I’m In A Fix, My Love Happily Married!

Dear Agatha,

I am 31 years old in love with a businessman who is 34. He is the type of man I want to spend the rest of my life with. However four months into our relationship, I discovered that he had lied to me about himself. He gave me the impression that he was single only for me to discover recently that he has a wife and three children. He is the first man in my life. I don’t know what I will do without him or survive this period because this is really my first time of falling in love. Without him, I am not complete. Please help me point at the right way to go because I realise now that I have made a very terrible mistake in my life.

Confused Woman.

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Dear Confused Woman,

You just have to let go because he belongs to another woman. I can imagine your pains at his deceit as well as the sense of loss you must be feeling now but be grateful that it hasn’t got out of hands before you discovered his lies.

Just imagine the embarrassment as well as emotional torture if you had got pregnant by your Mr. Right only to discover that he wasn’t free to marry you or acknowledge the baby? What would you have done?

In every situation, we must learn to give thanks to God. You have learnt a very important lesson that some investigations and caution are important during the first few months of meeting a man or woman.

Had you applied just the most a little caution and observations, you definitely would have noticed one or two things that pointed him out as a liar. For instance, his eagerness to get away from you after a particular time, his refusal to allow you know his house, the excuses for his failure to meet your time, the busy schedules he suddenly manufacture when you have planned something special. Although you may not give so much consideration to them, these are sure signs that the man in your life is either having an affair outside you or not telling you the truth about his status.

Marriage is too important an institution, so don’t be involved in this one more than you have been. Granted there was no way you would have known that he was lying to you the first time, but now that you know, keep your distance from him. A man, who could lie so generously to cover the fact that he has a wife and three children, is one man to avoid with a passion.

Even though it was unintentional, you have already robbed another woman of four months of her joy, time and pleasures. You have also inadvertently caused those children quality moments with their father; holding on to him or whatever dreams you thought you had with him is to cause everybody involved in this drama more pains.

Whether you know it or not, his marriage will be affected one way or the other by your involvement with him. Don’t even linger around for him to plead with you to forgive him.

It is unfortunate you chose the wrong man to fall in love with but this experience is sure to leave you a better woman if you give yourself the opportunity of looking at the positive side of this whole development.

For instance, it would make you more cautious the next time a man comes your way. Now you know the mistakes you made with this man, never again would another man get away using the same tricks on you. God knows why He sent this man first to help you mature.

To continue to hold to him therefore is to do yourself a greater injustice than he has already done to you.

On how you would get over him, once you have the determination, the rest is easy. First make the move to forget ever meeting a man like him; granted it might not be as easy as it sounds given the menu of various degrees of pains going on inside of you, but you must make the effort to.

Having waited this long to fall in love and only to be so betrayed in the worst kind of ways a man can betray a woman, this is the time you need God the most as well as meaningful friends. Which of your friends is genuine? The one who has the magic to put a smile back on your face? Don’t be shy to call that friend up for help.

Except for the lessons you are supposed to learn from the episode, don’t allow this to affect your attitude towards men. To do that is to give this man an open visa into your life to continue to hurt you long after he has left.

If there is no friend to call on, take a break from familiar places you both visited or stayed. This is a sure way to help the memory of the time you had together fade faster. Also changing the position of things in the house would help reduce the time spent on imagining him in a particular position or the things you did in that position.

To help you get over it completely, you have to take pride in your judgment as well as your person. Don’t do yourself the injustice of questioning your own judgment on account of what happened between you and this man because there are so many decent men out there, ones who would appreciate the uniqueness that is you. This man happens to be one of those who make the human race full of pains and disappointments. Just like we have them in men, we also have women like him, so it is not a gender thing.

Besides, mistake is a part of growing up and life. We win some, we lose some. Mistakes are meant to strengthen us, to point out at the right way to go and to showcase our own limitations. Mistake itself is not a tragedy of human life; it only becomes one when we consistently refuse to learn from the experiences of past follies.

You never had the experience of a man like him but having met this kind of man, you now have the training to know what to look for and how to be wise in dealing with this kind of man.

As for you not being able to cope without him, trust me, you will become better than you ever imagined. It is the anxiety the heart generates when first love comes crashing down.

Cheer up and trust God to do what you now think is impossible.

Good luck.

My Husband-to-be Is Stingy

Dear Agatha,

I am 24 and in a relationship that is heading for marriage. But there is this problem I have with the man in question. He is very miserly; he doesn’t spend money on me. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the nature of his job but even when he has, he gives me so little.

I don’t know why he keeps telling me that he refuses to give me enough money because I am extravagant. He doesn’t trust me despite my telling him everything about my past from the beginning. At least my story didn’t stop him from bringing drinks to see and request of my parents for my hand in marriage. So, why doesn’t he trust me?

Although he recently told me his confidence in me is building up but I don’t think it is fair. He is a lot older than I am. His sister is of the opinion that he is scared of responsibility.

Honestly, I have nothing against him and I am really okay with him because meeting him really helped me in stopping most of the things I used to do while still in school.

A lot of my friends say he is madly in love with me but I sometimes doubt it. He is of the opinion that I lie a lot but I know I have chosen never to lie again to help the relationship work. It hurts because even when I am telling the truth he still thinks I am lying. Something tells me he knows I have changed but simply chooses not to advertise it in my presence.

Worried Fiancée.

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Dear Worried Fiancée,

It is obvious both of you still have a lot of things to iron out before you tie the knot.

Being the woman, you must learn to live within the means he provides for you else you risk drowning the thin line of trust that exists between you two.

Despite telling him you have changed, depending on the extent you went before meeting him, it would take more efforts on your part to completely clear the image he has of you or people around him have. Don’t forget, it is not just about him but about all those other people who have had one or two things to do with you in the past.

That he appears distrustful of you doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you or trust you. It could simply be a case of being cautious primarily instigated by fear that you might hurt him.

It is the inordinate survival instinct in everyone of us. It makes us struggle relentlessly against the evidences of our eyes. For now, his attitude is heavily under the influence of what his heart wants to accept and the voice of caution from his past knowledge of you.

It would take time for the war of his heart to win hence you must be willing to exercise patience, tolerance and understanding else if you fail to help him understand the new you, you risk losing his complete trust.

Bear in mind that some certain lifestyles are believed to be difficult to change from. Having lived a lifestyle of carelessness or given him some false starts in the beginning, you would have to excuse his behaviour for now.

It takes a man who cares to do the impossible. He must really love you so much to have taken the risk of going to your parents with the type of image you claim to have had. Give him time to build his trust as well as for you to earn it.

Nagging him over money won’t help at all. Learn to accept whatever he gives you; it could be his way of accessing the change really going on in your life. Also, it could be his way of instilling some financial discipline in your life. Having made up his mind to spend the rest of his life with you, he feels an obligation to impact some of his values into you.

To him, you are no just any woman anymore but for both of you to have a life together, he feels it is his responsibility to give you some lessons in life, which could be not getting everything you request from life. Before you met him, you got what you wanted without caring what you gave in return. There is a world of difference between being a girlfriend and a wife. Men most times don’t care the character a girlfriend they have no interest in marrying put up. All they are interested in from such women is fun but it is a different ball game when it comes to the woman they want to spend the rest of their lives with.

More often than not, men are more meticulous than women when it comes to details about the woman they want to share their space with. Money isn’t everything. If you are unable to manage the little he gives you now, how do you propose to convince him you would be able to manage difficult times with him when you get married? How do you seek to tell him that you have the qualities to be a good wife?

Marriage is full of uncertainties. It is a wild field where anything, both good and bad could happen. It pays to adopt the motto of the boy’s scout to be prepared always. Marriage strives on sacrifices and unconditional support. Even if you suspect his playing pranks with you by refusing to give you enough money, give him your support if you truly love him.

By so doing, you earn his trust, friendship as well as loyalty. Once you both are able to work this into your relationship at this nascent stage, it helps solve a lot of confusions as well as complications later in life.

Sincerely, it is in your interest you earn his absolute trust now because some people from your past you may have hurt emotionally may want to foment trouble for you once the knowledge of your marriage plans become public. The major target would be your man. They would tell him things just to discredit and make him change his mind about marrying you. While you have acted wisely by exposing your entire past to him, it isn’t enough. You must follow such honesty with both transparency as well as determination to make this relationship work against the expectation of all those who are expecting you to derail.

Truthfully, he is the one that has taken the most risk in this relationship so don’t discourage him by making demands you know are out of place.

Don’t forget that apart from the love he is investing in this relationship, he is also investing his pride as well as the friendship of some close friends who may have warned him against the wisdom of dating you. If you fail him, it would go beyond you; it would affect the way he treats all the other women who come after you.

Your role as his would-be wife is to help him manage his life, including his finances. It is not to encourage him to spend unwisely. If your friends are of the opinion that he is really in love with you, why not help yourself making your dream come true with this man by deploying wisdom into anything you do with him. There is nothing that comes easy in life without preparation.

Refusing to praise the changes in you is not out of recognition of your efforts but an attempt not to make you rest on your oars.

With plenty of prayers, you can make this work so be very prayerful.

Good luck.

After Taking My Flower… Now Finds Solace In His Ex

Dear Agatha,

I’m a final year student of Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma. I was 23 years of age when I agreed to a relationship with my current boyfriend.

Before I agreed to his request, he had through a picture I saw in his photo album introduced his ex-girlfriend to me.

But few months after we started dating, he informed me about the visit of his supposed ex-girlfriend. It was at that point he admitted that he told a lie about the lady being his ex. He told me that he was once very much in love with the lady.

However, she came as he had warned. Not did her visits become frequent, having secured admission into 200 Level in our school, they now live together.

Immediately she came, she placed everything in the room prompting my boyfriend to give away his former things. The lady is responsible also for his financial needs since he doesn’t have a good job for now.

The most painful thing is that she uses everything that belongs to my boyfriend, including wearing his boxers. Whenever I ask him the precise situation between them, he says nothing.

Everybody in the compound tells me he is cheating on me. When I confronted him on who is responsible for the pregnancy he took her to the hospital to terminate, he told me it was the girl’s boyfriend.

I’m told they go to the bath together when they think nobody is at home.

I once trusted him and I have never cheated on him and I don’t want to be cheated on either. They both speak Igbo whenever we are together, knowing full well I don’t understand a word of the language, as an Ishan lady.

I’m beginning to change my mind toward him despite him being the one who deflowered me, a year and six months into our relationship.

Please I need your advice before it is too late. I’m 25 years old and time is not exactly my friend.

Rosy.

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Dear Rosy,

What sort of advice do you want? That you should continue to stay with a man who obviously has little regard for you? Isn’t it obvious this man and his girlfriend are playing you for a fool and that you don’t reckon in his life?

What more evidence do you need than the ones they are presenting to you? Are your fears of being left on the shelf so profound that you would continue to tolerate this humiliation from this man who has no grain of respect for your person or feelings? What do you call this, love or outright stupidity? He lives with a woman in the same room who wears his cloths, uses his things and he tells you there is nothing between them? And you believe him? Why are you finding it so difficult to let go of something that never was?

Deep down, do you think this man has anything to offer you? Do you think you can trust him? From the very beginning he has never been straight with you. The woman he told you was his ex, turns out to be very much alive in his life. Not only was she ever out of the picture, but also has come in full force to take her rightful place beside him.

At 25, there is no hurry for you to get married. Even if you are well advanced in age, it still doesn’t mean a woman should marry any man simply to please the society. This man would never treat you with respect. He would always find an excuse to hurt you. Is this the type of man you want or a marriage where there would always be other people?

One thing is to desire marriage another is to have it with the right type of person. Trust me, it is one of the most wonderful institutions on earth but the wrong choice of a spouse could make it the worst nightmare in life. Often, it is best to remain single than to go into a marriage laden with pains of disappointments, lies, infidelity, and outright lack of respect.

Wake up to the hard fact, this man doesn’t feel a thing for you or this other lady. He wants you for the free sex he gets when this other lady isn’t around. While the other lady, he wants for the money she provides him.

Men like him are nothing but opportunists, always on the look out for his self-interest. This is one man who would never make you happy. Not having a job is not an excuse for him to be cruel or deceitful.

But beyond the issue of this man is that in all these, you seem to be your own worst enemy. There is the need for you to build your self-esteem else you would become an easy prey for any man out for quick fun and mischief. The moment men perceive you as desperate to marry, they would tell you all the things they know you want to hear for the purpose of sleeping with you.

If you are not careful, you would end up more broken hearted than you already are now, because out there are more men like this current boyfriend of yours.

You need to help yourself adjust to the fact that age adds value to life if you know how. You must shake off the mentality that says you are aging fast on the shelf to prevent you short-changing yourself from the good promises that go with marriage.

Earn your respect from a man by refocusing your priorities from desperation to acceptance of the will of God. Unless you key into his plans for you, you are liable to making the worst kinds of mistakes in life. Our God is neither late nor early but always on time. When His time is ripe, age becomes secondary; it assumes the posture of a huge advantage not the disadvantage you seem to think it is now.

The important thing in life is to be happy with the choices you have made, not weep over them later in life.

The more time you spend with this man would only add depreciation to your worth and self-esteem. If you don’t end the relationship before it is too late, you would never be able to recover from the psychological trauma of all that is happening to you. Yes, you took a gamble on him by loving and trusting him. That he deflowered you doesn’t mean you have to tolerate humiliation. It is time for you to move on with your life. Painful, yes, but there is nothing more for you in this relationship. This is life, sometimes it is so unfair and painful, other times, it is just and fair to all those who learn from each bitter experience as well as trust God.

At this early stage, he should be the one sweating to have you in his life, not you. If you begin from the beginning to fight the battle to have him remain in your life, what will you do when you marry and you have to fight to make the marriage work as well as protect it from the claws of other women? You can drag an unwilling horse to the river but can never force it to drink.

You are forcing this man to retain his interest in you when he has made it obvious that he no longer wants you around.

Leaving him to focus on your strengths, qualities, values as well as work on your self-esteem would help you know what to look out for in another man who comes your way. You must first have a focus of your own to be happy in a relationship. You remain in this relationship despite the pains it is causing you due to your lack of focus beyond getting married at all cost. It isn’t his problem but yours. Make the decision to be happy and God will provide you with everything you need to make it work wonderfully well for you.

Good luck

Can Girl Declare Her Virginity Status To New Man?

Dear Agatha,

I really enjoyed your response to my problem. It seems God specifically created you for only me. May the good Lord reward you immensely in Jesus name. Amen.

Like Oliver Twist, I’ve come again ‘to ask for more.’ This time, there is this disturbing question I want you to answer for me. Is it right for a girl to tell a man just coming to her that she is till a virgin?
Blessing.

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Dear Blessing,

It is neither here nor there. Telling him would depend on the questions being asked or the topics being discussed.

If the question bothers on the woman’s virginity, nothing stops her from giving him an honest answer. This is simply because it pays to tell the truth from the beginning otherwise such information should not be given on a first date. A couple’s first meeting should be devoid of such private issues or things that could stampede the relationship into hasty or ill-conceived conclusion.

It is always best for a woman to keep her lips sealed on such very personal matters until the occasion calls for it. Flaunting the fact of her virginity on every opportunity to the face of a guy could result into her falling into the wrong hands. Some mischievous men excited at the thought of being a woman’s first, could capitalise and manipulate such intimate information to their advantage.

Besides, a man who truly loves a woman would not bother about such information. Some men actually discover that fact about their girls, years later.

A woman should give herself and the man the opportunity to build something very tangible first before divulging this vital information.

Good luck.

My Tomboy Girl Won’t Let Go Her Ex

Dear Agatha,

I am 20 years of age and in love with a girl of 17. I love her so much and I know she is equally in love with me.

However, she so much of a tomboy! Although, it doesn’t matter to me so much but her current close association with her former boyfriend is giving me great concern. They are always seen together discussing and whenever I ask she says there is nothing to the relationship.

Although she tells me everything about their relationship, fact remains that I am not comfortable at all with her continued closeness to the boy.
What do I do?

Jboy.

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Dear Jboy,

That they are no longer dating doesn’t make them enemies. The essence of a relationship is to build bridges of friendship, not to fight when things don’t work out the way we intend.

That they are still in constant communication shows that whatever reason they had for terminating their relationship is fundamental enough to destroy whatever chance they have to remain good friends.

At least, she has not hidden that fact from you and has tried from your letter to keep you informed about their every move. If they had anything to hide, she won’t be so obvious in her association with him. When a woman has something to hide, she doesn’t advertise like you said she did. Trust is what you both require to ensure this relationship doesn’t suffer a set back.

She may be 17 but from the way she has comported herself, this girl sure has certain maturity far above her age, which makes it important for you to take time to study her and resist the urge to suspect her of something she isn’t doing. Besides, tomboys are usually the difficult to deal with due to the way they see things.

And if you indeed have any reason to be uncomfortable, call her in for a dialogue. Gently explain the discomfort you feel and why you think she should, for your sake, minimise her meetings with him. Explain your discomfort as well as the issues involved in her being seen with him constantly.

If you don’t fight her but explain to her why she must for your sake, reconsider her attitude.

Good luck.

His Parents Oppose His Choice Of Me Based On Distance?

Dear Agatha,

I want you to advise me on something of extreme importance to me. There is this guy I am dating. Doubtless we are very much in love with each other. He has visited my parents. But his parents don’t want me for the simple reason that we live very far from each other. They maintain that the distance is not healthy for our relationship. My question is, can distance be a barrier to love?

I am very confused.

Confused Lady.

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Dear Confused Lady,

It could be a huge problem for two young persons still struggling to build a solid and viable relationship. Being in love is just a step in the entire process of building a relationship. Without all the necessary tripods to peg the growth of love, it won’t work.

In clear terms, a dating couple needs the advantage of closeness to observe and form an understanding necessary for peaceful coexistence between them. The essence of a courtship is to provide a couple the practices and bonding period. Just like sportsmen and women need constant practices to excel so is a dating couple. This is because marriage is lifetime journey, one, once made is often very difficult to terminate due to all the complications and diverse interests of other people involved in the process of marriage.

This could be the fear of your boyfriend’s parents who from experience know the monumental danger of having two young persons in a relationship living too far from each other.

The major challenge between you and your man is the issue of temptation. You must convince yourselves first that you both trust each other enough as well as the necessary respect for yourselves not to be tempted by other interests. This is primarily a matter for both of you to think, discuss and arrive at acceptable compromises.

There is often a thin line between love and hatred. Without both of you being honest with each other, it might be difficult for both of you to travel far in this journey. Long distance relationship requires tremendous commitment, openness and constant communication of even the smallest details to keep its wheels well oiled. Partners must never take each other for granted or assume that the trust between them is enough to completely erase the ugly head of suspicion from rising. Being humans, suspicions would from time to time rear its head hence every question must be treated with maturity, and down-to-earth honesty to disallow whatever may have brought about such questions from developing further.

The advantage of long distance relationship is the opportunity it provides, partners to develop the relationship along the line of unquestionable trust and frankness. More than the regular relationship, it gives partners realistic values to peg the survival of their relationship. It equally gives the relationship the required benefit to focus on other areas of strength beyond sex. Frankly, this type of relationship once it survives the initial hiccups can withstand any storm thrown at it because of the enduring foundation provided by the long distance. It also helps the woman to develop a strong sense of character which enables her survive in situations where women who have always had their men besides them cannot.

However, his parents have no right to make up his mind for him except he isn’t sure about what he wants. So the major task is before you and your man.

With the opposition from his parents comes the need for him to really appraise his feelings towards you as well as for you to adjudge the strength of his feelings for you.

One thing is clear, if he really feels something deep for you, he would stand by your love for each other despite what his parents feel. He would have the determination to influence his family into accepting his choice.

Sincerely, there is nothing for you to do here if he is unwilling to fight for the love of his woman. Before making up his mind to bring you to his parents, he must have discovered some precious qualities in you, things uncommon in the other women he has so far met. He now has the audacious task of convincing his parents what those qualities are and how distance would never change those things or what he feels for you.

Truly, if their concern comes from the ability of both of you to manage the extra-challenge long distances put on your relationship, the assurance provided by their son could thaw their rigidity in the matter except of course the excuse is a mere smokescreen for something else.

At any rate, every relationship needs an opportunity to chart its path in life and to find its strength as well as weakness. If you are both not given a reason to put your love to test, there is no way any of you would be able to determine the workability of this relationship.

Your boyfriend must plead with his parents to understand why you and he need all their support to make it work.

But like I said earlier, management of long distance relationship is more complex and challenging in that it takes more doses of trust, tolerance, patience, understanding, self-denials, deeper sense of responsibility and prayers to make it work.

Having an open mind would help you overcome whatever comes your way in this situation.

Good luck.

My Wife Wars Over My Siblings Living With Us

Dear Agatha,

I have been married for close to three years and blessed with a child, over a year old. We are financially very comfortable, so if there is any problem we have it has nothing doing with money. I married my wife after courtship of about two years. My family had no objection to the marriage rather they welcomed her as a member of the family.

The first year after our wedding, we lived without a maid or any of our relationships. A year after, her younger sister and brother came over to spend some time with us. I gave them complete freedom. I treated them as my younger siblings.

Last month, my younger brother came over to our house after his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) almost at the same time my cousin who was posted to Lagos for his NYSC programme joined us too.

For putting on the generator before she came back from the office, my wife told my cousin who is her age mate off. She was apparently very rude in her remarks because my cousin reported the incidence to me in her presence when I came back from the office.

To avoid taking sides, I told my cousin to emulate my example by learning to tolerate things like a man. At that point she snapped, shouting at my cousin’s effrontery for reporting her.

When her attitude was becoming unbearable, I had to remind her of the amount of respect my cousin had shown her since coming to live with us. I reminded her that apart from helping with the house-chores, he also washed her car. I told her that as an adult male, he deserved to be respected by her.

This only served to infuriate her the more as she completely went berserk. Thinking I was going to hit her at the point I got up, she started fighting me using anything she could lay her hands on and in the process injuring my brother on the head with a weapon she aimed for me.

The injury on my brother didn’t sober her as she came back for me. I refused to lift my hands against her. She also threatened to kill me. We are both graduates; while she is in her late 20s, I’m in my early 30s.

I intend to proceed on a divorce because I cannot tolerate violence from a woman. It is unthinkable. Also unacceptable to me is her hostile attitude towards my family while she shows love to hers. Please, kindly advice me on the right line of action to take.

Worried Man.

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Dear Worried Man,

There is no marriage without challenges and yours isn’t an exception. It is one of the toughest journeys on earth. It requires the patience of the dove, the Wisdom of Solomon, the strength of the elephant and the determination of the ant to pull it through. Like the washing of the bitter-leaf, it takes a lot of hard work to rid it of initial bitter taste before getting to the sweet part.

This journey requires unconditional investments, selflessness, tolerance, understanding, friendship and prayers. No matter one’s years of experience, the marriage institution is too deep for anybody to fully understand. This is so because it is premised on the flaws of the human system. Every entrant into the institution is coming with an overload of imperfect thinking, logic, attitude as well as ideas that never worked from those it was copied from.

If you divorce this woman on account of such a minor issue what will you do if you marry another woman whose attitude is worst than what you are currently complaining of? Kill her?

Honestly compared to what many other couples or men are contending with, yours is a child’s play. So begin by being grateful to God for little mercies.

This is by no means dismissing the issues you raised but an attempt to make you think of other viable options. Divorce should never be the first option, but should always be the last. Besides, every marriage must have certain ground rules for it to work perfectly well.

Before getting married, did you both discuss the format of your marriage? Granted, we are in an African society where relatives walk in and out of each other’s homes unrestricted.

But the fact is we were not all brought up to tolerate that type of lifestyle. While you may have been brought up to tolerate such a lifestyle, her mother may not have encouraged such liberties from her own in-laws.

Most of us grow up to exhibit the type of attitudes and lifestyles we were exposed to as young children. Until now, she didn’t have the opportunity of gauging whether the attitudes or characteristics she picked up from her own upbringing were the right ones or not.

You say she is in her late 20s. It would take a long time for her to do way with habits she has lived with for more than two and a half decades before doing things your way.
Adjustments in marriages don’t happen suddenly. They take time, some take a lifetime to bury. Honestly, you didn’t treat the issue very well. Despite what she has done, which on all accounts, is very wrong, she is still your wife and anybody staying with you must learn to accord her the respect they give you.

Don’t encourage your family members to interfere in your marriage. Such an attitude has only one conclusive end, anarchy in your home. Don’t forget that every other person, including the children is a transit passenger in your home. You started as a twosome and would end up as a twosome. Your children would one day leave your nest to begin their own the same thing applies to every passenger that comes on board your marital train.

It isn’t worth fighting your wife over them. Don’t forget this is your better half. Even though all these other people are part of you, they cannot play the roles she plays in your life. What you can do with her, you cannot do with your siblings or children. There is a part of you that only belongs to her.

What you should have done is not to reprimand your wife or react to the issue in the presence of your cousin. You should have excused your wife and yourself from his presence to tongue-lash her in the privacy of your room. Thereafter, call your cousin to apologise and plead with him to tolerate the situation. Telling your cousin to learn to tolerate the situation like a man right in the presence of your wife was very wrong.

To her, it was taking sides with your people against her as well as eroding her authority in her home. This may not have been intended by you but it is what your attitude conveyed hence her hurtful outburst.

Frankly, your cousin or anybody for that matter has no right to report your wife to you in such a blatant manner. Not that he lacks the right to complain when rudely spoken to or treated disrespectfully by your wife, but it should be done with certain decorum.

She isn’t a child, but next in command to you. The fact that she is your wife doesn’t make her less of a person to be respected. If his sister speaks to him in like manner in her matrimonial home, would he report her to her husband the same way he reported your wife to you? He is old enough to know that you would neither take such matters lightly nor would your wife accept the blame in his presence. This is the worry, what did your cousin hoped to achieve by reporting her to you?

A more matured approach would have been to ignore her as much as possible in the interest of peace and harmony in the marriage.

How would he feel if on account of this incident you actually end the marriage?

Had you managed the situation well, it wouldn’t have degenerated into the fracas that erupted in the home.

What this has taught you is to sit her down and begin all over. Find out why she seems too hostile to your people while friendly with hers? Make her understand that like her you can be mean to hers but decided to be nice despite their faults due to the love and respect you have for her.

Register your displeasure at her attitude and your embarrassment at being ridiculed in the presence of your family members. Point her to the damage of her action as well as the drop in respect her conduct has caused both of you in the minds of your siblings. It is also imperative she knows the extent of your pains and how far you were willing to go by mentioning your desire to end the marriage on account of her wild behaviour.

Warn her you would not stand such uncultured behaviour in future.

Follow it up with discussion of how to avoid this type of ugly incident. Both of you must be willing to find a common ground to operate not only in the interest of your innocent child who would suffer most should you go ahead with your plans to terminate the marriage but your own interests too.

Obviously she lacks humility but you cannot force her to eat the humble pie in a day. A lot of how much she changes would come from the way you handle situation.

Your staying power would be to go back to your first day and how wonderful you felt at meeting each other. Experiences like this only serve to give a marriage its unique character of strength and support to others later in life.

You don’t throw in the towel at the first sight of trouble rather you stay to ensure it works, after all life is about defeating challenges.

With plenty of prayers as well as the right attitude, you will both achieve the dreams of happiness and endless companionship that brought you two together.

Good luck.

As My Last Girl Jilts… Women Now Jolt Me

Dear Agatha,

I am 23 years of age in love with a girl of 19.

Already somebody is asking her hand in marriage but she isn’t ready for marriage. But her mother is forcing her to marry this man and that if she refuses to accept the man means she is against her.

From the way she now talks to me, I am suddenly having the feelings that she has made up her mind to marry the man, despite the promise never to leave me for another man.

This was a girl in my life, very much in love with and dated for three years. In our time together, I never once made love to her.

Along the line, we had problems over sex and other matters. I decided to part ways with her when she started comparing me with other men. Even though she claimed she was joking at the time she made the comments, the issues she raised in her supposed jokes still led to our separation.

She has remained apologetic over the way she handled things between us since then and has never hidden her desire for us to get back together. We are still in constant communication.

With my current girlfriend set for marriage, my whole world is incomplete and upside down. I now hate anything that has to do with a woman. I need your assistance urgently.

Daniel.

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Dear Daniel,

Every day in life is a new opportunity to learn and acquire new experiences. These are not meant to discourage but to help make one stronger and tougher in life. To be discouraged is to give up on yourself as well as life. God didn’t mean us to be discouraged by whatever situation we find ourselves. He meant them to help shape us into better human beings.

You must admit that these situations have taught you more about the dynamism of the woman’s mind. What lessons did your first relationship teach you? Being bitter won’t help you at all. Rather, have a clear mind because that is the only way you can learn new things in your life. This is the special gift time gives us. Time offers a healing balm that allows each experience become bearable as well as priceless because overtime it affords us a broader perspective of situations we hitherto thought were unfair.

There is nothing you can do about the decision of your first girlfriend to yield to the pressures of her family, particularly her mother. It is obvious that her love for you is sufficient to challenge the decision of her family. If you look beyond the hurt, you will come to appreciate that you are indeed better off without this woman because you would never ever have her complete loyalty. She will always be under the influence of her family, taking orders from them and ignoring your own feelings.

Sometimes, things we think at the heat of the moment are to our disadvantage do turn out in the end to be our good.

God, who sees the end from the beginning, knows why. Again, she and her mother may be worried at the impossibility of you being ready when she is set.

At 23, their thinking is you still have very far to go in life before you are ready to take a wife and its accompanying responsibilities by which time the lady would have been ripe. So it may not be the issue of money but that of making hay while the sun shines. More often than not, this line of thinking is informed by the disappointments a lot of women suffer in the hands of men whom they have waited for to be ready only for these women to be dumped for younger women when the men are eventually ready to marry.

While this may not be so good a reason, looking at it from the viewpoint of this girl and her mother would help you get over this disappointment and move on with your life. It would stop you from taking the issue so personal.

As for the other lady, if you dated her for three years and she is still begging you to forgive her, you may have to reconsider and give her another chance in your life.

While it is advisable that couples should abstain from premarital sex, however, it must be a consensus between the two of them to make it achievable. So, you two must discuss the thorny issue of sex between the two of you. This isn’t a decision one of you can make for the other. It has to come from both of you to erase its attendant problems in your relationship. That she is complaining means you didn’t carry her completely along.

If you two must come back together, this issue has got to be discussed in explicitly to the understanding of both of you.

She, in particular, should understand the attendant sacrifices that come from whatever decision you both take as well as develop the necessary patience to see it to the end.

I think your relationship lacked the understanding as well as patience to go through with the decision of not having sex with her.

For a woman who is thirsty for sex, it could be frustrating and good reason for her to quest for emotional satisfaction outside the relationship. The quest for emotional satisfaction in both men and women makes the issue of self-discipline very thin. And if not properly tackled could also instigate the issue of trust between the one who is determined not to and the one who see nothing wrong in doing it. The one who sees nothing wrong may begin to suspect the more discipline one of not having enough interest to be able to hold on to his or her emotions.

But when the issues are clearly defined and reasons well understood nip such suspicions in the bud.

Discussing about your options as well as your plans for the future with your former girlfriend would give you an idea to the workability of your relationship.

It is also in your interest to forgive and forget else you open yourself up for an emotional breakdown capable of destroying you for life.

Whatever eventually happens between you and these women accept the situation as part of your memoirs in the cause of your growing up. We all come with such private memoirs to drag out of the cupboards later in life when the occasions call for sharing them to help give light to a young person or friend going through the pains of emotional disappointments.

Pray for the grace of God to be happy and fulfilled while putting more efforts at improving on the quality of your life. Once you get it right with your dreams, getting the woman to share your life with you would be much easy. There is a magnetism associated with success.

Good luck.

My Husband Targets Divorce… I Think The Contrary

Dear Agatha,

I have a problem with my spouse based on lack of trust, and it has shattered our relationship. I don’t trust him neither does he trust me. This lack of trust has caused so much suspicion that it is affecting the quality of our relationship.

I have tried to erase whatever reason he has to be distrustful of me by being transparent in anything I do but he seems so doubtful of me.

Now he has sent me away from his house, even though he isn’t faithful and sincere in his dealings with women who have succeeded in ruining our three-year-old marriage. He wants to go ahead with divorce and I have not really made up my mind about it for now.

What do I do now?

Okoro.

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Dear Okoro,

Don’t go ahead with the divorce proceedings until you are both sure there is nothing more you can do to help your marriage get back on the right track.

Use the opportunity provided by this break to do some soul searches. Where did you go wrong? If you say he doesn’t trust you, it means you, like him, have broken the bond of trust and friendship in the marriage?

What did you do to bring about his lack of trust of you? Did you, out of pains, also go out of your marriage to do what you shouldn’t do? Frankly speaking, a marriage without trust is like a house without foundation. Have you ever seen a human being without the firm support of a bone frame? Without trust as the frame of marriage, it is lifeless. Whatever is the issue that brought your marriage to its knees must be serious and requires absolute honesty as well as efforts on your part to bring it back to life.

While I appreciate it hurts massively to know that your partner has been cheating on you, men can be excused by the society for such indiscretion while a woman would never be forgiven. This is because the body of a woman is built to house while that of the man is built to plant. The body of the woman is sacred, it hold the secret of life because it gives life to the world. The delicate nature of the role of the woman to life makes it abominable for her to open the sacredness of her body to any man once she is married. There is no over-emphasising the importance of her role in the life of her and family. This is why she must never do anything to destroy the trust of her sacredness in the life of her family because to do so is to call to question the legitimacy of the family unit.

The woman’s body holds the secret to her husband’s pride and honour. Her body not only gives authority, legality but also right to her children, the right to their paternal heritage. Once the trust is broken, she not only gives everybody reason to question the legitimacy of the children but their claims to be members of the family they claim to be theirs.

By so doing, she exposes her children to the ridicule of every mischievous mind. This is what lack of trust does to a woman and her children.

When a woman goes outside her home for an extra marital affair, she is not just putting her own reputation on the line but that of her entire children as well.

This is why a woman must never allow the pains of her emotional bereavement in her marriage push her into any compromising situation.

Can you forgive yourself of the offence you committed in the process of justifying your actions against his treatment of you? The healing process begins from our own solid realisation of our own inadequacies. This way, it becomes easier for us to accept that imperfection is the heritage of the human race.

You have to first of all make this peace with and within yourself to acquire the understanding and needed strength to fight for your man. To do this, you must want the marriage and him like never before. You must acquire the emotional strength and maturity to forgive him of his own weaknesses as well as the appreciation to make him forget all these other women.

To achieve this, you must know why he seems to go after these women, why he has found it almost impossible to remain faithful to you.

The best place to start from is the very beginning of your meeting. Has he always been like that, you finding excuses to justify his behaviour? Has be ever been faithful to you if yes, when did he change? What are your own contributions to his behaviour? How much have you changed since your marriage vis-à-vis your look, attitude, character as well as values?

What is your housekeeping like? Can you cook him an unforgettable meal? Apart from the physical relationship, do you have emotional and spiritual relationship, which infuses friendship to transform a relationship? You have been married for three years, how would you describe your marriage, happy or frustrating? Do you love your man enough to make you fight to have him back or are you of the view that you are better off without him? Is your marriage blessed with children? If yes, the interest of the children too matters and if not, is that why you are having problems?

These are issues you must tackle before setting on the mission of recovery. Admittedly, with you out of the house, the issue is going to be a lot difficult to resolve unless you have the support of his family and friends. These are the groups of persons who can conveniently mount a pressure on him to change his mind.

Since asking you to quit his home, have you tried getting his family or friends to intervene in the matter? If not, why? No matter the situation between you and them before, go to them to help you speak with him and get him to do a re-think. This is the time for you to be honest in your situation and thinking.

Don’t go back if you know deep down that you made a mistake. Most times, we discover too late that a terrible mistake has been made in the choices we made; even though the society expects us to continue to live with the mistake to please it, it gets to a point when it becomes unbearable.

You and this man are the ones at the centre of it all; you know when you can no longer tolerate the situation. Once you both get to that point, the best is for you to go your different ways to avoid both of you doing something monumentally stupid and fatal. Be honest, if you cannot tolerate each other again, don’t go back to him to please anybody.

But if you feel deep down, in spite of the current situation between both of you, don’t be discouraged by your previous attempts at getting him to trust you. Bear in mind that once lost, trust is always difficult to re-build. It takes patience as well as an openness of mind to kick-start it again.

Things can still work out between the two of you, learn to give it your best shot for the sake of your peace of mind as well as happiness.

Learn to pray too because you need the help of the author of marriage, God, to make things work well. If you started without Him, this is the right time for you to begin again with Him.

Good luck.

Is Love Meaningful Without Sex?

Dear Agatha,

I am 28 years of age, a fresh graduate and currently working temporarily with a company at Awka pending when I would go for the compulsory national youth service.

My problem is, in all the relationships I have had so far, I had always invested more in procuring happiness for the girls I date.

On my part, I have never tried having sex with any of them or benefited in other ways from these relationships because I am of the view that they have nothing to give me.

My question is, since I am not the type that demands sex, what is the essence of going into a relationship with a girl? To be frank with you, this particular issue has started creating a cold spirit in me about women generally.

Secondly, is it wise for me at my age to start searching for a life partner or a relationship that may lead to marriage particularly as my three elderly brothers are still unmarried?

Ugo.

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Dear Ugo,

Sex is not the only reason we go into relationships. As a matter of fact when starting a relationship, sex is the least important in that it doesn’t add value to the initial foundation of a relationship. When a relationship is premised on sex, it ends up very deficient in the other important qualities needed to make it work well.

Premature sex blinds a couple to fundamental issues staring them in the relationship. This is because most times, dating couples use sex to mask problems they ordinarily have nipped in the bud due to fear of losing the intimacy and fulfillment sex gives.

Oftentimes, the ignored problems turn out to be the nightmare of the relationship. For the young couple, sex is too powerful to manage with the effective growth of a relationship. This is why the young have formed the habit of migrating from one relationship to another with the hope of finding better sex than with the previous partner. For most young persons, especially women, the focus only changes from sex to marriage as the clock ticks away.

This becomes a problem later because all the years that would have gone into preparations are spent in the bedroom on an event that lacks the power to steady a relationship at the end of the day.

This is not to say sex isn’t important but at the initial stage of a relationship, it isn’t as important as studying the character of your partner and knowing your limitations as human beings.

Every relationship should ideally go through all the stages before it peaks at sex. It should have a primary, secondary as well as the tertiary stages. The tertiary stage is the one that leads to marriage, the time when sex becomes the icing on the cake.

The essence of you going into a relationship now is to provide you with the opportunity of knowing who you intend spending the rest of your life with vis-à-vis your outlook to life, temperament, attitude as well as values.

Coming from different families, there is no disputing the fact you each come with different ideologies, values, customs as well as attitudes. Being humans, there is no way you can have the same temperaments or solutions to an issue. These things take time to arrive at a consensus that would be agreeable to both of you.

Having lived with your habits for long, giving them up would naturally not come easy hence the sense in having a relationship. It is to allow the marriage the freedom to grow along the line of understanding. With the massive responsibilities marriage confers on the couple coupled with the expectation of starting a family, only few marriages can survive the encumbrances of learning the first ropes.

This is the stage many marriages collapse even before their first anniversary. Having a relationship takes the strain off leaving couples with less complication to tackle in the early days of marriage.

It also gives dating couple enough time to make and perfect their plans for the future. Time is always of essence in any relationship.

Once couples fritter away precious time, getting the opportunity of that time to make their dreams come true may never again present itself especially if they have gone into marriage.

In addition to this, comes the all important opportunity of being good friends. Marriage makes lovers of couples but relationship makes them friends.

You must have enough time to be your partner’s friend, confidant, helper, supporter, cheerleader, think-tank, companion before marriage sets in. These are the emotions that are integral to marital success, than give optimum enjoyment as well as satisfaction to the important issue of why people marry. Marriage is more of companionship than anything else and if unfortunate to pick a mate who fails to give joy, peace and support at home, it becomes difficult for any meaningful development or achievement to be recorded in such home. This puts a great impediment in the spiritual, emotional and psychological growth of the union leaving it an empty shell.

At 28, you need all the time in the world to plan for your happiness, to chart the course of the flow of that happiness, to navigate your ways out of the many mistakes you have seen in your parents, relatives and friends’ marriages.

You and your brothers don’t have the same destinies. They have their reasons for still being single. You have your life to live just as they have theirs to live. If you are ready before them, there is no reason you shouldn’t get married. However, you still have some few years to be ready.

It is always advisable for a man to put certain structures in place before thinking of bringing in a woman permanently into his life.

Good Luck.

Lonely Heart

Dear Agatha,

I have been trying to ask this question: Can a man of my age, 20 years, find a girl that will love him genuinely and truly without sex.

I believe in total abstinence and faithfulness to one’s the partner. I have been wondering and asking if I can find a girl that holds this belief without compromising her stand.

I want to use this medium to call upon our beloved future leaders to please zip up for a better tomorrow.

Agatha, please link me with a girl that holds this belief. I am truly looking for a girl to build a long and lovely friendship.

My email address is (eelohims@yahoo.com)

I will be grateful if you can help me.

My Wife Refused Me Sex For Five Months

Dear Agatha,

Are there any medical implications for a married man especially spiritual, whose wife refused him sex for up to five months?

Worried Man.

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Dear Worried Man,

Why is your wife refusing to make love with you? Has she a medical condition? Has she recently gone through a very difficult labour, cesarean section or any major operation? Did she contact any sexually transmitted disease from you? Are you two going through a difficult period in your marriage?

The issue is not about you having any medical condition over her refusal to make love with you but clearing whatever may have caused the dislocation in your union.

Whatever may have necessitated a married woman to deny her husband her body for up to five months must be major to warrant the risk of putting her entire marriage on the line.

The spiritual implication would not come from her refusal but the issues that led to the present sexual impasse between the two of you. It also comes from unfair resolution of issues between a man and woman.

Did you cheat on her? What led to her decision not to share her body with you? There is no way she would have had the guts to embark on such a decision if things were normal between the two of you or she didn’t have a good enough medical reason.

If her reasons are medical, they would soon pass. All you have to do is to give her all the support she needs to heal properly. Ensure she keeps faithfully to her appointments with the doctor to help her heal in the right places.

Putting her under the pressure of sex may have adverse effect on her, a situation that could affect her future health as well as sexual relationship with you.

No spiritual consequences ever come from a woman refusing to have sex with her husband if necessitated on legitimate grounds. If there are any spiritual implications, it would be on the partner refusing to keep his or her side of the marital bargain. If your wife is deliberately leaving you in the cold for no just reason, she is the one that would suffer any consequences that come from such denial, not you.

But if her reason has anything to do with something terrible you may have done, like contacting a disease that originates from you having an extra marital affair. It would be difficult for such a woman to willingly submit to your advances until you assure her she that you won’t be having extended sex with all the other women you are involved with.

Even if the disease has been treated, assurances must be given her that her life isn’t at risk anytime she opens herself up to you and she is protected by you from every danger unfaithful men expose their women to.

Really, if this is the case, you need to beg for her forgiveness because almost all the sexually transmitted diseases can cause infertility in women if not detected early. Being married and having only her man in her life, a woman who has been infected by her husband may never find out her medical condition until it is too late.

Such is the high risk of danger unfaithful men put their wives through. Women who find themselves battling unavoidable medical condition occasioned by their husband’s unfaithfulness naturally feel bitter as well as resentful hence, may say one or two things in anger against their husbands, which often times causes the men inexplicable problems.

If this is what gave birth to the challenge between you and your woman, the right thing is for you to beg for her forgiveness to neutralise whatever spiritual problems she may have brought upon you.

Whatever the challenge is between the two of you, the marriage creed demands that you both discuss it.

Sex is a very important component of marriage. Without it, a lot of things go wrong in the marriage and between the couple. Apart from the purpose of procreation, it allows the couple to bond in friendship as well as spiritual harmony. Take it away, the couple loses one of the vital tools of communication within the framework of marriage because sex helps a couple to establish its peculiar form of communication unknown to a third party. This is why you and your wife must do everything humanly possible not to allow whatever may have brought about this situation to persist.

Your wife, outside health reasons has no right to withhold the pleasure of her body from you. Her decision isn’t a solution instead, it would complicate things between the two of you. This is what you should let her know. The danger of holding herself from you for too long is pushing you into the waiting hands of another woman. Five months is a long time for a married couple, who live together, who don’t have a medical problem to tackle not to have sex. Whatever her reasons, let her know she has punished you enough especially as her act would not undo the events of the past.

It is not just spiritual complications sex brings, it also causes emotional as well as physical disabilities within the home.

Be honest with each other. Discuss with dispassion whatever may have caused this problem and apportion appropriately the blame. If you are wrong, ask for forgiveness and support not to hurt her again.

Her continued stubbornness to hold on to her decision may have something to do with the way you responded or treated the issues that brought about this stalemate in your relationship. A change in your attitude could be all she is waiting for to resume her role as wife.

Due to the volatile nature and implication to your marriage of this issue, it might be necessary to involve your spiritual leader if she continues to hoard her body from you.

The essence of telling and inviting a third party is to help her especially talk about those things she can’t discuss with you. Also, to be told by the intervening person about the dangers her pains won’t let her consider.

You also need prayers as well as a special relationship with God to ensure your marriage stays on track.

Good luck.

I Want To Be His Sole Girl

Dear Agatha,

There is this problem which has been bothering me. It has to do with a boy I met last year. I love him so much and equally in love with me.

When we started dating, he didn’t tell me about any other girl in his life. Instead he promised to care and love me. Hence we started dating.

I actually discovered the existence of the other girl by chance. I had gone to visit him at home when I met him and the other girl.

He later explained to me that the girl was his ex. He subsequently begged me to forgive him.

At that point, I decided to let go but he pleaded to the contrary. After a while, he instructed me not to come to his house without first placing him on notice. To avoid problems between us I accepted this instruction.

Recently, I tried calling him to inform him of my intentions to visit him but he was not responding to my calls so I decided to go all the same.

On getting to his house, I discovered he was with a girl inside the room so I decided to leave unnoticed.

The next time he came to my house professing to love me more than ever before.

I am so confused I don’t know what to do. What do you suggest I do to get his full time attention because I love him so much? Please help me out.

Worried Baby.

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Dear Worried Baby,

Isn’t it obvious this man doesn’t love you but only after what he can get from you and your body? If he cares about you, why would he insist you inform him before coming to visit him? No man who has serious plans for the woman after his heart would dare make such suggestion to her.

Telling you to call him before visiting him is a clear demonstration of his lack of respect for you or your feelings for that matter. If you are wise, forget everything about this man because he is wrong for you. He would end up hurting you more than he already has done. So far you have given him the authority to treat you shabbily. Had you protested his demand you call him before coming to his house the moment he made such a proposition, he would have gotten the message that you weren’t ready to play the fame his way. With this sort of man, you just must learn from the very beginning on how to place the right value on yourself else if by the slightest chance of destiny you end up as an item, he would continue to treat your feelings with disrespect and levity.

As far as this man is concerned, your love for him isn’t worth the piece of paper meant for the trashcan. The only person he cares about is his person. He doesn’t care if you are hurt or not provided he is able to have his cake of fun whenever he likes.

In the first place, if he has any iota of respect for you, he would have from the very beginning told you about his girlfriend as well as the unfinished business between the two of them. Meeting her at his house that day would have been a perfect opportunity for him to introduce the two of you and a subtle way of telling the other girl that he has since moved on with his life.

Allowing you to go before coming to beg for forgiveness followed with the instructions of you giving him pre-knowledge of your movement to his house underscores the value he places on your relationship.

I know that love can hurt especially if genuine on one’s part but the truth is that it takes two to tangle. This man is not just ready to tangle with you on full time basis. He is still interested in playing the field, a desire that would not only cause you emotional pains but capable of destroying your belief in love.

If you continue to expose yourself to this inconsideration on his part, it would come to a stage you would lose total confidence in the game of love. You may begin to also lose confidence in yourself leading you to raise the destructive question of his behaviour being as a result of something you have either failed to do or done.

Even if you manage to hold on to him, he would never give you the peace of mind required for you to enjoy being in a relationship with him as you would always wonder what he is up to whenever he is not with you.

Going by his behaviour he has already demonstrated his lack of need of you in his life. Allow him to sweat a bit to keep you. It is the only way you can know for certain if he is really interested in you or not. Giving in cheaply to his rule would make you the victim of this so-called affair, which from where I stand, only exists in your imagination.

Your love or confusion should not make you gloss over all the evidences of his carelessness and disrespect for your person. When next he comes to you, tell him you are no longer interested in him. Let him know what you saw and how that incident has finally helped you make up your mind about him.

The irony of this is that your love will never be enough to make this man clear up his act. He would continue at his lifestyle as long as he knows you will always be willing to put up with it. Telling you to phone him ahead was meant to gauge the extent of your limit and by accepting that gave him the confidence he needed to go ahead with his way of life.

Even if you would go back to him, give him time to think about what he wants out of life, you in particular. Take him on the condition that he is ready to change and know what he wants from life. Being firm would safe you a lot of emotional aches and pains in future.

Good luck.

How Can I Groom Her Feelings Beyond Mere Pal?

Dear Agatha,

There is this girl I met when I went to tutor at one of the coaching centres in Ado-Ekiti.

I couldn’t talk to her then because of my schedule. I had to combine the coaching job with my study. Unfortunately she left before I could make my intentions known only for her to surface in my school as one of the new students.

Since the coaching centre had already provided us with a previous meeting point, we instantly became friends until the day I told her of my feelings for her.

She turned me down insisting she only needed me as a friend in her life, nothing more. She added a little blackmail that if I really cared about her as I professed, I would allow the relationship run normal.

But my worry, being a product of a strict Christian home, she may never consider my request. What should I do to win her love because I really love her?

Friday.

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Dear Friday,

Patience and sincerity! Her final disposition towards you would come from your own attitude and understanding of what you really want from her.

Unlike the majority of girls that would be convinced to a date with you on account of your words alone, this one needs evidence of your sincerity as well as willingness to do things right.

So, you simply have to do as she says: be a good friend of hers until the trust to take the relationship to the next level is actualised.

Being from a strict Christian home, she has been inculcated with some moral values, which she must keep, and she has come to expect same thing in people especially the man she hopes to spend the rest of her life with.

There is no way she would agree to anything on face value due to this orientation. Granted that some of these ideas may sound too rigid at first but overtime, you would come to realise that they are not as overbearing, if remains the only way to get the woman you love.

What she is teaching you is to be patient and focused. She is through her attitude teaching you one of the prime lessons of life, developing the determination to follow your dream with a vision.

With every determination comes a discipline.

You can win her love by giving her unconditional support to be who she wants to be.

By giving her support in her study, and be there for her whenever she needs a shoulder to lean on, will eventually convince her that you are to be trusted. And would also put you on top of her list when she is ready to fall in love.

She has to be convinced that unlike most men your age, your interest is not in her body but her person. Whatever her parents must have told her, she needs concrete evidences that she can take you home to them and stand by the decisions she has made with the full conviction that she made a reasonable choice.

Waiting for her to be ready means you also want her for the right reason.

This means you have the opportunity to think about what you really want from her. A lot of time, we go into relationships for the wrong reasons. You may think you like her enough now but over time may discover that whatever you thought you had for her wasn’t so fantastic to make you want to keep her permanently in your life.

Becoming her friend enables you to observe her without the complications young persons usually have to deal with in their relationships these days. Once a dating couple is able to eliminate premarital sex, it gives them the chance to objectively examine the flaws and strength of their characters.

Once you and this lady are able to achieve an understanding occasioned by true friendship, if you both eventually find yourselves in a relationship, you won’t have any of the problems young couples have and even when you have any need to disagree, you will have the friendship to effortlessly overcome such differences without causing a major quake in your relationship.

Importantly you must learn to respect her views on issues that are important to her. You may not always agree with her but let her know you respect her and you are a responsible person to be with, would convince her of your love.

Good luck.

My Husband Won’t Quit His Job To Soothe Me

Dear Agatha,

I need your help urgently before I make the worst kind of mistake in my marriage. Three months ago, I discovered my husband has been unfaithful to me.

In fairness to him, he had the grace to admit to the relationship with a female colleague in his office. Following the dust I raised, he terminated the relationship. But my worry is the lady, being also a top manager like my husband in the firm, I’m afraid that both of them would soon resume the affair.

I have put pressure on my husband to resign and look for job elsewhere, he refused insisting he won’t give up a lucrative career for me or any other woman.

Following my insistence he resigns, he has stopped pleading for forgiveness and now calling me bluff. He says I am at liberty to quit the marriage if I am unsatisfied with his assurances that he won’t resume his affair with the other woman.

I love my husband and don’t want to lose him to another woman. Our marriage is three years of age and blessed with a son. On my insistence, I became full time housewife because I want to give my child and home my very best.

Now I am afraid that he is going to dump me after the sacrifices I made, giving up my own job.

Please help me because his stance is making me scared. Surely if he is as much in love with me as I am with him, wouldn’t he consider giving up this job for another one? He is connected and can get another job if he applies his mind to it? So why isn’t he considering doing this for me? Is it too difficult a thing for me to ask?

Janet.

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Dear Janet,

Granted that your husband has breached the trust you have for him by having an affair, but demanding he quits his current good job on account of your fears of him resuming the affair is untenable.

That is taking your fears and insecurity too far.

Doubtless, this affair has bored a huge hole into the foundation of your marriage, it is however not enough reason to put the marriage through additional stress that have the capacity of further driving a wedge between the two of you.

There is no damage trust, patience and tolerance cannot solve permanently. The issue here is not whether he leaves his current employment or not, but his ability to stay truthful to his promise of not betraying you again.

If you push him to leave this place, what are the assurances that he wouldn’t continue or that he won’t go into an entirely new relationship with another woman in his new place of work? Would you again insist he quits that job too?

Besides, the lady could have been someone he met in the course of his job or he gave lift to. It is just incidental that this one is his colleague. His affair could have been with just another woman outside his official workplace or the places you associate him with.

Which is why, you should look for something more tangible to hold on to rather than insisting he quits his job as prove of his love for you.

Issuing him with ultimatum would only complicate things between the two of you. This is because no man likes to be told what to do. Pushing him into resigning his job, as prerequisite of your trust would make him rebound at whatever promises he made to you.

What you should concern yourself with is how to get him back into your arms, not how to drive him further away from you. In the first place such ultimatum you gave him is sure to cause more problems between the two of you. Apart from such proposition being unreasonable, it would force him into taking decision he would ordinary not have thought of.

Even though he is the guilty party, having begged your forgiveness, he expects you to allow sleeping dogs lie, not forcing him to put his career on the line.

What do you stand to gain by insisting he leaves his job? Is that the only way, you think, he could terminate his interest in this other lady?

If you must know, your option would leave him with no choice but to fight for his ego as well as his pride as the man in the house. He may be the guilty one but it won’t stop him from telling you and everyone else he feels is behind your pressure that he is still in charge of the affairs of his home. The truth is if you push too hard, you would end up being at the receiving end of the whole development.

When a woman pushes a man to the end of his limits, he is being unwittingly given the mandate to also take extreme decisions which though, he may end up regretting but would still do them to show the woman that he cannot be dictated to.

Besides, what you are insisting as your condition for forgiveness is suicidal. You are a full-time housewife with no income of your own. You and your baby depend on the income of your husband, so how do you propose he cares for you and the baby if he is out of employment? There are several equally connected people who still don’t have jobs. Having a career you really enjoy is through the grace and mercy of God, not necessarily through connections. Granted, connection do open more opportunities for those with it but more often than not it doesn’t give the same type of spiritual satisfactions which people who really enjoy their career get.

And what makes you think a job is automatically waiting for your man to pick at his asking? And even if a vacancy comes up, would it be in the position he wants and what if someone with stronger connections bids for the same position?

You just have to be reasonable as well as learn to put the interest of your family above your own pains. Every day, women come face to face with the reality of a mistress tucked somewhere but wise women have learnt to fight from the point of weakness rather than from the position of strength.

Fighting the enemy from the position of weakness doesn’t make the wife the fool but a wise woman, who is determined to keep her home from falling into the waiting hands of the enemy. For that woman to have dated your husband, it means the thought of being in his life on permanent basis has at one time or the other crossed her mind.

It also means, given the opportunity, she would grab it with both hands. Your husband too may have found one or two interesting things about her to warrant him going out with her, and after all she isn’t the only woman he has seen since he married you. The implication of this is, he definitely finds something interesting in her and if given the opportunity may end up with her on a permanent basis.

You must do everything possible not to give both of them the opportunity of exploring the interest further than they have already gone. To do that could mean you losing your home permanently to this woman over whom you are determined to make your husband and home suffer needlessly.

From your own account, he didn’t force you to resign. You did it out of your own choice and willingness to give your family the best of your attention. So to accuse him of being unappreciative of your sacrifices and going ahead to use it as reason for him to also do same for you is not only unreasonable but also totally childish. What you now demand of him has no direct bearing with the issue at hand, it appears that your so-called sacrifices didn’t come from a heart that clearly thought about the consequences of doing so.

If you really did it out of love, it won’t become a weapon to be used to pressure your husband into doing things your own way.

Rather than worry yourself over this other woman, work on your deficiencies, those things that may have made him go into the affair. Although men would always find millions of reasons to be unfaithful to their partners, more often than not, one reason remains thorny. Can you think of any thing your husband has always complained about? If you don’t know, lovingly coax the reasons he went into the relationship. The purpose is to use whatever reason he gives you to win him back. Even if he refuses to give a reason, pay him a visit at the office, to get the opportunity to see your rival and see what ideas you can steal from her and improve on to keep your husband interest on you.

Since you don’t work, check your clothes and body care. Can you be compared with the other woman? You may have shifted too much attention from him to your son. This too could make him very lonely and needing of confidence boosters from his mistress.

You won’t be the first woman to make these types of mistakes but you can make the difference in your own marriage by urgently making your husband the center of your world again. If the other woman is giving the attention you are not showing him at home, then your marriage is in deeper trouble than you think because like children, the heart of the man is with the person who shows him the most attention.

The bitter truth is that if the same conditions prevail in your relationship with him, he would continue to have affairs. Therefore, stop putting the pressures on him and show him all the love he needs to come back home to you.

Your battle is best fought on bent knees in prayers and certainly not by issuing ultimatum to a man whose name you answer to, and under whose roof you live.

Good luck.