Any Sense Giving Him Time To Send-off His Ex?

Dear Agatha,

I’m 25-year-old final year student. There is this guy I met last year, also a final year student. We started out as friends until we discovered early last month that our feelings for each other went deeper. When he told me about the change of his feelings for me, I also didn’t pretend about mine for him.

However, he pleaded with me to give him time to deal with the issue of his ex girlfriend who is back begging him to reconsider their relationship.

Agatha, as it is, she might have the upper hand over him because it appears he’s still very much in love with her. Unfortunately, I’m helplessly in love with this man. As it is now I’m at a difficult crossroad, not knowing if I should quietly quit the relationship or stay around him. I confess leaving him isn’t going to be easy for me at all.

Bukky.

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Dear Bukky,

It isn’t always easy to get out of an existing relationship especially where the other party is unwilling to let go. If you love this man and trust him, you must exercise the needed patience for him to properly clear up the debris from his previous relationship.

If you don’t give him the necessary time and support to properly disengage from this relationship, you may find yourself unable to move this relationship forward as time goes on. This would come primarily from that nagging thought inside of you that he might still hold a strong touch for his ex.

In addition, he has to convince himself too that he is not making any mistake leaving her for you by giving himself the opportunity of x-raying his options properly.

Being in love with you won’t stop him from still harbouring feelings for the other woman. And unless these two feelings are put side by side, it might be difficult for him to decide which of you is the most precious to him. Whatever he is feeling is natural just as his request for time is necessary.

Besides asking for time to end one relationship before beginning something new with you doesn’t automatically mean he is going back to the other girl or signal that he finds his relationship with her more rewarding than yours with him. If for nothing, this man need be praised him for being so honest with you. Some men won’t tell you a thing about their ex especially at this nascent stage; they would find such admission or request too dangerous to make for fear of losing the new girl.

By telling you he is soliciting your trust in him. It won’t be such a bad idea to tell him. You may not be comfortable but love and relationship building is all about sacrifices. Each day brings on with it a new challenge, a new dream, and a new reason to make it work. It also bring with it choices to be made.

Rather than concentrate all your worries on the possibility of the two of them coming back together, use this extra time of practice to really analyse your feelings for him. What do you like most about him in the one year he and you have been friends?

Sincerely, you started from the most important point, friendship. It is the cement that binds two people together. Friendship makes it possible for two people in a relationship to discuss honestly, objectively and constructively. You can only suspect him of insincerity if your friendship was flawed, devoid of the chance of peeping into your characters and identifying your strong points.

As your friend, by now you should be able to tell without hesitation when he is on a mischief mission or a good-intentioned one.

I know love, most times, makes nonsense of our good intentions or beliefs, but discussing your fears with him as well as your decision to quit for the other girl would help you know where you stand as well as his plans concerning your declaration of love.

Don’t make the mistake of ending it without involving him because that would hurt you both immensely. Having told you of his intentions, he demands loyalty and support from you. If you run away before he is ready, you would leave him with no choice but to take his chances with this other woman. You would force him to think you are not serious and unworthy of the risk of investing his life and love on.

You may think he is enjoying all these but if you look deeper you would find a man who is scared because whatever decision he takes now would have an impression on his life. He is almost approaching the final lap of his bachelorhood. The woman he decides on is most likely to be the one he would end up marrying. So, this time, what he is asking is more than the issue of his former ex, rather it more about his future. He has to consider which of you would best suit his dreams in life, the one with the most measure of understanding, care, respect and belief in his person.

He is retreating to make a major decision so if you want to be part of this life, you must not be in a haste to vacate it for another woman or fear of not being woman enough for him. Let him be the one to tell you he has made his decision. It is best you hear it from him than to hurry out of it only to find out that you have made a very big mistake.

For now, pray that God shows you the way to go because unless God gives His support to this desire of yours, it may not work.

Good luck.

My Daughter’s Boyfriend Must Be Arrested Now…

Dear Agatha,

My daughter is 17, pretty and well behaved. So I thought until I began to notice her receiving strange phone calls. Initially I ignored these calls, thinking they were from female friends until I chanced on her declaring her undying love for the person on the other end of the phone.

I was livid with anger so I grabbed her phone, dialed the last number that called to warn the boy or man to stay off her. I threatened to have him arrested if he comes near her again.

My daughter who has just written the Joint Admission and Matriculation Examination had the effrontery of accusing me of being unfair to her. This is new because never has she spoken back to me. I suspect this boy may be responsible. So I’m thinking of having him locked up to drive home my point that he is a negative influence on my daughter.

I desperately need your advice because I don’t want her to make any mistake in life. Her attitude is giving me concern. As far as I am concerned she is still too young to know anything about men and women.

Please help me.

Roseline.

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Dear Roseline,

Be careful else you would lose the love and respect of your daughter. Yes, at 17, she may still be a baby but the changes in her body have made her a young woman, one crying to be given freedom, to be understood and the right to be heard. She is only a year away from Nigeria’s official age of consent. In the developed countries of the world, she is a year above the age.

To continue to be her mother and best friend, you must listen to her, discuss with her and dialogue your options if you don’t want to lose her to friends or people who should not have a say in her life.

The ages of 16 to 18 years are the most troublesome for both the children and parents. These are when the hormonal changes are their most potent and very obvious. This is when the child transforms from the age of complete innocence to the age of awareness. That a child isn’t sexually active to know doesn’t deny the child of the knowledge of the changes going on inside his or her body.

These changes give them the same feelings, urges, desires and awareness the more matured adults have. Theirs, being completely novel come with all the excitements and promises of new beginnings. You must understand from your own experiences at their age that these feelings cannot be caged neither can the children whose bodies are being ravaged by the hormones control the effects of these natural but necessary invaders.

The hormones prepare them for the only assignment natural to man and woman, procreation. It is primeval, something no amount of scolding, imprisonment, threats, beating, denials can change. From the day we were born, it has been wired into our subconscious. Our main purpose on mother earth is to have sex and children. This is an indisputable fact. Every other thing we do in between like getting education, acquiring extra knowledge to develop and improve our environments is in between assignments. That is why sex remains the most consistent topic through the ages right from the Garden of Eden. It is the only thing that has resisted change just like the sun, moon and star.

And this is why our responsibilities as parents must be pegged on love and understanding to ensure that our children have the confidence to face the changes going on both inside and outside them.

The first thing is for you to accept that there is nothing you can do about those feelings going on inside of her or prevent her from falling in love. It is a natural process, and Mother Nature is preparing her body for the ultimate assignment of a woman in life.

Your duty as her mother is not to oppose Mother Nature but to help her minimise the negative side of the process. I totally agree with you that she needs monitoring but not the excessive force you are considering. Locking that man up would only make your daughter more determined to follow her heart. The stubbornness and resilience of the teenager, especially the female, is legendary. If she thinks you are too strict, she might decide to do that thing all females do to tell their parents they are of age. She may decide to get pregnant simply to show you that she is her own person. When that happens, you stand compromised. At least until she finds her feet again, you will bear the most shame of her act of rebellion.

Technological advancement has made motherhood these days to be the most difficult assignment on earth. While our mothers and their own mothers got away with attitude like yours, it would be difficult for you to because all the information today’s teenagers need about their sexuality is at their finger tips. Mothers before us managed well because so many things in those days were shrouded in secrecy.

Contemporary technology has made our children more advanced than their physical ages. They have so much information more than you and I could possibly have when we were their ages. So don’t deceive yourself into thinking that this man is a negative influence over your daughter or responsible for her actions. Such information she can get at the press of a button in or outside your home.

Rather than fight her, deploy dialogue. One of the worst things that can happen to a female child is to get pregnant before her time. Not only does it derail the child, it equally calls to question the moral values of her mother. More often than not the mistake actually comes from the attitude of the mothers who forget that those heady years need wisdom and not threat to navigate safely.

The first step is to realise that she is no more a child but a young woman. Learn to listen to her voice and pleas just as you want to be listened to by her. We are given our experiences in life to help others succeed where we have failed and provide it when necessary to teach life’s important lessons. If you recall your own growing years and how much you despised your mother for being too hard, for not understanding you, you would know how to handle this delicate stage of your daughter’s life.

All you have to do to make this task easy is for you to go back in time a little bit. It would help you put things in their proper perspectives, it would give you wonderful clues to make this period enjoyable for both of you.

Destroying the phone or seizing it would not solve the problem, like I earlier said, would only complicate the situation between the two of you.

Whatever your own mistakes and high moments were as a teenager, learn to share them with her. Doing so would help her to understand you as a person, bring about a bond between the two of you. It would, more than anything else, help you two talk about the disparity between your worlds. The talk would help refresh your memories on the changes going on inside of her. It would also remove whatever suspicions she has of you. By discussing the subject of your past with her, you invite her to be your friend and for you to be her confidant.

As her friend, the gains are tremendous in that it helps both of you know your limits as well as your liberties.

In discussing your own teenage years, don’t leave out the mistakes of your own past, the wrong decisions you took which are still affecting you till date and how your mother tried to prevent the mistakes from happening. These are subtle ways of reminding her of the vulnerability of her own current situation and how disappointed her decision could turn out to be if she isn’t careful.

Tell her that you are not against her falling in love but would appreciate if she allows you to be part of the process by bringing the man home to meet you. This may worry her a bit but assure her of your good intentions as well as promise not to do anything that would compromise her image.

Meeting the boy would help you access him and monitor the development between the two of them. The fear of what you would do to him should he do anything to hurt or compromise your daughter would put some fears into him to behave. There is some security for her too if the boy is known to you.

Demanding to see him would produce two results, terminate the relationship if the intention of the boy is simply to sleep with her or change his intentions for good. The forbidden and secret fruits are usually the sweetest. Legitimacy gives a measure of sanity to an act formerly thought forbidden. Insisting on meeting and discussing with the man involved would kill some of the excitements in the relationship because at the end of the day, you would have succeeded in making it appear as non-issue, even though it is, deep down.

This doesn’t mean you would stop praying or showing interest in what she does. It only means changing your line of discipline through enlisting her help and involving her in the control of her affairs.

It is called joint responsibility. It takes a whole load from you while conferring on her certain level of responsibility. The fear of not disappointing you is enough to make any young and thoughtful girl stay out of trouble until she is ready for the responsibility of sleeping with a man.

Meet her halfway. It won’t hurt you to let her see your fears, know why you are having those fears and how disappointed you would be if she fails to make it in life. Facts of life is not an abstract lesson but one every adult has walked through before. This is not the time for you to play the superhuman mother. You lack the strength of your own to paddle her across this ocean of life without her help and the help of God. She is also very confused but just don’t know how to ask for your help. Being the more matured one, show her you care by holding out your helping hand to her. That stubbornness is a camouflage for a cry for help. Don’t drive her away by being so uncompromising. It won’t help either of you.

Remember life is in seasons. This is her season, help her make the best of it so that when she moves from this stage, she would always have you to thank for being such a supportive and understanding mother.

Good luck

She Pesters My Life With Love I Don’t Need

Dear Agatha,

There's this lady who has been showering me with lots of love and care. But deep down me, I know I don’t love her but enduring her attention because, I don't want to hurt her emotions. I don't know what to do.

Bright.

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Dear Bright,

You would hurt her more if at the end of the day she finds out that you never loved her and lack any plans for her. No matter how she would feel by your revelation, tell her the truth about your precise feelings for her.

Granted, she may not like it now but overtime, especially when she meets the man who really cares for her, would come to appreciate your sincerity. In time, she would come to not only appreciate you but also come to respect you for not taking undue advantage of the situation. Being frank can be very cruel but it should never stop anyone from telling the truth.

However the way you make your presentation is very important. You don’t have to be mean simply because you don’t reciprocate her feelings towards you. It could be your turn to fall in love with someone who doesn’t love you tomorrow, so be mindful of her pains and sense of emotional bereavement at not having your love for keeps. Take her to somewhere special and private. Soften her by telling all the good points she has and how much you wish you could produce the type of feelings that would make her happy being with you. Be honest but deploy wisdom. To be rejected by the one you love is very difficult so be very gentle and humane because she didn’t choose to fall in love with you, rather her feelings made the decision for her just like yours refused to hook on to her signal.

Let her know your decision isn’t something personal but a situation you have no control over. The way you treat this issue would go far in determining how fast she heals from the wounds of rejection as well as the type of relationship that would exist between both of you thereafter. You may not love her but you two could remain meaningful friends, a development which at the end of the day could be more beneficial to both of you.

Good luck.

Return Of Her Ex From Abroad Alters Our Dream

Dear Agatha,

I am an avid reader of your column and have benefited from your responses to people's questions.

For two years, my girlfriend and I were happy together, and our relationship was the envy of others around. But all that changed when her ex-boyfriend who has been out of the country came back and her attitude towards the relationship changed.

Before now, we were at liberty to call or receive each other’s call as often as possible. But not anymore, these days I would call her and she would refuse to pick my calls.

Early last month I went to visit her but she wasn’t comfortable with my presence so I left. After an hour, I tried calling her but her phone wasn’t going through so I went back there but she was not at home. I decided to wait for her. But I ended up waiting till the morning of the next day.

Just last week, I saw the name and number of her ex-boyfriend on her phone. When I called to enquire if he knows anybody by my girlfriend’s name, he responded by referring to her as his girlfriend. Severally, I have called my girlfriend to clarify the actual nature of her relationship with her ex but she keeps telling me they don’t have anything together again and that she has only seen him twice since he came back to the country.

Please what do you think I should do about this?

Felix.

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Dear Felix,

When things get this messy, it is best one step aside. This is to enable the other person who is having doubts get clearer signals concerning his or her feelings for the current person in his or her life.

Only one relationship of the many we enter into in life is expected to have a happy ending. Many things add up to make what appears to be so perfect not so perfect any more. You simply didn’t realise it, this other man has always been between you and your girl except that he has never manifested as a major threat to you until now.

Obviously your girlfriend hasn’t gotten over her feelings for her ex. Chances are that she and her former boyfriend were never apart even while he was out of the country. Loneliness and trepidation over the uncertainty of the future with the other man may have driven her into your arms.

With the man back, she realises that their dream can come true after all and that whatever she may have had with you is nothing compared to what promise this other man have always held, and still holds for her. It’s unfortunate that you are the one at the receiving end of all these, the one whose heart and happiness have to be sacrificed for her own happiness.

Life is about gambles, choices and decisions. Since she has started avoiding your calls, exhibiting unease at your presence in her house, refusing to explain her whereabouts to you, don’t linger too much around her if you ever loved her. This is one painful sacrifice you have to make for her. Give her the chance to be happy with her man. I appreciate that she lacks the right to treat you so shabbily or without offering you any explanations but forcing her to choose between you and her former boyfriend would not endear you to her now, rather it would only make things worse between the two of you. Her problem is the lack of honesty and transparency from the beginning. She should have told you from the beginning her arrangement with the other man as well as why she is going into the relationship. That would have prepared you for this moment instead of giving the impression that she and you had a future together.

The issue has gone beyond her, to protecting your person from both hurt and ridicule. You can either decide to drop out completely from her life by refusing to call her or visit her anymore. The only draw back is that she may come around later to accuse you of being unfair to her, leaving her for another woman.

Besides, it is a cowardly way to end something that gave you so much joy in the beginning.

If she is refusing to take your call, send her a text message insisting on discussing something very important with her. If she still refuses to give you an appointment, inform her of your decision to give her a chance to be with the man she loves better than you. In the text, let her know that even though you are hurt by the development but you love her enough to let go if it would make her happy.

Don’t bother if she still refuses to take your calls or reply to your messages. Your conscience would at least be at peace within you that you tried your best.

If it is any consolation, every relationship we go into in life, including the ones that end up on the altar are all gambles because even in death some of us still regret the choice of the person we spent our lives with.

God may be saving you a lot of stress in the future because of the many things He knows about us, which we don’t know. Whichever way it ends, learn to trust and support the will of God for you since some of the things we regard as disappointments in the beginning of our journey in life turns to be blessings at the end.

Good luck.

His Love For Me Glows Dimmer…

Dear Agatha,
Thanks a lot for your succour to many lives. I will be 21 in May this year. I’m currently in a six-month old relationship with a man, who is now exhibiting lack of interest in me.

If I call him on phone he sometimes refuses to pick the call. The only time he does is when he wants to have sex with me. It is so painful because we did not start that way. I love him so much.

Worried Girlfriend.

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Dear Worried Girlfriend,

Isn’t it obvious to you that he has had his fill of your body and that from the beginning you both never had the same ideas about your relationship?

He wanted sex, you wanted something else, perhaps a more permanent arrangement. From the beginning, your relationship was flawed and jaundiced by your different dreams and desires.

Because of what you wanted, you failed to look the mask. You took on face value everything he told you, ignoring obvious signs of his true intentions until he adopted his present style of coldness.

An astute woman would always know if she were honest with herself, when a man’s interest in her doesn’t go beyond the bedroom. If in six months he has seen all he has to see about you, done everything a man does with a woman, what other excitement would keep him interested in you that he has not experienced in the less than six months he has been with you?

Much as the current gospel of men centres on premarital sex, a lot of them still appreciate a woman who still knows the mystery of holding on to her moral values.

Sexual liberty or not, a lot of men still prefer a woman they can teach, whose experience isn’t as wide in scale. If at 21, you have the experience of an old woman, no young man would want to have you for keeps.

Most often, the same men who plunder a woman turn around to run away from her after having their fill for another woman. Calling you or answering your phone calls only when he desires your body only underscores this point. To him, you are nothing but a good pleasure object. It may sound cruel and very unfair to you but that is the message this man is communicating in clear signs.

You would only get hurt the more if you insist on hanging-on because of the love you have for him. Your love is not enough to sustain this relationship or get it back on track. So many moral questions have come up between the two of you to make him especially change his mind about you. This man will neither love you the way you want to be loved nor demonstrate any respect for your person.

Sincerely, you need to put a lot of distance between the two of you, a measure that will give you the opportunity to reappraise yourself as well as the values that you projected in the relationship.

Men don’t get to the point of making it obvious to a woman that their only interest in her is her body unless she herself has projected the image to them. Even when that is their objective, a lot of men still have the decency to conceal it in fine words. To make it so apparent to you means you must have thrown caution to the winds.

This is one area you must watch and work on in your next relationship. Re-branding means, acknowledging one’s areas of fault, weakness as well as strength hence must apply honesty to get to the right point. Accept first that his attitude has something to do with your own presentation of yourself and that whatever mistakes this relationship has become is your own fault. Men take their cue from the image a woman presents of herself hence a woman must be very careful about what she says of herself.

Life is generally about new opportunities as well as gaining back lost ones for those who are smart enough to know what they have lost. Your joy would come from genuine acknowledgment as well as acceptance of your mistakes, excesses and all the other things you did wrong.

With such acceptance comes a determination to do things differently as well as nurture new dreams. You may have done everything wrong in the past, but your current experience offer you a new opportunity to do something worthwhile, to give yourself a new and positive image as well as another chance to be happy.

If you have learnt nothing from this whole experience, at least, you know that sleeping with a man regularly would never make a man who isn’t interested in you stay glued to your side. There are so many other factors involved in the growth of a relationship. No matter how generous a woman is with her body to her boyfriend, if she lacks the moral values, attitude and character to make him a good wife, the man would still leave her for another woman. It is an important lesson you must never forget in your next relationship. Don’t do things that you would at the end impute on your reputation as a woman else the very man you seek to please may abandon you for the same reason. Being principled is part of growing a viable relationship.

The best way to recover from the pains of this relationship is to accept the fact that there was no relationship in the first place. Don’t bother to call him again and when his urge pushes him to crave for your company, tell him you are no longer available to him or any other man for that purpose until you marry.

It might hurt for a short time but being principled would make you happier as well as better focused in life. To do otherwise is to continue to sell yourself cheap or worthless to a man who rates you at the bottom of his scale.

Granted, it might not be easy at first to drop some old habits, but if those habits you are dropping are ones that cause you pains and disappointments, it is best you do. It is a small price to pay for happiness and huge sacrifice to earn your respect at the end of it all.

If you tell God about it, He would give you the strength to do what is right.

Good luck.

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.