My Tomboy Girl Won’t Let Go Her Ex

Dear Agatha,

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

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

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

Jboy.

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Dear Jboy,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck.

His Parents Oppose His Choice Of Me Based On Distance?

Dear Agatha,

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

I am very confused.

Confused Lady.

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Dear Confused Lady,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck.

My Wife Wars Over My Siblings Living With Us

Dear Agatha,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Worried Man.

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Dear Worried Man,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck.

As My Last Girl Jilts… Women Now Jolt Me

Dear Agatha,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daniel.

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Dear Daniel,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck.

My Husband Targets Divorce… I Think The Contrary

Dear Agatha,

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

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

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

What do I do now?

Okoro.

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Dear Okoro,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck.

Is Love Meaningful Without Sex?

Dear Agatha,

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

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

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

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

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

Ugo.

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Dear Ugo,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Luck.

Lonely Heart

Dear Agatha,

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

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

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

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

My email address is (eelohims@yahoo.com)

I will be grateful if you can help me.

My Wife Refused Me Sex For Five Months

Dear Agatha,

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

Worried Man.

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Dear Worried Man,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck.

I Want To Be His Sole Girl

Dear Agatha,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Worried Baby.

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Dear Worried Baby,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck.

How Can I Groom Her Feelings Beyond Mere Pal?

Dear Agatha,

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

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

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

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

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

Friday.

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Dear Friday,

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

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

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

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

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

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

With every determination comes a discipline.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck.

My Husband Won’t Quit His Job To Soothe Me

Dear Agatha,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Janet.

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Dear Janet,

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

That is taking your fears and insecurity too far.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck.

My Husband Starves Me Of Sex

Dear Agatha,

I am a married woman with a four-year-old son. Since I gave birth to the child, my husband has refused to make love to me. Anytime I go to him he would give one excuse or the other for not being with me.

I am tired and want to leave him. I have prayed but nothing seems to be happening. I sincerely don’t want to raise my son in another man’s house. Please help me because I am so confused. Besides I don’t know if anything has happened to my womb with the long forced abstinence from sex. It would have been different if we were making long spaced love but to stay totally away from it while living with a man under the same roof is more than I can endure.

Tolu.

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Dear Tolu,

There is more to this issue than you have written. Being a woman, my natural reaction is to condemn your man but something tells me that a lot must have happened between the time you had the child and now to make things this terrible between the two of you.

This is one situation where complete honesty is required to correct whatever may have gone wrong between the two of you. A man doesn’t just make up his mind not to come near the woman he lives with under the same roof without a concrete reason.

This is because men by nature are moved by their sight rather than by their strength when it comes to sex. Men do not have the emotional strength to use sex as a weapon, and that is the area where women have field day, not men. For him to have resisted your feminine charms for four years without a record failure means the issues at stake are more fundamental than what you have stated.

What went wrong? How did you both get to this point? What happened before you had your son? Did you ever do anything to make him doubt your loyalty to him, the paternity of the child or suspect you of the possibility of having an extra-marital affair? Do you also think there is another woman who is engaging his attention? Have you ever insulted him in the presence of an audience, under-valued his position as the head of the house? How well do you respect him as your head?

These are some of the issues that can make a man so determined to ignore his wife and her presence in his home. Contrary to general thinking that hell has no fury like a woman scorned, a hurting man can go to any length in life to protect his damaged ego. He is denying you sex as a weapon to make you acknowledge his importance in your life. And the most unfortunate thing about all these is that while he has the liberty to go outside to be with another woman, you don’t. If you do that while still under his roof would count as infidelity on your part. Even though he would also be committing the same offence if he sleeps with another woman, the society would view any attempt by you as sacrilegious while he is counted as normal.

Yes, his decision to deprive you of sex is serious enough to warrant you seeking divorce from him on ground of emotional cruelty but it might not be the actual solution to whatever has caused this problem between you two. If you fail to be honest now, you risk making the same mistake in your next relationship.

The essence of experiences like yours is not only to learn a hard lesson but also to help bring about a positive reformation in our attitudes towards others especially those close to us.

Which of his ego did you hurt? Be honest because therein lies the key to the solution of your problems with him.

Some incidents are more visible than others. Look at the visible faults you have as well as those you think aren’t important. Usually the seemingly unimportant things are the ones with the most harm.

In examining this issue, look beyond your sex life together. What sort of man is he? Apart from denying you his body, what sort of husband and father is he? Before the birth of your son, what sort of lover was he? Is he cruel in our ways to you and your son? Does he provide for your feeding, care as well as welfare of the child?

During your pregnancy, was he caring? Before now, did you ever use sex as a weapon? Has he ever had reasons to complain bitterly against a particular thing about you before or after the birth of the child?

Although not an excuse, what shape are you in now? Do you still consider yourself as attractive as you were before you gave birth? How much did you change in terms of temperament since having your child? Have you ever made attempt to discuss why he is refusing to make love with you? What other efforts have you made to get him to change his mind?

All these are issues you must put into consideration when making up your mind on what to do.

Even though yours seem an irredeemable marriage, with a lot of hard work and determination, it can still work out if you both apply your mind to it.

Four years may appear to be a lifetime, too late to discuss what could have influenced his decision but it isn’t to a determined mind.

Can you remember what he liked most about you the first time you both met? Why not resurrect it from wherever you have kept it to get him to look your way again. It is important you get him to talk else you would never be able to forgive him or get over the harm of his neglect of you.

If it entails getting his family and yours to intervene, don’t hesitate. Believe me when I say it is easier for a man to start all over again than for a woman. A woman who has a failed marriage behind her is instantly judged as a failure, one who couldn’t endure or has a long list of bad habits, which drove the man away from her. No matter how defensible her reasons for ending the marriage are she takes all the guilt. It takes a long while for the society to see things her way but isn’t so for the man who is instantly tagged as the victim.

It takes a special kind of luck and God’s grace to find a man who would look after another man’s child as his own. In most cases, it is a torture for both mother and child to live happy in another man’s house.

For your son, it isn’t going to be a bed of roses especially if you are going into the man’s house as a second or third wife. It is for his sake, you must first try everything you know to get your man to talk and discuss the way forward.

In addition to the more common reason of him having an affair, it could also be spiritual as well as psychological.

Though not a frequently, thought of possibility or one considered important enough, but some men react negatively to the hassles they witness their wives go through during pregnancy, at child birth, if he was present with you in the hospital and after it especially if the women went through a difficult labour. The thought of losing their wives make such men go into emotional shock and subsequently rash decisions aimed at ensuring their women don’t go through the process of childbirth again.

This they do out of acute love and consideration but because they lack knowledge of how to present and explain their feelings to their partners, rush into extreme measures, like your husband, not to make pregnancy happen again. The acute fear locked deep in their subconscious make every thought of making love to their wives repulsive.

Their refusal to discuss their hidden fears with their wives makes nonsense of their aim and desire to protect these women from the pains nature expects them to go through in the process of bringing a life to earth.

If this is true of his case, leaving him isn’t a solution instead he needs your love and support to get over his phobia. He needs you to explain that whatever you went through during your pregnancy and afterwards were not life threatening but normal processes women go through.

To help him get his confidence back, encourage him to use condom while making love with you until he overcomes the phobia.

You may also get professional help if you feel he needs further help.

The spiritual angle comes up if he was brought up to belief sex can only happen between a couple when they desire a child. It would also require your understanding as well as patience to make him appreciate that unlike him, you cannot do without his company and comfort. Let him know that he attitude is pushing you to consider quitting the marriage, as you cannot continue to cope with the situation any more.
It is also important you ask him pointedly if there is any medical problem he recently developed which he is trying not to pass on to you.

Whatever his reasons are or your mistakes are, make it clear he has pushed you to your limit and that if he doesn’t change, you may have no choice but to walk out of the union. Both of you must be willing to offer forgiveness and accepting it in return for the sake of the child.

Making it clear you have gotten to your limit would help him appraise his stance over this matter.

But, don’t quit unless you have done everything humanly possible and you are really left with no option. Your level of determination and love would save or destroy this marriage.

Beyond the issue of the added danger of childbirth older women face, lack of sex doesn’t have any damaging medical consequences.

Good luck.

My Girl Flagrantly Fools My Love For Her

Dear Agatha,

I want to appreciate you on the good advice and responses you daily provide people with problems.

I am 24, and combine work with schooling. I’m a civil servant with the Delta State Civil Service Commission, while schooling in Akwa Ibom.

I am in love with this lady whom I cherish so much, an orphan. Our relationship is over 10 months old. She stays in Warri while I in Asaba.

At the beginning, our relationship was smooth sailing to the point I almost proposed marriage to her. But I began to notice that things were no longer going smooth between us as she began to misbehave. She took to insulting me at the slightest opportunity only for her to apologise afterwards. As a matter of fact she longer exhibit any respect for my person.

In the place of the pleasant reports I used to get about her, people began to complain, including her friends, the woman she stays with and her church members.

Even though she has severally accused me of unfaithfulness, in spite of my sincerity, I never suspected her capable of unfaithfulness. It is so painful.

Disappointed Man.

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Dear Disappointed Man,

In the course of finding emotional equilibrium and tranquility in the opposite sex, you will meet with one or two disappointments. Heartache is one of the risks we take when we decide to go into a relationship.

There is no relationship that doesn’t come with its fair share of pains and aches. This is inherent in our individualities and characters as human beings. When a man and woman decide to come together, the greatest challenge is finding a middle ground between the difference in their attitude as well as their family orientations.

In addition, they have to find a path of compromise between their social attitudes picked up from interactions with friends and peers.

The beginning was without incidents because the natural euphoria of finding and discovering something new was at work. In the beginning your mind and eyes overlooked her faults because of the newness of the relationship. You applied the principle of selective perception which blocks out what you don’t want to see and see things from the perceptive you only wanted.

Her behaviour didn’t change from what it has always been. The difference is you changed from being so idealistically in love to being realistically in love. It is the reality of your feelings for her that threw up issues, which you never agreed to pay attention to before.

Issues like rudeness, disrespect and unfaithfulness don’t just happen overnight. She has always been doing all these things. The fact that you have to combine your studies with your work also didn’t give you too much time to observe her as closely as you would have loved to.

These attitudes may have become more apparent on her side due to certain failures of expectation. Women decide to show their true colours to the men in their lives when dissatisfied with the man on account of his inability to meet up with her demands or failed to live up to expectations. She also does this when she desires to quit the relationship for a perceived more rewarding one.

You have to resist the temptation of allowing this incident affect you in such a way as to make you doubt any other woman you fall in love with. What experiences like this teach in a relationship is to place emphasis on the inner qualities of a person rather than the physical ones.

A woman with the right inner qualities would never be rude to her man no matter his provocations, and would at all times demonstrate respect for him even if he doesn’t deserve it. She would never agree to any other relationship until she bids the relationship farewell.

Physical beauty alone doesn’t make a woman instead she needs an inner beauty to be a complete woman.

It is also important too you examine your own contributions to the problem. Combining school and work in different locations of the country, living in different towns all come with very heavy challenges. It couldn’t have been easy for someone so young to cope with. Even older married ladies would find this arrangement tedious and unappealing.

The strain of your involvements would naturally make her wonder if you are not having another relationship especially if she hardly sees you. While talking over the phone regularly has its advantages, it is not a substitute for personal contact. If you are able to forgive whatever issues exist between the two of you, this is one area you both need to work on in the interest of peace and commitment.

You just have to find a way of making her understand your passion. If it means taking her with you to school one weekend to experience first hand the type of environment you operate, might help to make understand.

Even if you agree to go your separate ways, don’t leave things to chances in your next attempt by allowing the issues that affected this relationship come up in your next one.

From the very beginning ensure you not only explain the things you are involved in but to also plead for the sacrifices as well as support of your partner.

In clear details explain what is involved in dating you in your current situation; give her the chance to say yes to the arrangement or reject it.

Not only would it address, from the beginning, the thorny issue of faithfulness but also of you not having either the time or enough money to play around.

Good luck.

Two Men Want Me For Marriage, Hard To Make Choice

Dear Agatha,

I am 24-year old lady dating a man of 29 years of age who promised to marry me. But I am keeping a secret affair with another man who also promised to marry me after his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) year. He is aware of my first boyfriend but now insisting I date only him, and consequently introduced me to every member of his family.

He just gained admission into one of the polytechnics and we have been dating for three years. He is very humble.

Esther.

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Dear Esther,

From the tone of your letter, it seems the second guy is your favourite. The most honourable thing for you to do at this point is to tell the other man about your change of mind.

It is bad enough that you are cheating on him. It would be very cruel if you keep encouraging him while your mind is made up to follow another man. Even though he doesn’t know about your new man, you have done enough harm to him because while you are busy enjoying two worlds, having different plans with these two men, he on the other hand has put all his hopes on you. To him now, he has a woman he hopes to marry but who unknown to him has equally given her commitment to another man.

To have allowed this second man present you to his family shows you don’t feel anything very strong for your second man. So work up the courage to end your relationship with him so he can also have the freedom to pursue happiness with another woman. He may not understand why you are doing it now but he would eventually when he meets the woman who shows him the respect and love you obviously cannot give him.

Your continued relationship with him is pointless since you lack any qualms going on with the other man. It is apparent that your confusion is not over the other man but the unfavourable situation of your second boyfriend who just gained admission into tertiary institution.

You are worried about the number of years it would take him to be ready to take as wife. The cause of your anxiety has to do with the unpredictability of the future, of the fears of rejections by him as well as your inability to wait for him to be ready.

It would do you a world of good to think deeply because this relationship is laced with so many uncertainties. There is no guarantee that he would get job as soon as he finish school or that you would be able to withstand the emotional pressure of seeing all your friends getting married while you wait for your man to be ready.

These are fears you have to face squarely now. There is no way you can eat and still have your cake. Your choice comes with some bitter pills you must make up your mind to swallow if truly you love him.

The years you have to wait for him would define how deep your love for each other is but I can tell you this, it would take a lot of sacrifices on your part more than his to make it work.

Good luck

How Possible Is It To Date Multiple Partners?

Dear Agatha,

My problem has to do with this girl I have fallen in love with but who unfortunately is in a relationship with another man. She told me when I asked her out that she would have gladly accepted my offer if she weren’t in another relationship.

The question is if it is possible for someone to date more than one person at a time?

And what should I do? This is the third girl that would be turning down my interest over the same reason. Please what should I do?

Christambass.

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Dear Christambass,

Yes, it is possible for some people to be involved in multiple relationships but the question should rightly be whether it is right? No, it isn’t right. Anybody who engages in it is termed disloyal and incapable of loving anybody.

The heart is incapable of loving two people at the same time. It will always favour one person to the detriment of the other. When a man or woman is in multiple relationships, in the process of allocating time among the partners, everybody involved with that person suffers.

The essence of going into relationship is to have constant companionship to share ideals and feelings with. Once this is tampered with, and the other person not available to meet the needs of his or her partner, so many issues suffer in the process, which at the end of the day lead to the collapse of the union.

God designed a relationship from the very beginning for two persons because only one rib was extracted from Adam. When a man or woman goes into multiple relationships at the same time, it follows that he or she is stealing into someone else’s happiness and space.

This is why polygamous homes are laced with unnecessary jealousies, hatred, backbiting and dangerous rivalry because no matter how diplomatic the head of the home is, he cannot love every member of the family equally. He would always have his favourite among the wife, the one who carries his original rib.

No man originally sets out to cause confusion in his life at the point he decides to take on an extra wife but finds himself unable to stop the tide of feelings for one woman more than the others.

This is because God never meant a relationship to be between more than two persons. The formation of the human body shows that life itself is meant to be in pair.

There is no way you would be able to enjoy being in a relationship with any of these girls if they had said yes to you because their hearts are committed to other men; men who have the rights to their time and thoughts.

In any of these men shoes, how would you feel if the lady you are involved in has another man outside you? Would you ever be able to accept being responsible for any pregnancy that results from your affair with her? Would you have the confidence to plan any future with her? There are too many complexities associated with relationships, which made it impossible for a third party involvement.

It is unfortunate that all the girls you seem to be interested are all taken up by other men. But that shouldn’t discourage you from continuing your search for the right girl.
These girls are turning you down because they aren’t meant for you. When you meet the right girl, there won’t be any impediment whatsoever.

To help you make the right choice, pray to God. He knows us all, and what we need to be happy. If you talk to Him, He would make things very easy.

Good luck.

Is Marriage Possible With Younger Lover

Dear Agatha,

Please help me. My boyfriend is 23 while I am 25 years of age. Can we marry considering that he is younger by two years than I am?

Please help me because I am confused.

Confused Lady.

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Dear Confused Lady,

There is no reason why both of you cannot marry. Age is nothing but statistic which should not be allowed to interfere with the happiness of those who are able to get over the hurdles put in its path by the society.

The only danger is if you lied about your age to him. Once he is aware of it and agrees to date you despite it, you don’t have any reason to be confused or apprehensive over the workability of the relationship.

What is paramount here is your comfort with the arrangement. Since both of you are not ashamed at being seen together in pubic, your ages become inconsequential to your overall happiness. Your man has to be sufficiently convinced that you are the right woman for him and therefore able to defend his reasons for preferring you to any of the younger girls his friends or family would have wished for him.

He must be proud of you in everyway to overcome the many nasty comments as well as innuendos that such a relationship attracts.

On the other hand too, you must learn to respect him irrespective of you being older than he is. You must never do anything to question his leadership of the relationship. Irrespective of whether he is younger than you or not, he remains the political and spiritual head of the relationship and subsequently the home. Therefore you must willingly at all times submit yourself to him in every way a woman gives of herself to her husband. In public, you must be seen as the doting and respectful wife who recognises as well as cedes to the leadership of her man. Never make him feel whether alone or in the company of others that your age gives you the edge over him or talk to him to suggest that being older, you have the liberty to scold him.

You may be older but in terms of responsibility and leadership of the home, he is the unequivocal head.

A great deal of how this relationship progresses would depend on the amount of humility, friendship, determination as well as respect you invest into it. There is no relationship without its problem and yours will not be an exception at all. As a matter of fact, it would come with more complex issues on account of the decision of both of you to break away from the norm.

Both of you have to learn this early to steel yourself against the opinions of every other person but the two people who count -you and your mate.

If both of you are able to listen to yourselves, learn not to take things too seriously, discuss your differences candidly and manage to remain focused on the reasons that made both of you united, nobody would notice that he is younger or you older for that matter.

To make this relationship work, you must learn to take pride in yourselves as well as decision to spend the rest of your lives together.

Bearing in mind that nobody is perfect, differences should be tackled with maturity while you must avoid inferences that lack strong evidences to support your line of reasoning. Gossips and malicious speculations about one’s partner have been known to destroy a good relationship. Don’t expect everybody to be happy at your happiness or decision to become a couple.

To this end, you and your partner must learn to have unconditional trust in your feelings for each other. While you must never allow the fact that you are older be obvious in your dealings with him, there are instances in which your lessons from experiences must be applied in the interest of peace in the home.

One of such instances concerns his relationship with other women. Always resist the natural impulse inherent in majority of women to jump to the wrong conclusions.

Even in situations where you have evidences that he has an affair with a lady, don’t rush into reactions. Wait until you are enveloped in the privacy of your home before exploding. Nobody but him must see your insecurity because once it becomes public knowledge that you are insecure, it could trigger a lot of negative reactions from those who don’t want both of you to be happy together.

Strive to be his best friend, major confidant, cheer leader as well as his think-tank. Spiritually learn to pray for him.

However one issue that can unmake this relationship is that of you being able to wait for him to be ready. At 23, reality means he still has far to go whereas at 25, you are almost ready for plucking. Do you think you have the required patience and tolerance to wait for him to put a large percentage of the structures you need to be happy together? Don’t forget a woman matures faster than the man. At 23, he still has far to go. If he hasn’t concluded his education, you have to wait for him to do this, do the compulsory national service and get a job, work for sometime to acquire a little bit of capital as well as material things to give some comfort to your early days.

This is one important aspect of this relationship you must discuss to avoid disagreement and terrible disappointing quarrels between the two of you later in life.

Understandably, you will suffer the pressure more than he would do. Would you have the patience and love to wait? Don’t limit yourself to the now of this relationship; look beyond today to its tomorrow and its workability.

Then it won’t be a matter of love but that of a race against time on your part. Ensure you remove all obstacles that could cause problems now or in the future. There is always a thin line between reality and idealism.

Good luck.