Greed to go abroad turns me his sex machine

Dear Agatha, 
I am a regular reader of your column and always impressed with your submissions. I have a problem and need your help.

I’m a 23-year-old staff nurse and dating a 29-year-old guy. Our relationship started in January. Being the first child in a family of seven and following the economic degradation, it the whole responsibility of the family fell on me. My parents tried to see me through the School of Nursing but couldn’t complete the task due to the demands of my siblings.  

Everyone was expecting me to get a good job and marry a rich man in other to help my family.
I’m a staunch Catholic by birth while my boyfriend is of the Cherubim and Seraphim religious denomination. That was where I began to have problem with the relationship.

He loved me enough to agree to sexless relationship with me. Although unemployed, he promised to marry me as soon as he got a job. He is a graduate. If there is a quality I find outstanding about him is his optimism.  He even promised to become a catholic because of me. He is from a good home and behaves responsibly. I love him, but because he has no job yet as well as his religious denomination, I didn’t take him serious.
Our relationship was all good till March when this other guy I met through the sister and lives in South Africa proposed to me over the phone. He’s from a catholic family and told me that he’s working and schooling over there as well. I told my parents about him and they accepted him thinking that their prayers have been answered. I’ve also dreamt of going overseas where my profession will be useful to my family and me. I thought I was in cloud nine then. My constant interaction with this guy on the phone projects him as being responsible.  

We exchanged pictures over the internet and he looked good. He was such in a hurry to pay my bride price but I insisted that he should come back to Nigeria so that we could meet and get to know each other more. To be frank, I called this guy over the phone more than he calls me and I thought it was right.
I kept all these away from my boyfriend. I planned my new relationship as a surprise for me. And I also denied having a relationship when asked by the guy in South Africa.  

Little did I know that the South African man had a skeleton his cupboard? He came to marry me for the wrong reason because am a nurse, while I accepted his proposal owing to my desire to travel out. I knew very well that I love my first guy more than him but I ignored this salient fact.  However, I started noticing this man from South Africa was not the person I thought he was when he pressured me to have an unprotected sex with him the first time I met him at his parents’ house.

I know it was totally against my principle but I allowed it, not minding the implication of what I was doing with him because I believed he is the man for me. I thought maybe after marrying me he would take me abroad.
My instincts failed me as he later turned me into a sex slave each time I am with him. Within me, it has never been my intention to sleep with him but I was blindfolded by the promise of travelling abroad. I later dragged him to see my parents formally. They accepted him because he behaved and talked like a saint in their presence. He promised to come back to see my parents again but he never did. The worst of it all is that this guy never spent any kobo or gave me money for once. I was the one spending my hard earned slim salary on him. I always force him to come and see me in my workplace and he came only once.
Soon my first guy started having this terrible feeling that something is wrong because I always ignore his calls each time I’m with the other guy. I was really feeling sorry and guilty at the way I was cheating on my first boyfriend but I kept ignoring my feelings of guilt. 

I later discovered that this other guy doesn’t love me at all but was only using me to satisfy his sexual urges all in the name of marriage. 

I couldn’t tolerate it any longer. I had to tell him about my relationship with the first guy. I challenged him that he was only using me as a sex slave. Before this, I noticed he was reluctant to come and see my parents again. Each time I reminded him of his promise to see them, he would become irritated and annoyed for no obvious reasons. I also discovered he was having other relationships. The last straw that broke the camel’s back was that he was dating my colleagues. 

I ran mad and went into psychological trauma for giving my virginity and body to the wrong guy. 
I couldn’t bear the pains any longer and I had to tell my first guy all that happened. He was shocked and cried bitterly. It was painful for both of us. I thought the best thing was to break up with him and pick up the pieces of my life again, but he refused to let me go. Despite my unfaithfulness, I swore never to have sex with him but he persisted. I later had sex with him because he told me that it’s the only way he can forget all that happened. I knew he wasn’t himself because he did not intentionally have sex with me but my infidelity dragged him to the wall. He later apologised and promised not to have sex with me until we’re married. He told me that he wants our relationship back to its normal state. From his actions lately, I know that he still love me but I always feel guilty. 

He has also been helpful in making me forget all that I went through. I have since forgotten about the South African man. I know that he will meet his nemesis.
Tell me, do I still wait for this guy who loves me after everything considering my family responsibilities or should I choose carefully from the suitors who are still seeking my hand in marriage? I knew my parents won’t accept him because of his denomination and joblessness but I think this guy really loves me. He has done what most guys will never tolerate. He keeps on telling me that love does not keep record of wrongs. I pray and believe that God will certainly give him the best of jobs.
Ozy.

Dear Ozy, 

True love doesn’t keep records of any wrong. Rather, it looks the other way when hurting. You have really been unfair to this guy who from what you have said really cares about you. He is not just a man who loves you but also one who is your true friend. Only a man who is a friend to the woman in his life would forgive easily what you did to him.

However the issue at hand now is more than you both being together, it has to do with what you really want from life. To prevent you hurting him again, you must be very clear on what you want from life and him.

Before you both go too far, there is the need for you to first of all clear the challenge your different denominations would throw up. Do you have the capacity and ability to withstand the avalanche of protests that would come from your parents knowing you are going outside the Catholic Church to marry, not just someone from another church but a white garment one? It is not enough for him to promise you he would change for your sake but a matter of reality. The tradition is for the woman to change to her husband’s church and not the man changing to the woman’s church. To pretend he would to appease you and your parents would be expecting too much, hence the need for you to properly resolve the issue within yourself before moving too deep into it.

You must be sure your love for this man can stand the test of time. He has proven his love for you by forgiving you of an offence many men would never have forgiven you. Look deep into your heart and be very frank with yourself, can you look at your parents’ straight in the eyes and tell them you don’t care about your denomination? Would he be able to rely on your love when your parents reject you on account of the church he attends as well his lack of job?

If you really want to make this man happy, forget whatever anybody says and listen to that inner voice right inside of you. What is the voice saying about him and his kind of person? Relationship and marriage go beyond having money and attending the same church. It is a combination of who you both are, your individual values, the kind of sacrifices you can willingly make for the other person to be happy and responsibilities you can each carry.  Be honest about what you want and let him know. It won’t be fair on this man if you again lead him on, only to drop him for reasons you should have tackled from the beginning. 

As for the other man, he isn’t to blame for anything. You caused what happened to you out of greed. No matter the temptations you were facing at home, it wasn’t enough reason for you to trade your body, conscience and dignity for money. You kept enduring his dehumanising treatment of your mind and body because you were greedy. The offer of marriage wasn’t enough for you to do what you did. 

All you need in life to succeed as a woman is to be focused. Once you have that, no man would ever be able to take undue advantage of you or be pressured into anything. 

Good luck. 

Dated for 10 years, mother married her off, now schemes to return…

Dear Agatha, 

My relationship was more than 10 years old before I left Nigeria. Our plan was to marry each other. 

Two years after I came to this country, she called me to inform me of the pressures her family members were putting on her to marry another man. The essence of her call was to have my opinion on the issue. I immediately called her mother to ask why they were trying to make my girlfriend change her mind about me. I assured her of my love for and desire to marry her daughter. Without mincing words, she told me that if I wanted her daughter to wait for me, I should commence the marriage rites by asking my people to come and pay her bride price. 

Unfortunately, things were rough for me that I couldn’t raise any money for her. I kept encouraging her to be patient until my cousin called me to inform me that she has gotten married. I was shocked and feel uncomfortable for some years. During these years I made up my mind that I will not call her and even if I come back to Nigeria, I will not look for her. 

Thank God I found favour in His sight because He blessed me. When I travelled to Nigeria, I asked after her and my cousin told me she has two daughters and that she has been asking after me. To my greatest surprise she called me on phone and I asked how she got my number, she told me that my cousin gave her my number. Thereafter, she started sending me text messages. 

I had to warn her to desist from such an awful act. Later my cousin told me that she plans to divorce her husband and marry me.
Please advise me on what to do because I am confused. I don’t know what next to do. The fact is that I love her so much and yet to meet a girl I love like I love her.
Celestine.

Dear Celestine, 

Don’t be confused about anything concerning this lady because she is off limits to you. The moment she accepted to be the other man’s wife, she ceased to be your business. Granted, you both spent more than 10 years of your lives dating and desiring to marry, there is nothing left for you with her.  The fact that she married someone else shows that God didn’t intend both of you to be an item. God ordains the order of things the way He pleases. You both desired it but failed to reckon with the final plans of God for both of you. If He had, she wouldn’t have married another man and you would have had the money to commence the marriage rites when her mother demanded it of you. That you didn’t, further underscores the truth that you and this woman weren’t meant to be.

So allow the memory of her go and move on with your life.  To look back and contemplate any future with her is to court trouble. Apart from being the wife of another man, she has two young children to look after. These people should be her concern now and not you. Whether she was justified in her action or not isn’t the issue now. Having made her choice let her understand there can never be anything beyond friendship between the two of you. Help her if you feel like helping from a distance but avoid being in her company alone or with this friend of yours who is obviously in subtle support of you both coming together.  You haven’t met another woman to love because you have refused to allow yourself fall in love again. Deep down you are still hurting at the memory of losing her as well as the circumstances in which the whole thing happened. 

You just must let go because that is the only way you can find comfort and peace in another woman. Stop blaming yourself for a situation God long ago took the power of decision away from you or this lady. Accept the fact that at the time you both dated, you came to fulfill a reason of God in your lives. For both of you to have stayed that long together, showed that you were both close and were friends.  God wanted to use your coming together to prepare both of you for your future partners. She must have imparted positively on your life. Draw strength from that relationship by beginning something new with another woman. Your ability to manage the temperament of a woman for that long; shows you have what it takes to make a woman happy.  If she is refusing to allow the training she received from your time together reflect in her life and marriage, don’t make the same mistake in your own life. 

Regrets are only for those who aren’t sensitive to the spirit of God in their lives.  The trick is to take a day at a time. Begin by being friend with the woman you like. Don’t rush anything and don’t make promises until you have asked God to direct your steps this time around. Once God is in it, there is nothing to fear. Lean on God completely.

Good luck. 

We met on Facebook

Dear Agatha,
I want to thank you for the good work you have been doing. I am 30 years old, a Nigerian but based in Indonesia. 

Please I need your help and advice. I met a girl on Facebook network and ever since, we have both fallen in love with each other. We communicate every day. We have made love through the telephone several times even though we are yet to meet physically. She has sent me her pictures and I have also sent her mine. We are now discussing marriage, but we shall do this formally when I come back to Nigeria by December. Please advise me on what to do.
Uche.

Dear Uche, 

What is your idea of marriage? What do you hope to achieve by marriage and what role do you want it to play in your life as you get older? Importantly, what kind of woman do you have in mind for a wife?

Granted the choice of a woman is yours to make, but the journey towards marriage requires more than you have now. Marriage is a book many people are reading wrongly. From what you have said, you appear only to be interested in the cover of the book and not its contents. If you look beyond the beautiful illustration on its cover and go through all the chapters of the book, you will realise that it is one of the most difficult journeys in life. Contrary to what many people planning marriage think, it goes beyond a man and woman coming together to live under the same roof. It requires much more to make it work. 

In the first place, how much of this woman do you know? What kind of woman do you think would make love on the phone with a man she doesn’t know? Deep in your mind, do you think a woman worthy of becoming your wife should engage in such an act with someone she doesn’t know? What kind of woman do you think engages in telephone conversation with a man she doesn’t know?  Can you in all honesty guarantee such a woman capable of being faithful to you? What do you think her interest is in you? Would she consider a marriage proposal to you if you weren’t living outside the country? 

Marriage is based on trust, selfless sacrifices and a deep understanding. As a man, you need a woman who shares your dream as well as her support to make it work. You need a woman who would be there through thick and thin, to give you unconditional faith in yourself, especially when things are not going your way.

You need a woman who would be more than a partner to you, who would be a good friend, a dependable shoulder to lean on when the deep dark clouds cast their shadows on one’s dream and shine. A woman can make or break a man’s life hence the need for every man to be careful when making the choice of a wife. The fact that she makes love to you on the phone isn’t enough reason to contemplate marriage with her. As a matter of fact, it is the very reason you should exercise some restraints in coming to a conclusion about anything until you have an opportunity to meet her physically. 

Pictures don’t tell the true story about anyone. You cannot know what her temperament is from the picture, how good a woman she is or her moral values. Also you cannot tell from looking at her if she is in love with you or not. 

Drop every plan for marriage until you come to the country. Meet her first to know if you even like the physical person you have been talking to on the phone. In today’s modern world, there is a wide difference between the physical person and the picture image. You may not even like her at all so why make a marriage plan with an image of the person you are yet to meet? It is her you want to marry, not the image in the picture.

There is no hurrying into marriage because it is a journey you are not expected to return from. Once you go into it, the society expects it to be a permanent journey. Being itself shrouded in the mystery of life, anyone going into marriage should avoid taking on more mystery into it. 

Suspend everything until you come. Get to know her. Measure her temperament, find out about her values. Commence friendship with her. Look out of her strong points as well as her weak ones with a view of merging her good and bad sides together. At the end of the day, gauge your findings and find the equilibrium that is suitable for you. Use this visit as exploratory visit to determine the direction you want your future to go. Bad marriages just don’t happen; they are often than not, products of our carelessness, stubbornness and inexperience.   

Besides, one must seek the face of God first before one goes into marriage else you end up with the wrong partner. You must first begin at the feet of God. There is no right time for it but now. Before you come to Nigeria, pray for God’s help as well as direction. Ask Him to lead and direct your steps on the path to go to get the answers you seek once God is on your side, you will meet with success in this journey. 

At this stage, you need patience, wisdom to do the right thing. Don’t make the mistake of relying only on the strength of your emotions because it may not be enough to shield your marriage from the natural elements and warfare that go with any marriage.

Good luck.

I raped my own wife

Dear Agatha, 

My marriage is 13 months old. I am getting fed up of the whole thing as a result of my wife’s attitude to sex. She is frigid. Fact is she was raped 15 months before I met her by a man she thought loved her. She was a virgin at the time the incident happened. I have tried my best to understand her attitude but I am now getting to my wits end as she remains unresponsive to anything I do to make her get out the shell she has erected. Some few days ago, I was so desperate for her company I forced myself on her. Since then she has been calling me a rapist and won’t even allow me into our bedroom. 

By the time I came back from work that day, my things were already neatly packed into the guest room. I have pleaded with her best friend to talk to her but she remains adamant. I don’t know what to do. Considering the fact that I have not enjoyed sex since marrying her, I am seriously contemplating quitting the marriage and looking for another woman who would make me feel like a man. I honestly feel like half a man. To be fair to her, she is a good woman outside the bedroom; the kind of woman I have always prayed for a wife.

Please help me.

Idemudia.

Dear Idemudia, 

Marriage is a trial and a process of building. There is no union without a challenge. Running away from this situation isn’t a solution at all because you don’t know the kind of challenge that awaits you at the other side of the divide. 

Frankly, you didn’t act well by forcing yourself on her, especially as you are aware of her history. She is clearly yet to get over that incident of rape. As her husband, your duty in her life isn’t to remind her of something she is trying so much to forget but to help give her another memory of how beautiful lovemaking can be with the right person.

You don’t have any excuse for what you did. Forcing yourself on her shattered the trust she had in you. In her mind, you are no better than the man who violated her. The man like you is someone she trusted, loved and shared a level of intimacy with. To have done what you did as her husband, you brought up the memory of that time again in vivid colours. Again, another man has betrayed her trust.

No matter how pressed you were, you shouldn’t have forced yourself on her. When a man rapes a woman, it isn’t just her body that gets violated, her mind too suffers, perhaps the worst. The body can always heal but the mind doesn’t heal as fast as the body. The human memory once violated would require a stronger and contrasting incident to erase the ugly one from the brain’s database. This is what you failed to do; instead you opened up old wounds that communicate a negative image of your feelings for her. 

To her, you are only interested in her body and not her person. Although this is a wrong conclusion of what you feel for her, but in this current state she is in, there is no changing her mind. It would require more than pleas from her friend to soften her attitude towards you. 

You must develop an unusual kind of patience to penetrate the new wall she has created around herself and heart. For now, you must forget the physical side of your relationship and concentrate on getting her to believe in you as well as trust you as her husband again.

Allow the bedroom arrangement remain the way it is for now. As long as you both live in the same house, there is hope of you both coming to perfect understanding on your needs and desires. No matter how bitter she is, she would eventually thaw sufficiently to make things work.

But you have to rid yourself of your current feelings of ending it all. You must develop the thickness of skin if this marriage is to work; forget your current anger at her for calling you a rapist. For now, she is not really in charge of her senses due to the violation she has suffered. You can be rest assured that her hurt is deeper than yours. She is a victim of being a woman. Deep down, she hates what men are doing to her on account of being a woman; she may also be very angry with herself for being unable to prevent being the object of attraction and sex. It is a very complicated circle of emotions she is going through inside of her. She doesn’t need a lover for now but a friend to help her come to terms that sex can be beautiful with the right kind of man. 

First, you must find a way of becoming her friend, to earn the trust you lost by forcing yourself on her. It is a sacrifice you must be willing to shoulder for the sake of the marriage. Take her out as a friend. Listen to her pains, stories, condemnation and helplessness. Allow her to talk about what she really feels. Get her to talk about her pre-rape dreams too. Take her back to her early years. Get her to talk about you, your marriage and what she hopes to achieve with this marriage. Let her talk about the future, the children and you. 

Let her also express her current views on men. This way, you will know where she needs help and how to replace the void and ugliness created by the rape with beautiful colours of nature.

As her husband you have to be able to make her laugh and trust in life again. Until she is able to trust life again, there is no way she can be ready to be a wife to you. 

You need to be patient, very understanding and extra caring to make her be a woman with hopes and dreams again. She is still very sore at the memory and being her first time, the experience must have been very painful. 

She needs you not only to understand but also to help heal her of the memory of that ugly incident. She also needs your prayer to heal from within. If you walk away you would have destroyed the little self-esteem she has as a woman. Through the grace of God, you will one day look back and thank God for having the patience to wait.

Good luck. 

Re: Our sex life died when my husband got born again

Wise counselling Auntie Agatha, God fearfully and wonderfully made you! 

Dear Lizzy, I won’t condemn you and believe me I am surprised an African woman is coming out in the open to discuss this, kudos to you for the boldness. You have every right to demand for sex from your husband as you rightly quoted in I Cor. 7. Please, as a matter of urgency seek counselling as soon as possible, don’t be shy about it please; Proverbs 24:6. say in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.’ Get the pastor’s attention or the wife as Aunty Agatha suggested and please make this a matter of priority. Your husband, for reasons best known to him, is seeing this in a wrong perspective and if not quickly curtailed this might even end his calling to the ministry as this is not what God had in mind when He ordained marriage. Are you a full-time housewife? If yes, you can also find something doing to keep your mind busy (off sex) for other things as Aunty Agatha suggested.
You said ‘my husband became born again, months later I had no choice but to follow suit ’ does not seem to me that you became born again from the heart but rather by choice and therein lies part of the problem. Being part of different committee groups in church does not mean you are born again from the inside. If you are strong in the spirit God would have directed you on what to do even if your husband is doing something to the contrary. Please seek wise counselling and don’t commit adultery. You should know better the consequence of this as a child of God. You need on your part to rededicate your life to God. As par your last statements please don’t do something bad to yourself as you will destroy yourself and your husband’s ministry. Please seek counselling and keep praying. May God touch your husband’s heart. 

Deacon Adeyemi.

Tired waiting after dating him for 10 years…

Dear Agatha, 

I am a lawyer, 31years, third child of the family of five girls and a boy. I met my boyfriend in my 100 level, we were very close that a lot of our mates thought we were headed for the altar. 

Although he was a year ahead of me when we started, he had to dropout of school when he discovered the person who helped him with his admission didn’t do a perfect job. 

His friend and I were the only ones who knew about this. He didn’t even tell his parents. He was collecting money from his parents under the pretence of being in school. He tried to secure admission again but nothing worked.

When I was in my 300level or thereabout, I called him again to try but he kept telling me he would. 

Meanwhile his father who at the time was working with United States’ Embassy in Lagos was nearing his retirement. He was entitled to relocate to the US with his wife and children under the ages 21. The older ones he could file for. Perhaps, he thought this would come earlier; hence he didn’t take the admission thing too serious since he thought he would relocate and begin a new life in the US. 

After a while, he completely forgot the admission thing and took to hanging out with friends until they all left for their houses. He was really living life to the full and didn’t think twice about cheating on me. There was a particular girl he dated concurrently for two years. When I found out I was really hurt and disappointed. He begged me not to leave him, promising to drop the girl.

I stayed but vowed to revenge. Looking back, I regretted not leaving him then. I kept reminding him of his admission status and most times, he takes offence and tells me not to disturb him. There was a day he told me to leave him alone and not to disturb him. He however apologised and claimed not to have meant it, but that he just wanted me to stop pestering him about it. 

In my 400level, his father was preparing to relocate to the US, I reminded him again and told him it was an opportunity to at least see if he could get money from his father, stay back in Lagos and see what business he could start, especially as people assumed he was in his final year. This infuriated him and asked why I would say that.

Having lied to his father that he had an extra year, his father left him his car. I reminded him again and asked how would he get money to service the car? I graduated and went to law school. I kept asking him to go back to school because I am worried about how he would provide for me as a wife.

He refused until I reported him to his friend. He is now in his first semester Ordinary National Diploma part time in a Lagos Polytechnic. He still has three years to go. 

I raised the issue and he said he would wait for his father to send for him and that he would not even need any certificate to travel then. I kept quiet because I didn’t buy this at all. 

But I had to lie to my family that he too was serving in the North while I kept begging him to go back to school since I have been deceiving my family from 2001 concerning his education. 

My challenge now is that I have been working for the past four years and each day, I meet people. Sincerely, I don’t want to settle down for less than I am, but because of the love I have for him, I have stayed with him. It has gotten to the embarrassing point of people asking when we are going to get married. I have kept lying to them just to protect him. 

Last year February, my younger sister got married. Now my youngest sister called me to inform me of her intentions to marry, but that she wanted me to go first. 

I dated a guy last year that was ready to marry me, but he frustrated the relationship till I broke up with the guy. It wasn’t the first time he would be doing that to me. Now I don’t even have the nerve to go into any serious relationship. 

Once I met a guy and he begins to talk about marriage, I break up with him and begin to date guys who are not serious because this man is so much part of me.  

I am under severe pressure to marry. It isn’t as if my boyfriend doesn’t want to marry me but I am scared because my salary alone cannot sustain both of us as my salary isn’t even up to N30,000. People think he is a graduate and he can get a job anytime, but I know better. 

The impression a lot of people have about me is that I don’t want to marry him because he doesn’t have a job. Some even go to the extent of counselling me that marriage would bring us better luck.

Recently, he asked the father to call me, which he did. He told me to tell my parents to fix a date for our wedding. His father obviously didn’t like the answer I gave him to the effect that his son and I weren’t ready because he hung up on me.  

Agatha, we have been dating for 10 years. He is too possessive and thinks I am cheating on him; hence he takes to calling me almost every hour. Like me he is also 31, though I am two months older. There are other guys interested in marrying me. There is one particular one who is so persistent but I am not serious about him. I really wish I broke up with him long ago. The issue is I am very scared. I really want to get married as soon as possible. Please advise me. I want to celebrate my next birthday in my husband’s house.  

Worried Lady 

Dear Worried Lady, 

You and not this man is your own problem. You are the one who constitutes an impediment to your chance of being happy. He isn’t the one driving away the men, you are. He isn’t the one lying to your family and everybody, you are. He isn’t the one allowing his family escape with the impression that he isn’t ready to marry, you are. 

He isn’t the one who has forced you to continue to excuse his behaviour, you did. In all these, you are the one to blame for whatever challenges you are going through. So stop looking for excuses where none exists and sit down to ask yourself some soul-searching questions. 

Granted you love him but where is all this leading? You claim you don’t want to marry him because you cannot fend for him on your present salary, but you are unwilling to marry any of the suitors who come your way. So what do you want? The thing is for you to make up your mind on what you want first before asking for help. You cannot eat and still have your cake. It is either you make up your mind to stay with him, ignore his inability to go through school or you move on with your life. 

Don’t wait until you become desperate, when the suitors begin to dry up before you make up your mind on what direction to sail your ship. At 31, age is gradually not on your side. You are inching as a woman to that age when single women become desperate to marry. Don’t for the sake of a love you appear unable to define, waste your own life? 

Already, your family, his family and friends all think you are to blame, the reason you are still single. It is high time you told all of them the truth. It is the only way you can really be free of the burden of your guilt at helping him to tell lie to his family and yours. The only way too, you can openly engage in a relationship with another man without friends and family members asking you embarrassing questions. 

You are scared because you don’t know how to face the consequences of the lies you have helped him to tell or what he would do to himself if you expose the truth about him. Frankly, you are not helping him at all to keep this lie because as long as you help him keep it from his family and friends, he would never really be serious with his life. 

He will never be the kind of man you want to marry to. You have done your best all these years but the issue is clearly beyond what you can manage alone. This is time you involved his parents in the battle of helping him re-order his life. Your boyfriend he may be, but he isn’t your responsibility. His parents will never forgive you for helping him to destroy his life by keeping this away from him. So also would your parents for not telling them. You have gotten to a point where you have to be cruel to be kind. 

Sincerely, there is no way your relationship can move beyond this point with the way things are between the two of you. You have too much resentment against him for you to be free to love him as you once did again. 

The issue between the two of you has gone beyond him cheating on you or you on him. It is more a matter of you blaming him for the loss of precious time and what appears to be the death of a dream plan. 

You will feel a lot better if the world knows where the problem really is in your relationship. It would make you breathe better and clear your mind up for the task of re-charting your own life given the reality on ground. 

If the choice still remains him, at least you would be doing so with a freer mind not one ridden by guilt of the secret of not wanting anybody to know about his aborted education. Then it won’t be a matter of whether he is good enough for me, but that of knowing that without him, you are not complete, hence the need for you to make the required sacrifice for both of you. 

And if the choice were for you to end the relationship, it would be because you have gotten to that point where you can no longer cope. 

All you need is for you to be very sincere with yourself and people around you.

Good luck. 

Distance makes her vulnerable to love advances from petit Alhajis

Dear Agatha, 

I really appreciate what you are doing. I have a problem with the lady I am dating whom I love so much and I have promised to marry. I have gone as far as meeting her parents in the North where they reside though they are from the Eastern part of the country. The problem is that she is far from me and from my investigations and evidences is unfaithful to me. 

I have reports of her dealings with the young Alhajis and even copies of disturbing text messages sent her. What do you advise me to do?

Worried Man.

Dear Worried Man, 

What kind of advice do you want me to give you when you have all the evidences that she is unfaithful to you? The choice of what works for you is yours to make. It depends on how desperate you are to have her in your life. 

Because this is an issue that would forever shadow your relationship with her, you must adopt a very realistic approach to it. The major questions you should ask yourself are: would you be able to cope with the knowledge of her infidelity to you? Would you have the much needed trust for her, and if you do marry her eventually, would you deep down ever wholly accept the children of the union as yours? 

The legitimacy of the children of your union with her is an issue you must address from now so that you will not later maltreat the children. This is why you should consider this issue seriously since it would eventually be beyond what you feel for her to what is real. One thing is to live with an unfaithful wife, another is to live with children you are confident are yours. 

The wise thing for you to do now is to confront her with all the evidences you have including the text messages you obviously transferred from her phone to yours. Hear her out. Give her the benefit of doubt to explain and defend herself against the evidences you have gathered against her. 

In deciding on the way forward for both of you, there is also the need for you to take special consideration of the reasons for her actions. Has it to do with distance? If yes, do you consider it a good enough reasons considering the fact that somewhere in your marital life; you may have to live separately for a while due to transfer from the office, business trips or in the search for better economic empowerment. What would happen when you are not around her? Would she be able to cope with the distance factor? Would she have the discipline to abstain from sex during the time you would be away?

You must consider the long-term implication of her reasons. The important thing here is to be truthful to yourself and ideals. Whatever decision you make, ensure it is the kind that would stand the test of time, one you will not look back on with regrets and tears; one which the future will be kind on you. Life is in phases, each with its colours and codes. Sometimes what we think is unbearable in one season, could in another season be tenable. The only constant feature of all these seasons we pass through in life is the spirit of truth. Ensure you have plenty of it to avoid pains and disappointment later in life.

Good luck. 

He’s a carefree guy…

Dear Agatha, 

 I have a boyfriend that seems carefree to me but I love him all the same. However, I am tired of his habit.  What should I do to retain him?Nafisat.

Dear Nasfisat,

If you are tired of his habits, initiate a dialogue with him. Let him know that despite the love you have for him, you are getting to your breaking point and that you could snap at any moment from the frustration you feel at his habits. He may not know the extent of your irritations with him or how severely these habits of his affect people around him, especially you. There is nothing constructive dialogue cannot achieve. All you need is to be absolutely truthful about your feelings including your fear of walking out on the relationship if he doesn’t change. In doing this, you must also be humble enough to subject yourself to examination, because there is no perfect person in life. Like him, you must be prepared to face the truth about yourself. It is the only way both of you can move your relationship forward. 

Relationship isn’t just about romance; it is also about helping the other person to become better in terms of behaviour and relationship with the larger society. 

As long as you handle it with maturity, refusing to play the saint, you won’t lose him to his habits.

Good luck.

Need Yoruba girl for serious date

Dear Agatha,

I am an ardent reader of your column. God will continue to enrich you with wisdom. I am a decent male, aged 29, and a graduate from Anambra State. Please I am interested in a Yoruba lady, responsible and hardworking. My dream is to have such a woman for a wife. She should be aged 23-25 years of age and must be a graduate for a relationship. An interested lady should contact me through this number 07030935778.  

Before my penchant for sex sack our love…

Dear Agatha,
I am a regular reader of your column and trust you will help me.
I have been having problems getting the girl I am dating to trust me.
The major problem here is the issue of sex. Countless times, we have had problems traceable to sex issues. She says she doesn’t want sex in the relationship but many times, we fall into it and she never objects. 

On good number of times, she had been the one initiating the whole thing. She knows exactly how to turn me on and she always goes straight to those spots that cause the greatest arousal. But on every occasion, she ends up accusing me of having no respect for her, of being in the relationship for sex alone.
It hurts me a lot each time this happens because I truly love her and I’m not in the relationship for sex alone.
To make matters worse, she is confiding in a male friend of hers. 

I have nothing against her unburdening her heart to her friend, I am only afraid if things continue this way, he might one day start taking advantage of her situation to woo her to his side and probably, even hurt her.
I really need help on how to stop my hormones from wrecking my relationship. I truly love this girl and do not wish to hurt her. I need to know how to be in charge of my hormones and not the hormones being in control of me.
Zeddicus

Dear Zeddicus, 

Stop acting the role of a hen-pecked man. Stop feeling guilty for wanting the same thing she wants. If she is serious about not sleeping with you, she won’t allow herself to be locked in a secluded place with you or touch sensitive parts of your body she knows would ignite your passion for her. 

What she is doing is called a teasing game. She doesn’t want to take responsibility for her action and is instead pushing the blame to you. Since she is always a willing party to it, make her understand that if she has the discipline to insist on you not going the whole way, you would act the gentle man and stop. That she as her own gatekeeper has the final say on whether she wants to be made love to or not.

Insist you can only be blamed if you ignore whatever she says at the vital point but that since she is always receptive to you, you cannot alone take the liability for what she clearly desires. 

The only thing you can both import trust into this relationship is for her especially to be very clear on what she wants from you and this relationship. It takes two to tangle. She can claim to want one thing while she does another. If she doesn’t want sex, let her say so and do everything to discourage you from having access to her body and if she wants it, she should be bold enough to be honest about it. The rules of a game are always spelt out and the beginning of it not midway. She cannot cry fowl in a game she is clearly the one breaking all the rules. 

For any man to have respect for a woman, she has to first give respect to her body and image. This is the point you should make clear to her; that you love her enough to do her bidding at every point in the relationship. All you need is for her to tell you in actions and words what she wants and you would respect her wish. This would be enough evidence of your love for her.

If you don’t feel comfortable sleeping with her, avoid being in a secluded place with her. Ensure there are people around the two of you when she comes to visit you. The good thing about being an adult is the discipline to resist temptations that come in the way of sex. You must begin to train yourself to decline; this is essential to your self-development as a man.

As for confiding in her friend whatever happens in the relationship, as long as it doesn’t affect your relationship negatively, there is nothing wrong in having a friend to talk to. This man can only take advantage of her if your woman allows herself to be taken advantage of.  If she insists on the relationship remaining platonic, even if the man desires her, it would remain so. In both situations, your girlfriend has the ultimate power to decide what she wants and would work for her, not you or this other man. 

At this all-important juncture of your relationship, there is the need for you to sit her down to readdress the issue of what she really wants from you and this relationship. To continue to ignore the obvious is to postpone doom’s day. Whether you elect to take the responsibility of the intimacy between the two of you or not the fact remains that she has to make a very sincere choice of her desires.

If she isn’t bold enough to face the truth about her desires, there is no way you can help protect her from your own needs as a man.

By sitting her down, you give the opportunity of re-writing the dos and don’ts rules of your relationship. Your role is to help her face the truth about herself. It is called the T-junction of truth. If she wants sex, let her be bold enough to admit it. She should stop pretending to be who she isn’t. Granted, everywoman now proclaims a sex-free relationship, the truth remains that not everywoman has the self-discipline to abstain from it. At any rate, the fact that she is active with you underscores her need to come out with the truth about herself. 

Make it plain to her that you aren’t bothered about the image she is trying to project rather, what you want is the chance for both of you to be happy together as a couple.  Assure her that by dropping whatever image she is trying to project of herself, would remove the tension being created by her anytime you both make love and subsequently give both of you the time to study each other as well as move the relationship to the next level. 

The earlier both of you tackled this issue the better for both of you, because a time would come when you would begin to resent her attitude and unfair blame of you. Don’t wait, if you love this girl as much as you say, for that time to happen because you may not have the needed patience to listen to whatever excuse or thing she has to say.

Issues are best tackled in a relationship as they come up. Most postponements often than not result in more pains than they would have, if discussed at the onset.

You love her, no doubt, but you have to take a definite stand on this matter if you hope to have a rewarding relationship with each other. 

Good luck. 

What’s wrong with missionary style of lovemaking?

Dear Agatha,

Please I want to know if there is/are any harms to my pregnant wife or our unborn child when we make love using the missionary style. That’s the only position my wife can use. Please note that the pregnancy is in its seventh month going to eighth. 

Secondly, is it true that a pregnant woman must keep having sex to aid her delivery? Finally, I do appreciate how you have been a blessing to virtually everybody that has come across your column. 

God will continue to enrich and enhance you in all aspects of your life. 

Afiz.

Dear Afiz, 

No. There is no harm to your wife and unborn child in the position you assumed during lovemaking. The key word is her comfort. As long as she is happy and comfortable with it, there is nothing to fear. Lovemaking during pregnancy is premised principally on the comfort of the woman. Even though doctors think certain positions are risky for a woman to assume during pregnancy, the fact remains that nobody but the woman can determine which position she and her unborn baby are most comfortable with. 

All you have to do is to constantly ask her the position she wants, the fact that she is comfortable with one position today doesn’t mean she would be next day. What is required of you at all times is to be very gentle with her on account of the baby inside of her. 

Yes, regular sex is advised for a woman during pregnancy. The argument is that it aids both mother and child during delivery. Regular sex during pregnancy helps to keep the birth canal opened for easy passage of the baby during labour. However, the safety of both mother and child remains paramount. Once she complains of any discomfort at any level of the intimacy, the wise thing to do is to withdraw.    

Good luck.                                                                                                   

Marriage is not her desire now…

Dear Agatha,

I have been very close to you through your column.  I consider your solutions to be
very useful, practical and straight.I am a single man of 36 years of age. I lost my only relationship of eight years two years ago; since then I have been searching for another lady to settle down with. I must confess it is becoming very difficult for me doing this at my age as well as with my status. Everywoman I come across knows I am looking for a wife. They pretend to be good, but sooner or later, I discover the duplicity in their character. 

In March last year, I came across this young lady. I have since then tried to be close to her, never hiding my desire to have her as a wife. The first time I met her, I asked if she has any existing relationship with any man. She told me that she has a two-year-old relationship with another man. 

I asked how close they were and if they have any plans to marry. She told me that although they are close but the man hasn’t proposed to her. At that point, I decided to go ahead with the relationship. I later proposed to her.
She neither rejected nor accepted my proposal. Instead she said we should maintain the status quo since she hasn’t made up her mind to marry yet. I tried to convince her that at 22, and a third year student in the university, she didn’t have any excuse not to think of marriage.

I did everything within my powers to meet her needs. I made sure she didn’t lack much. In addition to the gifts, I made sure I was there physically. Still she didn’t change her mind.
I also didn’t attempt taking her to bed because I desired her to know how much I really care for and serious with her. At some points, my friends started mocking me as well as my claims to being a man. They think I should have long taken her to bed. 

Towards the end of last year, I slowed down with her and we lost contact, but I confirmed that she and the other guy were still dating.
Recently, I called her again and we started talking.
Agatha, I have made it clear to her that I want something more from her. I want marriage or nothing. Please, do I still keep the contact with her or forget her and seek another girl ready for marriage?
Albert.

Dear Albert, 

It should be obvious to you by now that this girl isn’t interested in marrying you. She didn’t deceive you into thinking she was. You are with her because you want to be and not because she is giving you any encouragement to spend money on her, care for her or be there for her. Telling you she has a boyfriend in her life is enough to tell you that you will never become who you so much want to be in her life. 

Chances are she sees you purely as a friend in her life, one she can do without, hence her refusal to get in touch with you when you didn’t call. Admitting she has a boyfriend she is very close to and refusing to accept your wedding proposal absolves her of any blame whatsoever. 

The thing now is for you to get serious with your own life. In your desperation to marry, you are opening yourself up for pains, hurts as well as more disappointments in life. Give her up and plan for your own woman.  The only way you can do that successfully is to forget completely the disappointment of your doomed relationship. Stop feeling pity for yourself and forget whatever reasons the other woman gave for the failure of that relationship. There is nobody without the story of heartache. Disappointment is associated with happiness. They almost partner each other. The only way to manage disappointment is not to dwell too much on it else it would be difficult to move on to other things. Doubtless, the pains of that disappointment would never really go away especially as it involved eight very good years of your life, but go on you must in life.

By refusing to act desperate, you take away the power of any woman to hurt you. Take your time to study the woman you want to marry. From your experience, there are mistakes you made before which you must avoid at all cost. Just as there are no perfect situations, there are no perfect beings. Admit to your own mistakes in that relationship with a view of ensuring you don’t fall into the same situation. Where you have to be firm, please do so, and where you have to bend backwards do so also. As the leader of the team, you must at all times be alive to your responsibilities to earn the respect of those you lead in this case, the woman in your life.

Rest more on God to avoid another grave mistake in your choice of a life partner. When in haste, it is always best to lessen your speed limit to prevent a fatal accident. Relax and take your time to get the right woman to share your life with. Marriage is not about how early but how well.

Good luck.