As we set for altar her old man emerges…

Dear Agatha, 

I am an ardent reader of your column and I want to say thank you for the good work you are doing. God will bless and give you more wisdom to take care of your own problems too. 

I need your candid thought and advise on this issue I want to share with you.

I met this lady for the first time in my church. She actually came for counselling.  We got acquainted and since then we have kept in touch on telephone. 

She was always telling me how her mother desired her to get married. I was happy myself because I also wanted to get married. Subsequently, I didn’t waste time to propose to her. She was happy and we actually talked about the day we’d travel.

However, she later called me to inform me that her boyfriend whom she had lost contact with was around. She deleted her mother’s number from my phone, carried her picture from my house and she avoided taking my calls. We had a heated argument in her salon where she denied me. 

She later called me when she got to say if she didn’t love me she wouldn’t have taken me to see her mother and friends. 

But she is still not picking my calls and says she is testing me to know my level of commitment to her as well as temperament.

Please I need your help here. What do you think I should do? I love this lady with all my heart.

Lover Boy.

Dear Lover Boy, 

Step aside and allow her to make up her mind on what she wants from life. Obviously, she hasn’t made up her mind whether to quit the former relationship or not. 

If you pressure her to do it your way, you will end up regretting it because there is the danger that she might want to go back to her former boyfriend. By then you would have gotten used to having her in your life multiplying the gravity of your heartache as well as disappointments, unless she comes of her own volition, she will constantly compare you to the other man as well as wonder what life would have been had she decided on the other man. 

Deleting her mother’s number and denying knowing you in public are enough indications that she hasn’t really made up her mind about you. You may want her but until she wants you sufficiently enough to declare you in public, no amount of pressures from you would make her have a convincing change of mind about you. 

The bit about testing you to know what your temperament is like or your level of commitment to her isn’t true. These are simply excuses to mask what her true feelings for you and the other man are. Because you are constantly around her, she may not fully appreciate the qualities you have. 

Marriage is a complex journey that requires absolute trust, confidence, and plenty of sacrifices to make it work. For all these to function well, the couple involved must first experience and develop the confidence in each other to make them work as a team. In a situation where either of the parties is having doubts about the quality of feelings involved in the partnership, moving that relationship forward would definitely become a huge problem. 

You know deep down that you love her sufficiently enough to overlook her shortcomings, but does she love you enough to forgive you same offence? Has she the kind of feelings for you that would make her make sacrifices for you, the relationship and the family when you both get to that crossroad in life?

Sincerely, unless she has enough respect and love for you that come from the depth of a woman’s heart, you may not have the kind of life you envisage with her. If something isn’t wrong with her feelings for you, there is no need for her to avoid taking your calls.

For the sake of posterity however, just don’t walk away. Go to her and tell her what your conclusions are on the matter. This is to avoid her blaming you for anything. 

If she were meant to be yours, things would work out, but if not God would bring someone else to make you happy. Always remember that when things don’t work according to our plans in life, God is preparing a banquet. Yes, you are hurting but it is best you hurt today than tomorrow when you may not have the emotional stamina and time to make a quick recovery. Hearts are meant to be broken and also to be mended when the right time comes.

Good luck. 

Before she’s off with another man too…

Dear Agatha,

I have a problem bothering me. I have been in and out of relationships with girls who at first profess to love me as much as I love them. But strangely all these girls end up leaving me to marry other men. They all end up inviting me to come for their wedding ceremony. Each time this happens, it is like celebrating my own failures as a man.  

I am currently in my final year at the university. Recently, I lost another close friend to another man through marriage. For real, if I have the right financial standing, I would have made the proposal before this other guy did.  

Considering my age factor and other things, I have never regretted my decisions. Currently there are two girls in my life I really care about especially as they appreciate me for who I am. 

One is in her final year. Though engaged, we talk and flow well, share quiet moments and feel what the other feels. Considering the fact that she is engaged, I am willing to let her go.

The other one is currently serving the nation. I have known her for a long time. In fact she meets my requirements in a woman. I would give her 90 percent. Considering finance, the compulsory one year service to the nation, settling down as a man, time constraints on the girl and fear of losing a girl I love to another man, I don’t know what to do. Do I propose to this girl or let her be? I am confused.

Confused Man. 

Dear Confused Man, 

There is always time and season for everything. In your final year at the university, your preoccupation now should be making good grades and insuring your future. If you concentrate too much on this woman now, it may act as distraction to you. There is no point you get to in life that you can’t marry. 

Besides, this lady you are interested in is already a graduate and serving the nation. She has an edge over you, because you are just in your final year. This is the first disadvantage for you. By the time you are out, she would have since moved on to other things. Like you rightly observed the woman’s shelf-span is limited. Even if she loves you sufficiently to accept your proposal, would the reality on ground give her the needed patience to wait for you considering the fact that there are no guarantees of when you are likely to get a job to get the process of marriage started? Even if we all pretend that money isn’t essential to marriage, the truth is that for a man to take on a wife, he has to have money to rent a house as well as attend to the responsibilities that come with the marriage. Not all babies are deterred by family planning techniques. So many babies have been known to come when their parents least expect them. This is why you must have something to fall back on before contemplating marriage.  All these women failed you because they were way beyond you. Love isn’t the only perquisite for a successful marriage. No matter how much love a couple has for each other, when confronted with the harsh economic situation, it requires understanding, tolerance, commitment, selflessness as well as wisdom to sustain it. 

It would require an extraordinary commitment on the part of this lady in question to accept your offer knowing that you may not be ready in the next five years to settle down. Considering the mystery of the future, it would require more than declaration of love on your part to make her bury the fear everywoman who makes such sacrifices have of waiting endlessly for a man. 

On your part, do you think she is the kind of woman you will never tire of? The one who has that something extra to keep you happy? Does she meet the status of your dream woman? You have to derive happiness from your relationship with her to make you want her for life.  This is important if you have been experiencing disappointments in your relationships. Until you have a very clear picture of the kind of life you want and the kind of woman that would help you achieve it. Don’t make an offer to this woman, to avoid regrets or avoidable situations later in life. It would be so unfair to tie her down to commitment unless you are absolutely sure you have the strength, guts and vision to make the difference in your life as well as hers.

Good luck.

Help me to bid gay life bye forever…

Dear Agatha,
It is not in me to disturb the good people of Nigeria again. But as it stands now I don’t know what to do or how to go about solving my problems about to swallow me.
I wrote to you about two years ago on my sexual orientation, which you advised me and I listened to your advice. But one problem is still left unsolved. I have one more year to go in the university. I actually found myself gay just to meet up with financing my study. I explained everything to you, how I managed to see myself through the secondary school and get admission into the university.
When you published my case, I got many well-meaning calls. One man, Mohammed from Bauchi but resides in Lagos, picked my burden. He took up my academic bills from my 200 level, insisting that I should not go back to that ugly lifestyle. Well, I never went back, but things changed when a guy I don’t know whether to call a friend or not, but went by the name Desmond, picked his number from my phone. I didn’t know what they discussed but I later got to know that Desmond went to Lagos to see Him and many other things happened without my knowledge. I am not aware of this.
Mohammed started keeping his distance from me. I started having difficulties with meeting up with my academic demands. I am presently on my Industrial Training hoping to go back to school by October to finish up and get my B.sc so as to be useful to my country and the world.
I don’t want to go back to being a gay in order to meet up with huge commitment required of me by next semester. What should I do?  I wanted to keep some savings but the company (NNPC) where I am currently doing my Industrial Training does not pay much. From the little they pay, I feed myself and take care of other minor things I need. Each time I look at the calendar, I am discouraged because there appears to be no hope of going back to school simply because I had made up my mind that I will never do that again even if it will fetch me the whole money in this world.
I need books and other necessary thing to be able to do my final year exam in Geological Sciences and probably graduate with a First Class.
What do I do? I really need help.
Stevo.

Dear Steveo, 

Where there is a will, there is always a way. If you are determined to make it work for yourself, you will without going back on your resolve to succeed. It appears from your mail that you are simply trying to make an excuse to go back to your former life.

The difference between success and failure is the amount of determination an individual put into making a situation work. Sincerely, you aren’t putting in any effort beyond making excuses for your behaviour. There are some very determined young persons who would make savings from nothing, no matter how little, to pay their way through school. It is simply a matter of you cutting your clothes according to the material you have. 

Your problem is not the money you make but the kind of lifestyle you have been used to. You have built your taste and lifestyle to reflect the quantity of money you were getting from being a gay. 

Even if you get someone who will sponsor you, without you making a personal resolve to change your lifestyle, you will continue to swim in troubled water. 

Whatever your friend told your benefactor is immaterial. Besides, the person knew what you were into before electing to help you. So there is nothing your friend will tell him that would shock him. The truth is that his season in your life has expired. God brought him into your life to help stabilise you, wean you from the path you were treading. You cannot continue to depend on people in life to live your life. 

The time has come for you to define your life and there is no moment like the one you are currently in to make that choice. For once in your life, elect for the harder side of life. Hard work doesn’t kill. It instead gives character and dignity to one. 

Granted you have the right to be apprehensive about your tomorrow, set something aside from the little you are currently earning to begin a small business like going into second hand clothing to pay your way through your remaining year in school. Your orientation is what you have to change. It isn’t a crime to be poor. That you are struggling to pay your way through school doesn’t make you inferior. Inferiority is a function of the mind. One is only poor if you choose to be. 

Your help is from God. You need Him to help put your life in proper perspective as well strengthen you to face life with dignity.

Good luck. 

Re: Men superiority - a myth

Dear Agatha,

I had wanted to ignore this topic but I have just realised that the more I try to move away from it the more I tend to return to it! I am a man, a married one at that but I’m surely not an apologist for men to take delight in abusing women – though it is true that God Himself will help some women! However, when a woman (like the author of the mail you published under this heading) wants to cause confusion for other focused women, I find it difficult to stand by awatcah.

 It is true that before God all (men and women, all humans) are equal but that same God arrogated roles and responsibilities to each with an expectation of complimentary functionality for both. I don’t know whether that woman is a Christian in the first instance, if the answer is yes, does she read and understand the Bible (the word of God)? I would like her to answer a couple of questions for me like what is her understanding or the true meaning of the word “helpmate” as opposed to “alternate.” She should also help us to interpret the God’s pronouncements at the latter state of man (after the fall of man) as contained in Genesis 3 and that of Ephesians 5? God is not the author of confusion! 

Agatha, I do not harbour any gloated grin of satisfaction neither do I bask under these verses above to rub in on God’s provision, but have been very wary (and worried) of events that have befallen us all through the madness-blinded quest for equality with men by some undiscerning women! In their quest, they have led many astray, or what do you think is the source of the upsurge in divorces, separations and murders among couples which has taken the place of patience, endurance, prayers and faith in God in our women of today? Our women now go around town in the nude in the name of expressing their equality to men, baring their chest and barely covering their nudity forgetting that a man’s chest and body hardly any special attraction (ormotivator) points! 

 Lastly Agatha, God will continue to bless you for teaching our women and men values that are deep seated in God’s principles for life. On no account should you allow the likes of Letitia Akinyemi to intimidate you or make you colour your counsel to those in need. She should measure her popularity and that of her views on the a column like you have done and see how many will write back to thank her as thanks and praises keep flooding into your box daily. 

Thank you and remain blessed. 

 Essien 

Dear Agatha,

I read with amusement Letitia Akinyemi’s letter on the above subject. Her piece was dripping with anger, sarcasm, scorn and unbridled feminism. She is angry with men for claiming to own the world; she is sarcastic at the differences between the two sexes; she scoffs at men who cannot ‘measure up’ to women’s attainments in life and she is utterly embittered that men tend to take leadership roles.

There are today millions of women who think and act like Letitia. By their self-imposed jaundiced views, they make themselves misfits. They find it difficult to work with men, because by their predisposition, they misconstrue even the most innocent action of a man. They are rebellious in marriage and are generally suspicious of the intention of every man. It is such women who would not let a man take a space ahead of them in traffic, even if it was the man’s right to be allowed such space. They look down with disrespect at their male subordinates and superiors at work, because they just have to prove that the subordinate is not their match or their bosses are not better than them. If they are more intellectually endowed and excel in academics, they are obnoxious in displaying their brilliance, just to make the point that they have excelled above men. Such is the tormented world of these women.

While they are at this battle with themselves, nature is busy running its course and not paying any heed to their bitterness. For try as much as they will, these women who are jealous of men, cannot change the fact that a man and a woman are not the same biologically, emotionally, and spiritually. Basic knowledge of human anatomy shows that there is a world of difference between the two sexes. A mere look at the body structures will reveal that the man is coarsely built and the woman is more supple. The former is so built to be able to handle the rougher things of life and provide physical protection to the woman, while the latter is made receptive to the finer things of life. In this way, the two sexes are actually complementary. There are women who are as rough in their physical features as the average man and there are men who are effeminate in their appearance. These changes occur through careless cultivation of the exclusive attributes of the opposite sexes over time, in each instance.

The differences between the sexes are so abundant that it would take deliberate mischief to deny them. Even the strongest women wrestlers would be circumspect in challenging a male wrestler to the canvass. So it is in boxing, athletics, etc.

The real myth is in the claim by ‘women liberators’ like Letitia that they are the same as every man. That is not the way nature intended it to be. Letitia’s piece had many examples of how ‘powerful’ a woman really is over men. She struck the right note when she pointed out that the strongest of male rulers, despite their outward display of strength go back to the woman at home for guidance in decision making. And this is how God intended it to be; that the woman should be the real power behind the brute physical strength. Feminine intuition is therefore not an empty expression. 

The woman is not meant to be beneath the man, she is to be beside the man. So, the sexes are different and complementary. 

Letitia alluded to male physical brutality, but did not talk about female verbal brutality. She talked about the woman procreating, but fallaciously kept quiet about the vital role of the male to provide the sperm to fertilise the egg. The truth is that the roles assigned to each sex can be abdicated. And they have been largely abdicated, by millions who are seeking excuses to envy the other sex. They have simply failed to be good specimen of their own gender. Badness is not exclusive to men. Members of both sexes are steeped distorting their attributes and sink into debauchery and licentiousness. That is why the world is decadent and our values eroded, no less by arguments like the ones she advanced in that acidic piece. My alarm is that a diet of this thwarted philosophy is daily being fed our daughters by such enraged ‘evangelising’ women.

Let Letitia (no pun intended) learn to be a true woman and stop envying men’s wrong ways. A woman who abandons her role as a mother and wife, can only do so at a great cost; a female body coarsened by physical exertion would have difficulties in childbearing. And if such a woman must return to childbearing, she must allow the body to regain its suppleness over time (it may take some years!). A woman who envies men’s public office roles, will do so at the cost of her innate delicateness and refinement, not to talk of the well-being of her children; the hallmarks of a true woman and mother.

It is a matter of choice, but let these women know the price they should be willing to pay before they make their choice. Letitia wants women to be respected, but she needs to encourage her female folks to know that respect is earned not given where it is not merited. Most men believe they can ‘drill’ gracefulness and humility by brute force into women. They end up being mere violent men and batterers. What a proper man seeks to do is to withhold respect from a woman who is not fit enough to be given the queenly title of ‘woman’. Women that believe they can trample over men by vile methods of blackmail and scheming would not earn the respect of men, no matter how forceful they argue their case. Love begets love, respect begets respect and scorn only begets loathsomeness. Woman, play your God-given role in life and help lift your men out of their wrong paths; don’t seek to replace them or envy their wrong ways. Such thoughts are the fountain of the competitive spirit that drives some women to want to excel men in their vices. ‘Does the man think it is his exclusive right to be promiscuous?’ they ask. ‘He wants to be loose, I will be loose too,’ such women think and in the process throw away their dignity. As if at the end of the day, their Creator would judge them by the actions of their partners.

Joseph

Our sex life died when my husband got born again

Dear Agatha, 

Thanks for the advice you usually dole out to people, may God continue to grant you wisdom. Please help me before it is too late.
I am in my mid 30s and got married seven years ago to a wonderful friend of mine. We actually dated for two and a half years before getting married. We have a son. At the time we got married, none of us was born again as we had very active pre-marital sex life which we both claimed we cannot get elsewhere since we both had relationships before providence brought us together. 

About two years into our marital life, my husband became born again, months later I had no choice but to follow suit. We both became active in the church, serving on different committees. We became a reference point in the church as we became the epitome of what the ideal couple should be.
Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said of us in our private life. Since becoming a born again Christian, my husband refuses to perform his duties to me as before. Initially we made love everyday and only went on break when I am having my period. We also experimented with different positions it was good and nice. After his new found faith, my husband does not care about me any longer, he believes there are better things to do than sleep with me.

 I am lucky if he agrees to make love to me once a month even at that I would have to cajole and cry before this and during the act he would say I should not hold him and he prefers a particular position where I can never achieve orgasm.

Agatha, of what use is sex if I cannot enjoy it? I believe in the sanctity of marriage and the faithfulness of the parties concerned. But I am dying in silence, I am not a nymphomaniac but I believe I should derive maximum satisfaction from my husband. St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in I Corinthians 7:3-5 concerns intimacy between couples and how it should not be denied but this has not changed my husband’s attitude. 

Right now he has not made love to me in six months! He believes he has a calling and that sex will be a huge distraction to him. He is becoming so selfish and doesn’t care about my feelings. I am scared of reporting this to the pastor because I believe this is personal and then how will people look at us in church again? I had to re-establish communication with an ex-boyfriend but I am scared of doing this because of the repercussions. Please Agatha, help me before I do something bad to myself.

Lizzy.

Dear Lizzy, 

This is a very serious matter that requires utmost wisdom and caution to save your marriage from collapse. There is no way you can on your own resolve this problem without getting help from the people who are experienced in marriage and the ministry. 

You need the help of your pastor to get through to him, to remind him of the importance of his marriage to his ministry. Don’t be ashamed to seek for the help from those in the best position to educate him because it is your right to enjoy your husband and marriage. 

If you continue to depend on your wisdom, with the extent he has gone, you may not be able to get him to listen to your reason or get him to appreciate the loneliness crowding you. For this reason, you must act quickly before you are tempted to do something you cannot tell the pastor or his wife. Begin with the wife because as a woman, she may be in the best position to appreciate what you are going through. One-on-one, express your fears and the challenges you are going through, including the fact that you are on the verge of having an extramarital affair with your ex. At this junction, don’t be shy to own up to the challenges you are facing in your home. We all need help from time to time to make things work in our homes and lives. 

Once the pastor and his wife are involved, it would be their duty to use the appropriate words of God to remind your husband of his duties to you and point him to the danger both to his image and ministry of having a broken home. Sincerely, it is not your voice or those of his family members he now considers spiritually inferior to his newfound faith that he needs. 

He needs the voice of those he has now formed confraternity with to educate him on the danger of leaving a full-bodied woman used to constant sex fallow.  

You also need the help of the marriage counsellor in the church to tutor on the place of sex in marriage, as well as the naked fact that God gave it as a special gift to married couples not just to procreate but to help them relax, bond, communicate and appreciate the values of being together. 

He has to stop seeing sex as being dirty but something God gave to mankind to enjoy within the bonds of marriage; that having sex in a marriage isn’t a sin hence he should not feel guilty at expressing himself in intimacy with his wife.

However, if the orientation of the church is such that sees sex as functional only for the purpose of procreation and not for recreation between a couple, in addition to prayers, you can also get books written by renowned religious leaders on the place of sex in the marriage. 

Spiritually, you need to resist this moment because a lot of times, the devil uses the things we are weak at to prevent the designs of God in our lives. There is no contesting the fact that your problem started even before your husband joined the church. 

From your letter, it is also obvious both of you didn’t cultivate the culture of discussing your desires before taking the decision to execute. He changed church without seeking your opinion while you followed to please him. 

By right, it is an issue both of you should have agreed on because the tenets of marriage demand that a couple must be in agreement on everything. You should have demanded at that point for his reason as well as his focus. Marriage isn’t just about having good sex, it is a combination of everything. You made the costly mistake of premising everything about you marriage on sex so much so you didn’t even give yourself a chance to study the behaviour and mindset of the man you were married to. 

As long as he was ready to satisfy your sexual urges you were happy to allow him the freedom to fly. In a way you unwittingly nurtured him not to consult you on anything, take decisions on your behalf and implement without recourse to your person. His attitude really has nothing to do with him changing church but simply a demonstration of who he really is, the person you previously ignored. You two didn’t grow friendship because you were too involved in the sexual aspect of your union. The consequence is that you both don’t have anything to fall back on, to pull you out of this abyss your relationship is going into.

Because his habit is formed and beyond what you can do on your own, there is also the need to commit this side of him to God in prayers. By not blaming the church and instead focusing on your own contributions to the problem you have on hand, your prayer point would be easier to define. 

Don’t for the sake of your children and essentially for your own peace of mind, do anything to compromise your marriage. There is hardly any marriage that is free of challenges; if nothing, be grateful that you are not losing him to another woman. It could have been worse if he is rejecting you for another woman in his life. 

No matter how frustrating for you, you shouldn’t have re-established contact with your ex. You didn’t act right; besides, it makes you appear too desperate to have sex without caring about the consequences. 

While your husband is wrong to have abandoned his responsibilities to you, it is also wrong for you to be overtly desperate for sex. If your husband were away for a year on a course abroad, won’t you cope? If you were caught the focus would remove from what pushed you into it but to you betraying your husband. Hard as it is for you, good judgment demands you put a strong restrain on yourself.

Frankly, this is when you need God the most, as well as learn to train yourself for the challenges of marriage. It isn’t every time we get what we want from our spouses. Marriage is learning about sacrifices, as well as adjusting to the demands of the moment. You have to be ready to key into his vision for him to understand what you are going through as a woman. Don’t worry, God will help make it right for you provided you are ready to rely on Him completely. 

Good luck.

My foreign wife laments I married her to facilitate my papers…

Dear Agatha,

I feel comfortable with the way you help people solve their problems. I have been reading your wise advice through the internet.

I am from Anambra State but work and live in Europe. I am married to a white woman and we have a son. Our marriage is nearly three years old now. 

My problem is that sometimes this woman feels I married her because of documents. Deep down I married her because I love her, and I know she loves me too. But she often says I married her because of document and this makes me feel very bad each time she mentions this. I don’t know if to continue with her? I am worried because I really love her

Chibuzor.

Dear Chibuzor,

The onus is on you to prove your love for her and dispel any doubts she may have regarding your reasons for marrying her. Something in your past or from the experiences of people around her could have given birth to this feeling. It could also come from the company you keep. If your friends are touting the fact that they married their wives to facilitate their documents, nothing you say to the contrary would assure her of your true love for her. 

Sincerely you cannot blame her since it is becoming the norm for black men to marry white women for the reasons of easing their stay abroad. 

However that is not to say you shouldn’t go out of your way to prove your love for her. 

The first thing is to sit her down to explain your pains and disappointments at her line of thoughts. At this junction an honest approach is all that you need. Go back to your roots, the reasons you came and if you ever harboured the idea of using a white woman to make things easy for you out there, be brave enough to tell her. This is to help her understand where you are coming from as well as to make her appreciate what you really feel for her.

It would also make things clearer to her to share your childhood fantasies of the kind of woman you have always wanted in your life. Draw attention to the essentials, the qualities you have always desired in the woman of your choice.

Follow this with a thorough explanation of what you felt when you met her and how deep she affects you in different and unique ways. Boast about her virtues, the kinds you recognise in the woman of your dreams, and the kind no other woman you have met has gives her the edge. 

Be bold enough to tell her that she reserves the right to believe you or not, but what you are telling her is the truth and that if she doesn’t trust you after being together for almost three years, it is very unfortunate. 

To underscore your disappointment, inform her of your intentions to end the marriage on account of lack of trust on her part. 

Again, lay bare to her what your thoughts are on an ideal marriage and how you cherish that above every other thing. 

Hearing and seeing you talk about it as frankly as you can, will help her to be conscious of the dangers ahead to her marriage to you if she continues to harbour such feelings against you. 

In addition you also have to ask where the thoughts are coming from to enable you block it effectively. 

Ending the marriage isn’t a solution rather it is a complication because rather than erase the impression of you she has it will further fuel her suspicions of you. The fact that you both have a child between the two of you should make you in particular tread carefully. 

Circumstances and situation have put on you the onus to verify your claims of being in love with her. Rather than feeling that you are let down by her doubts, try to understand where she is coming from. Everybody wants to be loved for themselves not what you have to offer. She loves you enough to want you to love her for who she is not because she is providing security for you to stay in her country. Her feelings though irritating to you are very real for her. To dismiss them would be to destroy the one thing that makes her happy as a woman. 

She wants to be able to look at her son and say he came out of a deep love and respect not from a selfishly motivated union by the father. For a woman, such sentiments are what give her and her child the sense of security she needs to be happy with her husband. That she is voicing it out shows that she cares about you in more ways than you know. 

Woo her with everything you have as a man including showering her with affections even in public places. Send her romantic text messages, flowers, chocolates, romantic nights out for just the two of you, perfumes, compliments on her looks and when you can afford it bring her to the country to know your people and culture. It takes very little effort to get most women to trust in their husbands and fall in love with them all over again. 

Everywoman wants to know she is very important to her husband and that when not with her he is thinking of her. There is no way she would ever doubt your reasons for marrying her if you let her know through words and actions that she is constantly in your mind. 

Finally, learn to pray by not relegating the God that brought both of you together to the background in your home. 

Good luck.

She wants me after her lover relocated

Dear Agatha,

Thanks for the good and marvelous work that you have being doing in helping people out of their problems.                            

I am 18 years of age and have just finished my secondary school education, waiting for my results. There is this girl, three years older than I am who has been asking me out. According to her, she is in love with me. She knows that I lack nothing to give her, but insists she wants me. 

Aware she has a boyfriend, I asked after him. She said he has relocated to Owerri and that is why she wants me since she cannot wait for him. Bothered about her statement, I asked if she would also dump me if I gained admission outside where we both stay. She didn’t answer. When I also asked what would happen should the boy come back she didn’t also answer. However my message box is flooding with love texts from her. Please Agatha what should I do before I get on the wrong lane? 

Ndu.

Dear Ndu, 

Candidly, you don’t have the experience to deal with this kind of lady. She is ways above you, so run while you can else you will not only have your fingers burnt, but also your heart shattered. 

What she is offering you isn’t love, but an adventure into the world of pains and disappointment. Concentrate on getting a school where you will meet the right girls. 

Any girl who will dump her man on account of him relocating to another part of the country cannot be counted on to be faithful to any man. Like you rightly observed, there is nothing that says she won’t also leave you when you are not available around her. 

Relationship is about endurance and perseverance. A woman, who isn’t ready to persevere in a situation isn’t ready for a relationship. It is also about trust and sacrifices. The boyfriend who is away expects loyalty from her, wants to depend on his woman’s support and grow the confidence that no matter what happens to him she would always be there for him.  Leaving him on account of him being away to follow you falls short of what is expected of her and a decent woman. What if they were married and he has reason to travel without her for a while, will she go outside her marriage to have an affair? Responsibility to one’s partner doesn’t begin on the day one goes into a relationship, it is what everybody should train himself or herself to do from day one of having a relationship. 

There are no guarantees she won’t also leave you for another man or that she would be faithful to you when her other boyfriend comes back. 

At 18, your major challenge now should be how to improve on your life, getting the right kind of education and equipping yourself for the challenges ahead as a man. There are season attached to everything we do on earth. When it is the time for you to be serious with women, God will bring the right kind of woman who would support you to succeed in life your way.

Good luck. 

My passion wanes due to her zero-education

Dear Agatha,

Peace of God will be with you and your family always.  You once helped my friend out of a very difficult situation. Thanks and please keep the good job going.  I have a girlfriend that I love so much. She is the mother of my daughter though we are not yet married. She is full of respect for me, so nice and epitomises everything I want in my woman. 

But the challenge I am facing with her has to do with her low level of education. She can’t read and write, not even her name. For fear of not knowing where to start, she doesn’t want to go back to school. My problem is that all my friends are married to well read women. I haven’t told her I will marry her, despite being the mother of my child.  She is however hopeful that I will marry her. I also nurtured the hope. But I keep thinking it may be a problem in time to come, and I don’t want to have children from two women. Please help me.

Worried Kenneth.

Dear Worried Kenneth, 

A woman doesn’t need a university degree to make a good wife or mother. What she needs is the right attitude to make the difference in her home and life.

That your friends are all married to well read women doesn’t mean they would have happier home than you. The golden rule of life, the thing that makes it workable is contentment. There is nothing you can achieve in life without learning to be contented with the choices before you. 

Granted, education is important, especially in today’s high-powered technological world, but it cannot guarantee happiness. 

This comes from the heart, not governed by letters, figures, but from very primeval emotions that defy even the best of scientific experiments. Its chemical composition is unknown which makes it impossible for anybody, but those in it to accurately gauge. 

You slept and had a child with this woman knowing she cannot read and write. Does her lack of education in any way affects the way she responds to you in intimacy or the quality of the child she gave to you? The heart isn’t literate and the language of love has its own patterned writings and images to stimulate it to knowledge.

What you should do is to search through your mind. Does she meet all your requirements in a woman? How much happiness has she been able to give you since meeting her? Has her lack of education affected you in anyway?  When it comes to the issue of marriage, a lot of attention should be given to those aspects that appear very unimportant at the beginning. Look at this lady dispassionately, on a scale of 1-10, how would you score her. Be objective. I am sure she isn’t the first woman you have dated. Like your friends you must have gone out with very educated women for you to have left them for this woman, going as far as having a baby with her shows she has some uncommon features you are yet to appreciate on account of her zero education. 

Look beyond her no-education status to the real substance in her. If what is in the package is valuable, you both can always find a way of getting through the other things as long as you are friends and willing to make it work.  If she is unwilling to go to a formal school, you can get her a private teacher that would come to the house to teach her to read and write. She doesn’t have to go to a formal classroom to get it. Right in the comfort of her home, you can transform her from a stark illiterate to a literate woman. What counts is her ability to communicate in efficient English as well as write it. She can write her General Certificate Examinations from home as well as other correspondence courses. Once there is a will there is always a way. 

Good luck. 

Hints on successful relationship please…

Dear Agatha,

I am 30years old from Edo State. I have encountered a lot of disappointments and pains in my relationships, all ended painfully. Thank goodness, I am currently in a very sweet relationship, which I am praying should end in marriage.

Big sister, please give me tips to make it work.

Tonia.

Dear Tonia, 

Having suffered disappointments and pains in all your previous relationships, begin by going down memory lane to evaluate your own mistakes and faults in all these relationships. When a problem becomes perennial in one’s relationships, it signposts a problem with the person rather than with the persons he or she have been having relationships with.

There is no way all these men would inflict pains on you if you aren’t contributing actively to the reasons for their attitude and treatment of you. There is no smoke without fire. By x-raying yourself as honestly as you can, you set the part for a new life for yourself. 

Nothing much is achieved in life when we bulk-pass the reasons for our failures, actions or inactions to others. A mind willing to heal must at all times be bold enough to accept his or her own faults as well as guilt. 

You are who you are on account of the character your have. By searching through your personal and natural archives, a new you would emerge, the one ready to do away with certain areas of her life and adopt new attitudes that would help her along life’s many hurdles. 

The next step is to accept your own limitations as a human being. This way, it would be easier to appreciate the limits of your partner, thereby helping you to understand many things you nagged or couldn’t tolerate in the past. Many a time, we criticise the very things we are guilty of in other people. 

Once you have the needed understanding, you will also be appreciative of every effort put into the relationship by your partner. Learning to say thank you instead of always criticising everything your mate does, goes a long way in healing and building the foundation of a growing relationship. 

Be honest about who you are to avoid disappointment in your current relationship. Don’t for the sake of fear of being left on the shelf endure a situation you know you cannot sustain. Much as it pays to be patient and understanding, if you find a situation absolutely unbearable, say so because that is the least you can go. We all have our maximum and lowest level. Once you get to the lowest level, pretending the situation is all right would only lead to pains for both of you. 

Your partner won’t blame you for having your limits, which is a natural thing but would feel bad and think twice about the whole thing if you elect to fight over it. 

Also make up your mind to make sacrifices for him and the relationship. There is nothing in life that is achieved without some forms of sacrifice. You must be ready at all times to give up on certain things in the interest of the relationship. 

You must also realise that a relationship is not an equal gender thing. Someone has to be in charge for the boat not to sink. Respect the natural order of things by allowing your partner the headship of the family. Being the man, it is his right to be in charge. Therefore give him the respect his position and person deserves at every point. Sometimes, it may not be as easy as other times, however once you prepare yourself to, no matter what he does or says, it will be easy to accord him his due respect. Respect is reciprocal. There is no way any man would respect a woman who doesn’t even recognise him as the head.

Make him your best friend. For any relationship to last, the couple must be friends. It is imperative to making a relationship work well. There are certain things love cannot forgive or mend which true friendship can do effectively. When the imperfection of friendship mingles with the perfection of love, it lays the ground for a couple to endure turbulences in the relationship. 

Friendship enables the couple to communicate freely, laugh with and at each other. It also helps the couple forgive and forget issues, which in other relationships could destroy it completely. Friendship is what lasts forever in a relationship, not the sex or love we all profess at the beginning of the relationship. Knowing this would go a long way in helping build into your relationship from the beginning the right values.

As a woman, you should know how to take care of your man and home. Don’t ever make the mistake of consigning his food to the maid, your or his siblings. No matter how busy your schedule is, don’t be too busy to cook for him and care for his personal effect. There are a lot of women out there but only few qualify as wife material. Don’t ever allow distance or official workload prevent you from communicating with him. You have to make yourself relevant to him whether with him or not. He has to know when you are not around him that he is missing something and this is only possible not by sex but by the little things you do for him or words of encouragement you give him when down and out.

Also don’t ever make the mistake of nagging him or showing him that you don’t trust him. A lot of time, suspicions on the part of women make them nag. Even when you have reasons to suspect him, you don’t achieve results by nagging. Playing down on the immediate reason would help you focus on how best to navigate and get him back on track. Disentangling a man involved with another woman requires wisdom and prayers. A lot of women that tried to use force found out that they lost out completely. Nagging breeds stubbornness in men. Once another woman is involved the best approach remains being loving and cool headed.

No man also likes his orders disobeyed. Therefore learn to be humble, even when you have reasons to raise objections at what he is saying. No matter how irritated you are by his attitude, don’t ever in the presence of an audience counter him or point him at his fault. From this early, learn to personalise your relationship. The less people know about what is happening between you and your partner the best for you both. Third party interventions sometimes destroy what could have been a perfect union. So be careful whom you share your thoughts and incidents in your relationship with.

Finally, be prayerful and depend on God. Everywoman who desires a stable home must be ready to depend absolutely on God always.

Good luck. 

My white wife bears no child, so…

Dear Agatha, 

I have a good friend.  She is white, 42-year-old.  Our relationship is four years old. I actually married her in Nigeria before I was given visa to live with her in this country. I met her when I travelled to another country abroad and got married to her when she came for a visit in Nigeria.

She is like a mother to me, takes good care of me; provides for me. But the problem now is that I want a child of my own. She has a grown son, who is my very good friend. Being the only son in my family, my father advised me to marry a black girl before travelling to be with this woman. This I did. I really love this white woman for her care, but not enough to live with her forever. Now my wife in Nigeria has delivered a baby girl. And I would love to be with them. My desire is to live with my wife and children happily without any interference from anybody. I really don’t like the white woman because she cannot give me babies. Besides she is older than I do. Agatha, how do I end the relationship so that I can be with my family? Please help me.      

Divine.

Dear Divine, 

At what point did you realise that you cannot live with this woman forever? When did you notice she is too old for you and unproductive? Is it at the point you married her in Nigeria or at the point you discovered that you have saved enough from her kindheartedness to set up something for yourself and family in Nigeria?

Didn’t you know the rules and implications of being with an older woman or didn’t your father know that she was white and would not be favourable to bearing children when he encouraged you to marry her and travel to be with her?

Sincerely, you are not being fair to this woman. It would have been a different case if she had lied to you about herself, but you knew what the scores were and you still went into it. 

White and older than you or not, in the eyes of God and the laws of our land, she is your wife while this woman who gave birth to your child is regarded as mistress. Under the laws of our land, if you take another wife while you are still legally married to this other woman, it would be termed as bigamy to take any other woman as wife. If this woman does anything to hurt you, she would be within her right, because what you have done is not only to defraud her emotionally but financially too. You knew from the beginning, what your agenda was, yet you led her into trusting you by marrying her, so she can care and provide for you. Now that you have had enough of her, you suddenly remember she is too old and cannot give you a child. In her shoes, how would you feel if after investing your all and all in a woman she makes a u-turn and begins to give the same kind of excuses you are now giving? To appreciate the hurt, humiliation and her sense of betrayal at the magnitude of the pains you are about to inflict on her, try putting yourself for a second in her shoes. If she were your sister or your father’s daughter would you or he do what you both did to this woman? Her only offence is loving and caring for you. If you have never been honest in your life, this is the time for you to do the honourable thing. Not for today but because of the future that is always pregnant with surprises. After booking your flight and confirming your ticket, call her to explain the presence of another woman and child in Nigeria. It is the least you owe her after all that she has done for you. The essence of telling her is not to continue to give her hope that you are coming back or that there is still any space for her in your life. 

You really need to seek and beg for her forgiveness because there is always a reckoning somewhere. It could come in the form of the mother of your child being the complete opposite of what this woman is to you. The fact that the pigmentation of her skin is different as well as her culture doesn’t mean she isn’t prone to emotional pains like you and I.

Before you move back to the country, ensure you find a way of gaining her forgiveness. It is imperative. Good luck.

My love, his sister, mum unfriendly

Dear Agatha,
I am a 25-year-old lady. My boyfriend and I have been dating for close to three and a half years.  

I am having problems with his elder sister and mother. For reasons best known to them they don’t like me. It is really strange because the sister and I used to be very close until her attitude suddenly changed towards me. I have gone to her to ask why the change in attitude towards me, she insisted nothing was amiss. 

Along the line too my boyfriend’s attitude towards me also changed and when I asked him too why he changed, his only excuse is that he doesn’t want his sister to insult me. Recently we had a misunderstanding, which made me to send him a mail. He sent a reply that I should never send him anything again.  Please Agatha, does he love me? I really need your help. 

Confused Girl.

Dear Confused Girl, 

The picture you painted now shows that even if this boy has plans to marry you, you may not have the support from his family members to enjoy the marriage. It isn’t just the typical case of his mother not liking you but also his sister. How far can you go with a man whose entire family is up in arms against you?

Rather than desire this relationship, you should be glad that it is happening before you both walked down the aisle. A Yoruba adage says that good in-laws are more desirable than a good husband. The belief is that when a husband is bad and the in-laws are supportive, the marriage can still work because they know the man’s weakness as well as his strength and would use this knowledge effectively to make him capitulate to their desire. Unlike when the man is good and his people bad, they will make the home ungovernable for the woman to stay with their son. 

If his sister has joined her mother to wage a silent war against you, it is only a matter of time like your boyfriend has just exhibited for the man to begin to look for faults where none previously existed.

But beyond that, there is the need for you to look inwards.  There is no smoke without fire. Why is everyone in the family turning against you? What quality of behaviour have you been exhibiting? Often than not, we are quick to blame everyone around us but ourselves for our deficiencies. There must be something you are not doing right that is making all of them turn against you. 

Granted this relationship may not be going in the direction you want it to go but be wise to use the opportunity provided by it to reappraise yourself as honestly as you can. The tragedy of life is to think others are wrong and we are right. Life is a mix of the good, the bad and ugly. We all have the tendency to misbehave at any particular time if we are not careful. It takes the grace of God to save us from the lure of our flesh. Although you are hurting now, help yourself to refine your character so that you can avoid the mistakes you made in this relationship. 

Being in love goes beyond one’s partner. It is a feeling one must extend to the close family members of the one you are in love with. For a man, his mother and sisters are very important. You cannot love a man without making all attempts to love his mother or sisters. Only a few men would brave marrying a woman who has an issue with his mother and siblings. 

Had you studied your man, you would have known what his weakness is. Obviously his mother and sister are his area of weakness and strength. Because you didn’t bother, preferring to isolate your feelings only to your man, you lost out. His mother and sister had always been there before you and know the string to pull to push you out of his life and that is precisely what they did. 

A wise woman should always be generous with her feelings for her man. It doesn’t cost her much to be nice to members of her man’s family but a lot to be nasty or show indifference to them. 

By checking on your own mistakes, you give yourself the greater opportunity of becoming a new person, one who would make that special man and his people want her in their family. 

Furthermore, if God had intended you and this man to be an item, nothing would have made him change his mind about you. That he did, should tell you that you need to pray more so that God can help you in identifying the special man he made just for you. 

Pointless pushing yourself or desiring a family that clear doesn’t want you. No matter what you do to keep this man by your side or declare his love for you, if he isn’t yours, you are simply wasting your time on him. So instead of wondering if this man really loves you, be grateful that God loves you enough to save you from the folly of your own desires. Losing your three years of relationship is nothing compared to a lifetime of unhappiness.

Good luck.