what you have said, this break is compulsory. Another thing which might be responsible for his attitude may be the manner the baby came. Was the pregnancy of the baby planned? Did you get his permission to become pregnant? Yes, he is the father but often than not, the decision to have a baby outside wedlock is the woman’s to make. At the point of giving yourself completely to him, you had a choice to insist on him wearing a protection if you weren’t protected yourself.

If you didn’t secure his permission, it follows he would continue to accuse you of trying to trap him in a situation he didn’t plan for. Although your man may have accepted to be a father to the child but it is only in name only. He is yet to accept the responsibility that goes with it and until he does, you must do all you can to play the roles of a mother and father in the interim.

There is nothing that says you must endure him in your life if he isn’t ready to be responsible.

Given your situation, what can you do? Do you have the qualifications to get a good job? There is always something for a determined mind, which isn’t proud or ashamed of humble beginnings. If you are not, look for something to sustain you and the child until his father comes around.

Stop hurting yourself by refusing to give a thought to him or his activities. Over time, when he realises you seem to be coping well without him and that you are not forcing him to face his responsibilities towards his son, the fear of losing out in his favour would force him to come back to his son, even if he doesn’t want you for keeps.

Just ask God to help you through this difficult time because it is never over until He says it is.

Good luck. 

She’s Afraid To Visit Me At Home…

Dear Agatha,

I am 20 years of age while my girlfriend is 17. We have been dating for two years now. But the problem is that she has continued to resist my invitation that she visits me at home. Recently, I invited her to accompany me to visit my parents in the village since I desire to see them, again she refused.

Her attitude is hurting me in more ways than she knows. This is because I love her very much. I am seriously reconsidering my relationship with her, to the point of wanting to terminate it because I no longer derive joy from the relationship.

But what I feel for her is too deep to forget easily.

I am so confused. Please help me.

Max.

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Dear Max,

What do you want to discuss with her in the confines of your home that cannot be done in the open? Why do you need her to visit you before you can convince yourself of her feelings for you or yours for her?

At 17, she is too young. Any mistake she makes now would not only stall her present but also change the patterns of her future. Going out with you at her age is even a risk. Going to your house on a visit would not only be unwise but foolishness you should both avoid in the interest of your future.

No matter how well intentioned the visit starts out to be, the chemistry between a man and woman is too strong to be tempted. There is no way temptation would not set in, you would not desire to kiss or touch her in those places you dare not when you have an audience. Both of you may not have the intention of making love at first but without knowing how things got out of hand, you would definitely want to end what an innocent kiss started.

It is the way of men and women, even those who are experienced in the game of self-control fall easily into this temptation when the indices are right.

If you love this girl and desire progress for her, you won’t be thinking of quitting the relationship on account of her refusal to oblige your request for a visit to your house. What do you need her for in your house? Is it to talk, or your invitation intended to mask your true intentions? If it were just to talk, it should bother you so much if keeps refusing to come. But your intention to end the relationship shows that it is something deeper, the very thing the lady is trying to avoid.

Relationship building involves more than two people exchanging visits. It is all about sacrifices and having a focus for one another in life.

At 17 and 20 years of ages, you both cannot afford to face or deal with implications of premature sex. Having sex is about the simplest thing in the world but with it comes so many life changing implications. It is wrapped with challenges, responsibilities that out-live the major actors as well as life-changing implications.

Are you in particular ready for the consequences of having sex with a woman? The babies, the care and liability enveloped into having a baby?

Do you know the cost to her or you for that matter? Are you prepared to fend for mother and child? Are you ready psychologically for the task? At your age, it isn’t just about the baby but that of you and your girlfriend being ready for parenthood. What do you understand by being a parent? What do you know about the struggles, choices, sacrifices, emotional trauma, stress as well as all the in-descriptive in between emotional feelings that go with parenting a child? Do you have the wisdom and maturity to mentor a new life?

What about the quality of your feelings later? Can you sustain the feelings through thick and thin? Would you still feel the same thing for each other in later years when the challenges of the adult world catch up with both of you?

How much time have you taken out to study her character as a woman? Do you know what keeps her going? Do you have the understanding to cope with the changes that come with each year in our characters? These are things you must concern yourself with before inviting a woman into your house because if anything happens from the visit, you would have no choice but to live with the effects of the choice you made.

This is the major challenge that comes with sex. Although encapsulated in sweet tasting coating, the inside is a complexity only the brave minded of all men dare to challenge. Even those with years of intensive experiences are sometimes intimidated with all the huge bills and stress that come from something as simple as having sex with a woman.

Nothing in the beginning of the journey ever prepares one for the attached headaches. But if you are wise, look around you for those that have made the mistake and you will be glad to know that your girlfriend is who is wise.

Trust me you are not prepared for the challenge. That you are old enough to know what the anatomy of a woman is, isn’t the same as the maturity to deal with the responsibility thereof.

Forget your own desires now. Do what you have to ensure you give yourselves the needed opportunity to grow naturally into your roles in future.

Your future would be better if you properly allocate this time to concentrating on your studies, focusing on putting viable structures into place because there is no better time as now. The strength and opportunities you have now would never again come your way, not the freedom at least.

Sex would never go out of fashion so is a relationship. Allow her be. Don’t give up on her; instead, encourage her to continue to be decent by offering her your understanding, friendship as well as love.

These are the things she needs now, not visiting you at home. She needs to know you care, respect and concerned for her person. Whatever confidence she had going into a relationship with you at tender age of 15, is being eroded by your pressures on her. If you are not careful, you may lose one woman who would, in later years, become the best that has come your way.

The confusion you feel is your inability to have her where you want. Once you are able to get over that, you would be able to appreciate her better.

Good luck. 

My Second Child Belongs To Her Boss…Want Her Out Now

Dear Agatha,

I got married 17 years ago to a woman who has turned out to be my ruin. She is not only a compulsive nag, but I discovered she is also a liar as well as a very fetish person.

All these wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t stumbled on the fact that my second daughter isn’t mine. I discovered the truth when my first daughter came back from school with a letter written by the school authority that all new students of the school must, as part of their admission letter to the university, go for blood texts on HIV, blood group and genotype.

My wife was out of the country, so I went with her to the laboratory. Since her younger sister too was also interested in going to that school after her SSC examinations next year, I decided to take her along with me too.

You can therefore imagine my surprise when the results came out. The two results were very dissimilar. Both her genotype and her blood group didn’t match her sister’s whose results bore semblance to mine.

I didn’t know what to make of it. My wife and I were both AA and O positive, but she was AS and A. I took the result to our family doctor, who knew all along, that something was wrong with my second daughter’s medical history.

Being close to the family, he refused to be drawn into anything. He told me to wait for my wife to come back before jumping into the wrong reasons.

For the first time since marrying her, she didn’t say much when I confronted her with the results. The tears in her eyes as well as her attitude confirmed my suspicions; my second child wasn’t my biological daughter.

According to her, she belonged to her former boss, who raped her while on an official assignment to Jos. She said she didn’t know how to tell me because I might not have believed her.

I recall the haste and anger under which she left the job at that time despite not having another job then.

This girl happens to be my favourite, the real star of the family and despite knowing the details of her birth; I still love her with all my heart.

The truth is, in another circumstance, I would have forgiven my wife but given her attitude over the past years, I want to use this opportunity to drive her away from my home and life. I realised I made a terrible mistake marrying her but how do I drive away my wife without it affecting the children. My mother who has been having a running battle with my wife wants my wife to go but insists the child is mine, traditionally. Eight years ago, she tried to poison my mother. It was this girl who saw her mother and raised an alarm against her. But for her boldness to challenge her mother, my own mother would be dead by now. For this, my mother loves her more than all her grandchildren put together.

My wife told me that she took the decision to end my mother’s life because she was told that my mother was the cause of her inability to conceive after her second child.

I am confused. Please help me. I don’t want my daughter to go but I don’t want the mother in my life again.

Charles.

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Dear Charles,

I want you to appreciate that marriage is a bumpy journey of many ups and downs. It is a journey threaded in a web of conspiracy, intrigues, politics, friendship, secrets and all other emotions. At no point in it are the answers very clear. Only determination makes it possible for two people, from completely alien backgrounds, ideologies, temperaments and perspectives to life to continue to live together.

She nags because this is her person, it is part of the person you fell in love with, and whom you have stayed with for 17 years.

If she were that bad, would you have still stayed with her for all these years? Is her classification of being a bad wife a label to do away with her in the light of the secret she has kept all these years; to finally grant your mother’s long wish of getting rid of her enemy? Until now, why didn’t the issue of her trying to poison your mother elicit the concomitant reactions from you, insisting she leaves your house on the grounds of cruelty and criminal tendency? The crime of trying to kill your mother is dead serious, if true. If you didn’t take very serious actions against her, it means somewhere in your maze of confusion, you still love her. You may not understand if it is unconditional love but it is only such kind of love that would make a man still keep the woman who tried to poison his mother under his roof without fears that she might be tempted to use the remaining substance on him.

To get past the immediacy of your current pains, look at the mystery of what has kept you together for these years? Precisely, what have made you endured her shortcomings, even when you are going through so much pain and disappointment with the choice you made to marry her?

This is the time for you to be truthful to yourself, to go beyond what you see to those things you don’t see but only get to know when you take the time to look deeper.

Beyond the pains of now and the changes we all go through during marriage is a feeling we must learn to deal with.

This is your primus test, one that would either make or mar your marriage. What is this feeling saying? It is very important you deal with this feeling before moving on to other things because it holds the key between happiness and regrets.

If you are able to decipher this feeling correctly, forgiving her would be easy. It may not come suddenly but at least it would make conversation, reasoning and decisions on the way forward very easy.

The tragedy of being unable to have a matured discussion on this matter is the danger it presents to the family you have built over the years. From your own admission, the girl in question is your favourite as well as that of your mother. What would be your excuse for terminating her closeness to you, her love for you and yours for her? Is your love for her simply on the premise of her being your daughter only or the person that encases her body? Does your love have to do with the hopes she represents by her special gifts, her promises for the future and the dreams embedded in her own achievements as a person?

If your love for her is simply based on the fact that she is your daughter and nothing more, then it might be difficult for you to continue enduring her presence in your life, in which case, it would be easy for you to transfer the affection to your real daughter. In this case you would not lose much by asking your wife to go with her daughter because at that point she ceases to be your daughter altogether and becomes the sole responsibility of the woman who gave birth to her.

But if the love is more profound, with a combination of all the other things, it would be impossible for you, to let go. In your hurt and pains, you would always remember with clarity the first time she was placed into your arms, her first smile, word and step. You would not fail to remember all those things that make her history and yours interwoven. It means over the years, that she has touched you in no other way anybody has been able to do.

The implication of not having her in your life would be the death of a part of you.

For the sake of this girl, whom you have come to love as yourself; whose presence gives you the fulfillment of a father, who has been able to bridge the gap between your mother and wife forgive her.

I know it is hard to forgive a deceit, a person who kept such earth-shaking secret from you. But it is too late in the day to punish her for it because the life of an innocent party would be affected if the wrong decision is taken.

If truly she was raped by her boss, would you have believed her if she had told you then? Would you have given her a chance to defend herself considering it happened in a hotel room during an official assignment? It would have been easy for you to take on the wrong end of the stick. While not trying to defend her decision to have kept the information away from you, but we are all humans. Some situations leave us with no other choice but to keep quiet about certain things. At the point she did it, it wasn’t meant to hurt you or anybody but to secure her home and preserve the love and dignity of the man she married. How would you have felt knowing that another man defiled your wife? Would your ego have been able to take it back then?

Nothing happens without the knowledge of God. He may have planned the secret to be revealed at the point He knows you would be more matured to handle it.

You must also consider the fact that she too was a victim. The fact that she was raped and got pregnant from the unpleasant experience and has had to endure the secrets with all the attendant fears and dread of being found out is more than enough punishment for her. It isn’t easy to keep such a secret and must have been relieved by all the development. At least now, she has the freedom in her heart to face life without fear.

Love is all about forgiveness and the best way is for us to look at our own inadequacies too as a person. In our own, shortcomings lie on the strength of another and in their own failures, our strength.

Both of you should use this opportunity provided by this incident to fine-tune your marriage. It is an opportunity for you to allow all your suppressed anger to overflow without care. After the storm comes the calm.

Marriage endures through the process of forgiveness and endurances. Once you make up your mind to forgive, God would make it very easy for you.

Good luck.

My Wife’s Been Sleeping With Her Boss

Dear Agatha,

My marriage is blessed with two children, 15 and 13 years of age. I thought I had the perfect marriage until I found out the truth concerning my wife and her boss. For close to five years, she has been having an affair with her boss, something almost all our friends knew about but didn’t know how to tell me. Even my younger sister knew about it but decided to keep sealed lips about it to avoid being implicated as the reason my marriage crashed.

Actually, nobody told me anything about my wife’s infidelity. I found out by accident. One day, two months ago, I had this sudden impulse to see her. That morning we had a bitter quarrel which had become frequent following her refusals to pay attention to the home and children. She was also avoiding making love to me as frequently as she used to when we first got married.

I can’t say when it started precisely but over the years, our lovemaking got increasingly far apart. In some months I would be lucky if she allowed me near her twice. Even those times were real struggles.

It got to a point, I had to source for my satisfaction elsewhere but she still remained my wife, the one woman I wanted to be with all the time.

Never one to report my family to anybody, I bottled everything inside of me. I wasn’t ready to fight her for sex. I felt it was too demeaning for me. I kept asking her what the problem was and she kept telling me nothing. She said her workload was the reason she wasn’t having too much time for the family. I offered to pay her salary so she could have more time for the children and me, but she labelled me selfish and arrogant. She even accused me of trying to kill her dreams.

That morning, for the first time I beat her up for mocking me as a sex starved man who can’t think straight, all because I tried enforcing my rights as her husband after six weeks of not having sex with my wife.

At this point, I didn’t know where all the problems were coming from. It was not until that day when I walked in on her and her boss kissing passionately in the man’s car at the car park. She was too engrossed that evening to observe my car. I simply couldn’t control myself as I gave her the beating of her life at her office car park.

I was beyond caring and was ready to face charges her office might bring against me.  Surprisingly, no member of the security came to her rescue, not even her lover, who zoomed off.

She didn’t come home that night. I didn’t care but she came the next day in company of her mother. She must have gone to Ibadan that night to get the mother who is more like a mother to me than an in-law.

She went on her knees with tears rolling down her eyes to beg for me to listen to her. Since I didn’t want to be rude to her I stormed out of the house without saying a word.

My greatest challenge now is the role of her family as well as my mother, who for some inexplicable reasons seems to love my wife unconditionally. They are all begging me to forgive her. She told the family at a meeting the entire truth about her infidelity. To her credit she didn’t hide anything from them, including how she has been treating the children and I.

She claims not to know how it all happened but that whatever powers the man had over her died the day she was caught. I hear that she isn’t the man’s first victim; that in all the places he has worked, he has a record of dating and destroying the homes of highly influential women he worked with.

Our mothers, especially mine, who is very spiritual insists she was under a spell hence her appeals to me to take her back. She has since resigned and is now willing to be a full time housewife but I don’t know what to do. Deep down I love her dearly but how can I forgive five years of torture and infidelity?

Agatha, help me because I am very hurt and the pain is still very fresh. For now, I simply want to be left alone, to lick my wounds and deal with the pains, not take her back and forget what she did to me. They all seem to think it is an excuse not to take her back. I want her back but I also want time to be on my own but nobody understands. How do I make them?

Daniel.

 

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Dear Daniel,

Your reactions are very normal and a natural path to achieving complete cure. There is no way you can immediately forget this incident without the assistance of time.

They may all misunderstand you because you are harping on the wrong reason for your wanting some time to be alone. You have to summon the patience you don’t have to push your point, focusing on the dangers ahead if you don’t first get rid of all the residues that arose from her relationship with this other man.

Irrespective of whether he used charms or not, some fact simply cannot be wished away. One of those facts is that while you struggled to enforce your rights at home, she gave willingly to another man. I guess this is one of the issues aching you, one you seem to be having problems forgetting. It is so because it has to do with your pride as a man.

I understand all the insecurities that come with such feelings, especially the one that has to do with insecurity, fear of her still not finding you good enough, of constantly comparing you with this other man.

Sit your family members down and explain that unless you take time off to sort out your fears, come to terms with all that has happened you may not be able to give her the type of attention and support to sail the ship of your relationship back on course.

Let them appreciate that being the injured party, there is no way your feelings can get back to normal without first allowing the efficacy of time heal you of all the different in-between emotions you have had to deal with during the last two months.

Make them understand that the time you need is essential and is not for you to get back at her but to ensure you both don’t go through the stress of your current situation. Tell them it is the only antidote to your being able to completely forgive her.

Since your mind is made up to have her back, allow her to move into the house because frankly that is the only means you can get your families to listen to you after which you can travel outside the country on your own.

Actually, this is something you can both negotiate outside other family members. She more than the others would understand your need to be alone at this important time provided she has your assurances not to abandon her. Whatever her misgivings may be, she has no choice but to give you all the support to become the person she unwittingly lost.

Beyond this is your need of the help of God. You need God now more than ever before to help you heal properly because a lot depends on you being able to forget this ugly incident once and for all.

Good luck.