My Mum Is Sleeping With Her Driver

Dear Agatha, 

There is this problem in my family, which I can’t handle alone and worst still; I can’t share it with anybody for fear of what it will do to my parents. 

I found out that my mother is sleeping with her driver. I caught them in the act when I came home suddenly from school without informing anybody. I wasn’t feeling fine and since I wasn’t getting better, my roommates suggested I came home for proper treatment. I didn’t tell my parents because I haven’t always been the strong kind. My father, who was ever protective of me would rush to school assuming it was one of my many crises.

Being a while I have had my crisis, I didn’t want to bother them unduly especially as I suspected it could be typhoid since I had all the symptoms. It was something I could have handled myself being a medical student but I guess it was just an excuse to leave campus for home even if it was just for the weekend.

My mother’s car wasn’t parked in the usual place so I assumed she wasn’t in. 

Perhaps I wouldn’t have noticed if they didn’t use my room as their love-nest. 

The shock of seeing my mother in such an intimate position was enough upset on its own but discovering the identity of her partner was more than I could tolerate. 

My screams brought the gateman rushing into the house but I quickly recovered enough to lie that I fell. 

I didn’t bother to wait for my mother and the driver to get decent before storming out of the house back to school; my reason for going home forgotten. 

It has been six months since I spoke with my mother or allowed her near me. My father is worried and is beginning to ask me questions on why I am refusing to come home. My mother has kept sending messages of plea for forgiveness but how can I forgive her? Get the picture of her naked body under her driver out of my mind? Will I be able to look her in the face and call her mother?

I am actually writing you on my sickbed. In the last couple of months my health has taken a worst turn, enough to make my elder brother who resides abroad to come home. Everybody is worried about me but I just can’t open up to what the actual sickness is. 

Please help me. I don’t want to die. How do I handle the situation without hurting my father? My mother until that episode was one of the most responsible women I know; who took seriously her marital vows. Despite my closeness and love for my father, he is the one who has his eyes outside his home as I have repeatedly seen him with different women but my mother? I still can’t believe she did what I saw her doing.

Laura.

Dear Laura, 

First is the urgent issue of your health. Bottling it up, refusing to talk about it or forgive your mother would only make your health condition worse. 

Six months is a long time to hold back so much inside of you, especially as you don’t enjoy the best kind of health. At the stage you are in now, you need to make peace with everybody. 

Despicable as your mother’s act is, please do find it in your heart to forgive her. Your mother’s condemnation or judgment isn’t within your powers to make; you didn’t create her, nor are you her husband. Allow God to do His work, pass His judgment while you do yours of calling her and asking her what made her do it as well as the kind of examples she is setting for her children. 

Your line of questioning and attitude is enough condemnation for her; enough agony on its own. To have you witness her shame is enough judgment. 

You will achieve nothing by telling your father about it but would have done a lot for their marriage if you are able to have a frank talk with your mother. Call her alone and hear what she has to say about the episode you witnessed. Demand to know when it all started, her reasons and what she intends doing with the relationship.

Though, nothing can justify sleeping with her driver or any other man while she is still legally married to your father, knowing her reasons may help give an insight into the state of marriage of your parents. 

If she isn’t the promiscuous type like you rightly observed, then something your father did may have pushed her to the limits. While I maintain it isn’t an excuse but you must understand many of the dynamism at work in your parents’ marriage. 

What you saw may be the end product of so many years of pains and endurance; of disappointment and rejection and silent torture from your father. The fact that you caught her sleeping with the driver, someone who works for her, below her class, tells of a level of frustration. 

If the incident you witnessed is the end product of several years of emotional agony, you won’t be doing both of them any good if you keep ignoring your mother. Your mother is as guilty as your father so if you are able to forgive your father of his many strays, you must be able to forgive your mother too. Whatever offence your mother is guilty of in your moral court is what your father has always been guilty of. 

That she is a woman doesn’t make her guiltier than your father. In God’s reckoning they are both guilty of the same offence. One of the major laws of marriage is faithfulness to one’s spouse. The fact that you father appears to be the one that broke the laws first, his conduct might not be unconnected with your mother’s behaviour. 

Whatever the problems are, urge her to tell you. Assure her that you are over your condemnation and are now set to help her overcome whatever the issues are with her marriage. 

Because God has given the assignment of restoring sanity into your parents’ marriage make sure you do it without bias. But before agreeing to talk to your mother, make her promise to stop her affair with her driver as well as a promise that she will never do it again with another man. 

Carefully take mental notes of what the real issues are and bring them up with your father without telling him about your mother’s affair. 

You could use your health condition to extract a promise from your father to stay faithful to your mother. Make it appear that your worsening health situation has to do with the salient issue of his unfaithfulness to his wife. Ask him how he would feel if his wife were the one playing around with other men? Such pointed questions would help him think deeply about the harm he is doing to his marriage.

The fact that two of them are still willing to go on with the marriage underscores hope, so, aid them with prayers and never forget to make them realise that they have something good to look forward to through their children.

 

Good luck. 

My Wife Sloshes In Sex Scandal Among My Friends…

Dear Agatha,

I have been living with my partner for about 13 years now. After all these years of being together, we would have been expected to settle down firmly into the relationship by now. Unfortunately, we are still embroiled in different kinds of crisis, the major one being the opinion of my friends who think I shouldn’t have married her after she has slept with three of them.

What makes this particularly unpleasant for me is the fact that they said it openly to her face.  

The first time I began to suspect her was when I travelled abroad. On my return, I discovered an unusual closeness between her and one of my friends. When I voiced my discomfort at their closeness, she assured me he was only trying to make her not to feel my absence too much. I believed him only to discover a letter he wrote to her, ending it with “I love you”. When I confronted her with this letter, she denied the existence of such a letter.

 I got suspicious of the second guy when a younger friend of his came to our house to ask from my wife, whether she was hearing from him, when I should be the one they should ask this question. From that incident, I knew they wanted to pass a message across. Alert me to what was happening between my wife and this man.  

 The third guy incidentally is the friend of the second guy. I actually met him through this friend of mine. According to my partner, the guy who is also a student in the same school as my wife came to her room one afternoon and slept off after she gave him food. She said, he appeared tired but people living in the same hostel with her who found him asleep in her room read the wrong thing into the whole situation.

Agatha, I have been suspecting her since I discovered that she had told a lie about being a virgin. She told me her former boyfriend tried to deflower her, but since she didn’t feel him penetrate her or see the telltale sign of blood, she believed she was.

 Please, advise me on what to do, because each time my friends taunt me with this, I always feel less than a man. For days I will never be myself and it affects the way I treat her and the children. I have repeatedly demanded she tells me the truth, but she keeps denying all the allegations. I don’t understand what is happening. Why would my friends say all these things if the allegations were indeed bunch of lies?

Segun.

Dear Segun, 

You have been with this woman for 13 years. What do you know about her, something nobody else does about her? Can you be categorical of in her behaviour, disposition and attitudes?

You two are having this major issue in your marriage, because you both didn’t bother to put in place the right structures before jumping into marriage.

If both of you have lived together for 13 years, you should be able to know if what your friends are saying about your wife are correct or wrong. 

At any rate, what types of friends do you surround yourself with? And what type of friend are you too? Are you the only one who is married? What sorts of company did you all keep? Are you the major financier of the group in which case, they see your woman’s presence in the scene as inimical to the confraternity? How come after 13 years of marriage, you still surround yourself with men who from all indications are no better than secondary school boys on their first ego trip?

There is an adage I am sure you are familiar with, ‘show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.’ The fact that all your friends seem to be sleeping with your wife and making public shows of it, you too should look well at your backyard for clues. No matter what, there should have been a friend among the whole lot of them, who would defend the honour of your home and marriage. That they are all united in daunting you of their visits to your wife’s bed, calls to question your own integrity as a friend and person. 

It also points at a previously unresolved issue between you and these friends who may have met behind you to pay you back in your own coin. 

Take a trip down memory lane, did you at anytime hurt anyone of them by taking a woman who should have, by right, gone to another person? Did any of them indicate interest in her before you? How would you score yourself as friend? Devoted or fair weather who takes without giving? If these friends are united against you, a self-appraisal will help you situate the situation between you and your wife. It has to be honest for you to understand the motive of your friends as well as their determination to ensure you drive this woman away.

One question you must also answer as sincerely as possible is why you are still in the company of these friends? What value are they adding to your life as a married man and father? Who among them is married? What is your relationship with their wives? Frankly, if your were good friends, they would, no matter how morally bankrupt your wife may be, resist any attempt at sleeping with her because of the regard they have for you. For them to admit to sleeping with her, writing her love letters, going to her room to sleep on her bed in a hostel where they know she is married shows a motive deeper than what you think. 

While I am not saying your wife is innocent, there is the need for you to be very careful on this issue. If your wife is saying she didn’t do any of these things, ask yourself what sort of friends sleep with the wife of their friend and still feel no shame in bragging about it?

Sincerely, I think you are better off without these kinds of people hanging around you and your woman. Even if she is guilty of all they said she did, telling you what they did with your wife underscores your need to be wary of their intentions. Friendship is about loyalty, respect and trust. Clearly, these lots don’t have loyalty to you, lack respect for your person and are all out to humiliate your manhood. If you are not careful, by the time they finish with you, they would have succeeded in destroying anything that is important to you. 

Distant yourself from them because it is the only way you can tell if your wife is indeed truthful to you or not. 

By secluding yourself from them, you will be able to study your wife without the influences or persuasion of the so-called friends. It is very important you get to know the kind of woman you are married to. It is obvious both of you are miles apart. If indeed true she is having all these relationships with your friends, you have a right to know why she is doing it. Irrespective of what your decisions would be at the end of the day, knowing would help make a lot of things clearer as well as point you at your own deficiencies too both as a man and husband. 

The real issue here is beyond the affairs she is having with your friends. It is more of the values you both presented on the day you met as well as got married. 

What values do you have as a man? Our values in life comprise of the kinds of friends we keep, the kinds of clothes we wear, environment we live, where we go and what we discuss. These are what influence our ways of thinking and mould us to be who we are. You must know what your values are to determine what your elasticity level of tolerance would be. As it is now, you can’t be sure if all they are saying about her is the truth. Until you seclude yourself and family from them, and act as the married man that you are, you may not know where this huge smoke is coming from.

If the motives of your friends were to break you and your woman up, they would stop at nothing to turn an innocent act, on her part, against her. Feeding and allowing a tired friend of yours to sleep in room isn’t out of place, after all it was in the afternoon and they were not in the bed together. She did what any good wife would have done in similar situation for a true friend of her husband. 

Whatever happens at the end of the day always put the interest of those children first. Don’t be hasty in coming to a judgement unless you have unquestionable evidences of your own to avoid regrets that come from unfair accusations. Wisdom demands you should not condemn her on account of what these people are saying, because they lack the credibility to judge or make major decisions for you. 

Good luck. 

She Still Takes Me For Casanova I Was Before…

Dear Agatha,

I have a girlfriend who doesn’t trust me on the basis of my past life as a Casanova. She actually met me as one, but I have since changed. She is so jealous that she doesn’t want any woman near me. She lacks respect for me, keeps malice, embarrasses me irrespective of where we are, shouts at me at the top of her voice, denies me food in my own house, listens to gossips, believes anything she hears about me without demanding for explanation from me and sleeps outside my home when she is upset with me.

There is no week we don’t quarrel over one issue or the other. She gets upset unnecessarily. I have taken steps to stop all the other girls who used to come to my house from coming since I met her. I have also taken her to see my parents as the woman I want to settle down with. 

I had planned to marry her last Christmas, but told her she has to stop all those upsetting things, yet it appears she can’t. On December 31 and January 1, we again quarrelled. She actually told me, as is her manner that she wasn’t interested in the relationship anymore. Like all those other times, she came back to beg for forgiveness. This is about the fourth time she is doing it. 

She keeps doing this because she knows I love her. I have just concluded my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). I am getting fed up with the whole thing. 

Do you think I should continue with her or end the relationship to enable me begin something new with another lady? 

Agatha, I love her so much, but it is so painful that she prefers to live with my past when I have done everything since I met her to demonstrate my love and loyalty to her. I want to marry two years from, because I know AIDS is real. 

Santox.

Dear Sandox, 

Have you sat her down, trying to talk to her? Get to know something about her past relationships that are giving her so much insecurity? What makes her think you are still the person you were when she met you? Are you sure that none of the girls you once dated isn’t sponsoring people around her to give her false information about you?

Ending it should not be the first option. Rather, see how you can win her trust. 

When issues like this come up, it is always best to sit the other person down for more discussion. Because you love her, you must find a way of getting around the problem of reconciling your present with your past. Let her know that much of her attitude is hurting you as well as the options you are contemplating taking. Also make it very clear to her that after this talk, you may not be disposed towards explaining your past to her again, or take her back when she decides to leave you this time. 

By making her realise that being in love so much with her doesn’t leave you without options, including ending this relationship and starting all over again with a woman who trusts and respects you. 

You must make her know that you are tired of the many series of embarrassment. In sitting her down for this discussion, don’t be afraid of making her see your anger and despair at her attitude. Also make her see your resolution at ending the relationship if she continues in her present manner. Making her know that you have nothing to lose by ending the relationship while she, on the other hand, has more to lose if you decide to walk away. Don’t ever allow her escape with the impression that your love for her leaves you helpless. 

Let her know there is nothing you can do to change your past life, but that you are pleading with her to allow you show her the new you. If after this talk she persists in embarrassing you at will, then you may have to consider the option of ending the relationship, because it means she would find it extremely difficult to forgive you if there is a real need for her to. Relationship lacking in trust and respect may not be able to stand the test of time.

It could just be God’s way of showcasing your incompatibility as a couple. Yes, you may really love her, but without friendship, mutual trust, respect, loyalty and sacrifice, the entire process could turn nasty. Therefore you have to go to God through prayers to be really sure of what you are up to and the way out.

Like everyman, you need the support and respect of the woman you intend spending your life with if you want to succeed in life. In a situation where the woman you intend to marry does as she likes, sleeps outside your home whenever upset, denies you food, embarrasses you at will, then you must take quality time out to reflect on what you really want. Love without peace and respect is like an empty shell of fish at the seaside. 

At this point, you really don’t have anything to fear. It is either both of you make up your minds to have a workable relationship or go your different ways. This is the point where you talk reality and not love. 

Good luck.

At Last, He Left With His Sheer Trickery…

Dear Agatha,

I have a question, which has been agitating my mind for some time. There is this boy I dated for about six months. He was 23 while I was 18 then. We had great fun together. But we never agree on the issue of sex. Although we are both Christians, I however belief sex before marriage is wrong, but he seems to think it is ok. He lost his virginity when he was 16, but of the opinion if I did the same thing at the age he did it, he would have labelled me a girl of low moral. 

It is disgusting how he could have sex with a girl he was dating and whom he has no feelings for. He said he understood and respects the fact that I am waiting, but sometimes he would still ask questions like “what if I gave you a ring would we have sex?” Or what if I find another girl for sex, would you be ok with that? We would be physical, but not to the point of sex, which in retrospect I really regret now. So sometime in September last year, he signified his intentions to end the relationship. We stopped talking after a while, but began to speak to each other after a while. 

After a while, he wanted to know if I had gone into another relationship. I wondered why he wanted to know, but decided to ignore the question. In October we attended one of the events put together for the country independence anniversary. He was acting very cold and distant towards me, hiding to talk to other girls. We finally stopped talking for a month. I sometimes e-mail him to ask him for pictures I had left at his place. 

In November, he said he wanted to “reconnect with me” and that he missed me, so we began talking and we even talked about getting back together. 

Sometime in December we began to have problems until we stopped talking again in January. I stopped when he told me he was intimate with another girl.

At that point I told him I lost respect for him and I told him that he had no self-control. The thing about him is the fact that he would do something to upset me while he would act like nothing happened. Before then we talked about him coming for Valentine’s Day. 

At 24 he is, he still does things to please his friends, which to me is very unfortunate. We sometimes talk about marriage, but I would be a fool to think a wedding ring would automatically give him self-control. I have not talked to him since, and I don’t want to. I’m completely done with him and I’m grateful that I didn’t have sex with him. 

But I am worried if ignoring him completely is the best thing to do? Where do I look to for a Godly young man? I don’t want a repeat of that relationship. This time I want to make sure the guy is a growing Christian as I am and not a pretentious one. Please guide me towards something better, because I don’t want to settle for less.

Uwa.

Dear Uwa, 

If you have decided to end the relationship with this man, stop bothering yourself about his conduct with other women. He is no longer your business except of course you are still very interested in him. If you are, be honest enough to admit it to yourself at least.

Granted, you may not like his ways, but the fact that he was able to exercise self-control where you are concerned, didn’t pressured you into having sex with him even when you both got physically close, shows that in more ways than you know he has some measure of respect for you. It may not be enough for you, but given the fact that both of you were locked in some levels of intimacy where he could have used his strength to over-power you into submission shows the kind of respect he has for you.

You may not think him a good person because of his admission to having sex at 16 as well as his other relationships, but if you care to look deeper you would see a man who isn’t pretentious about what he beliefs in. The issue is how honest are you about your beliefs?
If you are really serious about keeping your virginity till marriage as a practising Christian, you would not allow yourself to be in a closed place with a man to the extent of allowing him get physically close to you. 

The simple truth about human nature is not in what we profess to be or how determined we are, but the application of wisdom, of knowing the pitfalls to avoid when it comes to the issue of sex. The human flesh is known to be treacherous, sometimes blind to our beliefs and the nature of our relationship to each other. It is for this reason you must at all times look at this boy who must have denied himself a great deal during the moments he held you close to his body with some level of respect. That you didn’t have sex with him isn’t because you wanted it that way, no! You didn’t because he also exercised some level control with you. When a woman allows herself to be touched in some places by a man behind closed doors, it takes the grace of God, for something not to happen. 

To avoid regrets later in life, be sure you know what you are looking for in a man and relationship before going into another one. I say this because you may not be so lucky as to meet a woman who has this self-control. It is either you make up your mind to hold on jealously to your religious beliefs by avoiding whatever form of intimacy with any man in a closed place, restricting all your relationship to an open place or face the reality about yourself. Be clear about this to help you in your next relationship.

Besides, you have to have a mental image of the kind of man for you. What kind of man, irrespective of religion would make you a happy woman?

Faithfulness to our partners is not about keeping our bodies just for our partners alone, it is being truthful in what we say and do. But for one to get to the point of knowing what faithfulness is all about, one must first imbibe it as a way of life. There are millions of men out there, but for you to know who among them is yours would make you happy, you have to begin the search from your heart. 

What are those things real about you as well as those things that are fake? It is important you are very honest with yourself. Without you first asking God what is His purpose for you on earth, you might not recognise what and who you need to help you go through the storms of life with less injury as possible. 

Our situations in life are patterned by the almighty to make us triumph over changing life situations. 

Your solution is to key into God’s plans for you and to be sincere about whom you are. 

Good luck. 

I Want To Be Pregnant…

Dear Agatha,

I am a regular reader of your column. Please I need your advice as soon as possible. I need to get pregnant. I have tried, but it is not working. I run a 28-day cycle. When do, I actually need to sleep with my fiancé to get pregnant?

Worried Lady.

Dear Worried Lady, 

Even if you have a healthy and predictable cycle, if you are not relaxed sufficiently, it might be difficult for you to get pregnant. Most women find it difficult to conceive when they are worried about getting pregnant. 

Being a 28-day woman, you are one of those whose ovulation is easy to predict. Begin calculation from the first day of your menses to the 10th day after it. The 11th –15th day are your most fertile period, when you are most likely to get pregnant. But like I earlier said, you must try as much as possible to relax. From experiences, it is always difficult for a woman who has worked herself into expectation at the end of every of her monthly cycle to get pregnant. So just relax.

However there is the need for you and your boyfriend to see a gynecologist to examine if things are okay with the two of you. 

The fact that you are having a regular period doesn’t make a woman automatically healthy to conceive. 

At times too, the fault could come from the man whose sperm may be too low or unhealthy to get a woman pregnant. There are so many medical reasons that could prevent an apparently healthy couple from producing a baby. Going to the doctor would not only tell where the problem is, but also provide the cure.

Good luck. 

As Her Love For Another Guy Becomes Open-secret…

Dear Agatha,

I really love how you advise and respond to issues brought before you. It’s such a great thing to have someone like you around us. Please, I have a problem with my girlfriend who seems to be in love with another guy. 

Anytime we are together and she sees this guy, she immediately goes cold on me, by abandoning me to give the guy the impression there is nothing going on between us. 

Whenever I ask what is between this guy and her, she tells me nothing, and that he is just a friend. 

I know this girl is actually in love with me, but addicted to the guy. It seems there’s something between the two of them that she doesn’t want me to know. 

Please what should I do? I mean what could be the secrecy between the girl I love so much and this guy? I really love her to the extent that if I don’t communicate with her in a day she picks offence. Please, I need your advice on the steps to take before anything happens. 

Confused Terry.

Dear Confused Terry, 

What kind of love would make her go cold on you immediately she sights the other man? What manner of love would make her abandon you for another man? Or advertise the fact that she has someone else in her life?

Growing up, she isn’t the one who appears to have the addiction, you are the one who does, else why haven’t you bothered to ask her why she isn’t shielding you from knowing about her association with the other man like she appears to be doing for the other man?  It is either this lady is in a relationship with you or not. As her boyfriend, you must be involved in whatever form of friendship exists between her and the other man. 

It is not enough telling you there is nothing between them. She has to act it by making sure you and this man meet as her boyfriend and friend. She has to be transparent in her dealings with both of you and this is what you must insist on because in a relationship, there is no eating and having the cake. 

If she loves you as you seem to think, she must be willing to make the needed sacrifices to ensure her relationship with you is protected from suspicions generated by unexplainable association with other people, especially members of the opposite sex. 

Trying to hide your relationship from this man underscores the nature of her relationship with this man. Rather, than give you false hopes about her feelings for you, insist she either comes clean with the nature of her relationship with this other man or you will end whatever it is you both have going on. 

Respect and ability to own up to our responsibilities is the bedrock of any relationship. She must at all times learn to respect you and that which brought the two of you together. No matter how deeply in love you are with her, if the relationship is lacking of the vitals, there is no way one person can adequately power it to the point of success. It will get to a stage your pride, as a man, would no longer be able to take the humiliation anymore. Just like you must be ready at all times to take responsibility for your actions, she too must be ready to be liable for whatever decisions she takes. 

However, to put your relationship in the right perspective, please, call her for a roundtable discussion. For trust to exist, you must be clear on the nature of her relationship with the other man. Asking her to explain doesn’t mean you don’t support her association with males, but simply demanding that as the man in her life, you must know who her friends are irrespective of the gender of these friends. 

I sense a reluctance of sort on your part, maybe due to fears of losing her to another man. The truth is, there is nothing to fear about losing this particular girl, because if the truth must be told, you don’t have her to yourself yet. You can only be afraid of losing something that belongs exclusively to you, but not in a situation like this when you are not even sure of your position in her life. 

Confronting her as well as insisting on her doing the right things would define who is most important of the two of you in her life. 

Frankly, it is actually in your interest you take the bull by the horns to avoid wasting precious time on a relationship that may at the end of the day not be beneficial to you. 

Love is a process of endless sacrifices. You could make the sacrifice to endure whatever she decides to do to you for now, but a time would come, especially as a man when you would no longer be able to endure the humiliation of playing second best to another man in the life of the woman you are dating. Don’t wait until the hurt is too much or destroys you for another woman before making the decision. One thing is clear, if she leaves, another woman worthy of your love would come along. This is how life operates, because God sees so many things we don’t see. 

However it can only happen if you are man enough to face the truth.

Good luck. 

  

Her Parents Say Her Husband Must Be A Muslim

Dear Agatha,

Your contribution and advice to people concerning the problems or worries about relationship is such a great thing. I really appreciate your generosity in settling matters and suggestions you give to others. May God grant you more wisdom, knowledge as well as understanding.

Please Agatha, I want you to help me out concerning a girl I love so much and who is also in love with me. But, there is this religious issue between us and it has to do with her parents who she said have never hidden their desire to ensure she marries a Muslim like them. 

Despite her being a Muslim and me a Christians, she happens to qualify for my ideal woman because she is respectful, humble, kind, soft spoken, beautiful but the ugly aspect of her is religion, being championed by her parents.  

Agatha what can I do to convince this girl concerning her parents’ stance on her husband being a Muslim.

Confused Guy.

Dear Confused Guy, 

What does she want? She must be able to tell you this. It isn’t enough for her to heap the blame of her inability to marry you on her parents based on their religious inclination; being old enough to have a boyfriend, she should be old enough to be categorical about her needs as well as the passion to defend her dreams.

The real issue here is not whether her parents have the right to make a choice for her, but if she has the guts to make one for herself. 

Her parents have a right to make demands, tell her what they think is the best for her, but she has the ultimate right to define and defend what she knows is best for her. After all, it is her life we are talking about here, not that of her parents who are still together by virtue of the choice they made back then. 

Until your girlfriend makes up her mind on whether she is really in love with you or not, ready to challenge her parents on what they think is good enough for her and what she knows would work for her, you may be wasting your time expecting anything fundamental to happen in this relationship.

Rather than worry at her parents stance, why not first concentrate on ensuring she has belief in you and your love? Find out from her what she thinks of you as a Christian? Has she ever considered marrying a Christian? Does she see you first as a man or as a Christian? Chances are that she sees you first as a Christian before the man, she may never be able to marry you, ever hold a contrary view that is different from that of her parents and is only using the opportunity provided by her parents’ opposition to put you off the scent of her true feelings for you. If this is the case, nothing you do will ever please her because she limited by her religious priority to investigate you and find out what makes you different from a lot of other men she has met so far.

It means she isn’t ready for your world, or to take chances with you. Should you insist on having that kind of woman maybe inimical to your overall happiness in life because, you both will never have the right drive and motivation to handle issues without you first taking the option of your religious difference! 

But if she sees you essentially as a man, irrespective of what your religion is, one she is interested in meeting and being friends with, one makes her laugh and adventurous, it would be easy for both of you to contemplate a future together for the simple reason that you can talk first as people before talking as religious opponents.

To help you understand each other best, ask her what she thinks of you as a person as well as the amount of sacrifice she is ready to make.

Her response to you would help you properly situate the relationship as well as give you a clear idea of how to confront her parents. 

Sincerely, I think you are putting the cart before the horse since there is still nothing concrete between the two of you. Take each day as it comes. First kick-start the relationship by establishing friendship that comes from your understanding as well as appreciation of your differences as well as the concomitant respect it takes co-exist in spite of these fundamentals. 

It is only when both of you are able to weave all the missing threads together into one knit, give your relationship a character too powerful to be perforated by your religious differences can you then meet with her parents. 

Because of the way we have unwittingly elevated religion to the point of open condemnation of anybody who doesn’t buy our own religious views, it is imperative you also frankly discuss this issue. Marriage being a lifetime journey; as the man, what is your real view about her religion? Would you be able to endure her continuing in her religion until she is convinced on the need to change on her own or give her ultimatums the moment she becomes officially your wife irrespective of whether she is ready or not to embrace the change marriage has brought her way?

Do you think your family would support you to help her appreciate the beauty in your own religion by not opposing her on account of her religion?

Unless you are determined on what you want, know the challenges ahead and prepared to tackle them with as much openness as the problems demand, what starts out as being good may end up being not too good. 

In addition to what you want, you should also go to God to ask what His intentions are for you through prayers.

Good luck. 

I Don’t Feel Like Sleeping With My New Husband

Dear Agatha,

 

Thank you very much for your advice to people like us. I have a very big problem and I don’t know how to get out of it. I got married last year. Since then whenever I want to have sex with my husband, I don’t get aroused and sometimes I don’t feel like having sex. What do I do or my husband to for me to get aroused or feel sexy. Again when is the best time to get pregnant?

 

Funmi

Dear Funmi, 

What precisely is the problem? Is it that your husband is unable to arouse you as a woman? What is your knowledge and experience of sex? Did you marry as a virgin, and if you did, what was your upbringing like? Did you grow up in one of those homes where sex was presented as dirty, something to be done in the dark, not to be enjoyed, done when it is only for reproductive purpose, never to be discussed? 

If you didn’t come into your matrimonial home as a virgin, what kinds of experiences did you have? Were they the kind that denied you pleasure in your own body and the act of lovemaking; were they the kind that ensured you played the submissive role to the man? What kind of man or men did you go the whole length with?

In addition, what sort of perception do you have of sex? As a matter of fact, what do you understand by love and sex? Can you differentiate between the two?

How much of your individuality comes to play when you are both intimate? What do you know about your husband’s body and anatomy? Are you too shy to touch, feel and take him on a pleasure ride as a woman? Who are you and what do you want from your husband in the bedroom? Do you want sex, which in your case is what you appear to be getting making you frustrated or is it love-making, which goes a long way to help couples interpret and cement their union?  

Often times, our interpretation of who we are and what we want cause the problem in our marriages. Being married, you are licensed to explore, demand and take what you want from the act. He is your husband and if you don’t ask for it from him, who will you go to?

The first thing to do here is to relax to enable you have a clear vision of what kind of sex you want from your marriage. One good thing about sex is the fact that the knowledge comes naturally. We were born with it and it is always there for us when we demand of it. 

You must learn the difference between sex and lovemaking to be able to get properly into the act. Sex is basic to man; the appeasement of a deep animalistic hunger inside every living thing, including man that God created. It is so animalistic in nature; it lacks any fineness and so primeval. This is the primitive aspect of sex. Whereas lovemaking is all the extra process we put in to elevate it from its primitive garb to something extraordinary and fulfilling. God gave us the fundamental knowledge of sex but ours is to imbibe the extra know-how to make it more exciting. It is like eating food. We all eat but the patent we give to our food is what makes it different from what the rest of people are eating. 

This is what you must do. Find the right key that brings out the best in you and your husband. You must interpret your body language, needs and ideas to elevate sex to the act of lovemaking.

At this critical stage, you must let go of whatever hang-ups you have about sex and come boldly to state your wants as well as present your ideas on how you think it can work well between the two of you. Whether you came as a virgin or as an experienced woman into your husband’s life the fact is, after one year of living with a man, you can no longer claim to be naïve about the ways of man and woman. So, your era of pretences and lack of knowledge is over. You must rise about whatever your man would think and make the move that would save your marriage from doom. Remember, while the society would willingly forgive him if he strays on account of him not getting the right sex from you; you would be condemned for having the guts to go outside your home for sexual satisfaction so, it is more in your interest to make it work for both of you because you have no where else to go from here. If you fail to give him the type of sex that would engage him so satisfactorily, another woman would gladly do it on your behalf. You and I know the implication of having another woman in your husband’s arms. 

To help you adopt a holistic approach to it, these are questions you must answer. If you don’t know, don’t second guess; ask him because the key to your sexual happiness as a couple is woven into these questions. What quality of experiences too does your husband come with? Was he a virgin? What kind of background does he have? How was sex presented to him by his family and church? How much of him can you identify with as his woman, when you are alone with him and how much of his parents’ son remains when he is intimidate with you?

Having a knowledge of his past life would give you a good anchor to the issue because it is too early not to be aroused by your husband. And this brings me to the important question of the memory of your first time with your husband. How was it like? Was it an anti-climax kind of thing? If it was, perhaps you haven’t been able to rid your memory of that major disappointment, which in most cases could set the pattern of all your lovemaking in your marriage unless huge effort is made to change it for the better.

If he was a virgin, perhaps, both of you have to give yourselves the opportunity of dialoguing your fantasies. No matter how prudish your upbringing was, we all at one time or the other dreamt of what we thought or want sex to be. What was your dream of sex? You and your husband must share your dreams with all the honesty it deserves because therein lies the clues to your sexual happiness. This is the time for both of you to talk as sincerely as possible.

Sex being imperative to a healthy marriage, there is the need for both of you to come out of whatever cupboards you have allowed the past put you to chart a new frontier for your marriage to prevent early sexual decay. And in finding quality sex, you must first of all find a platform to be friends; good friends to make it work well for you. If you make love as friends, you would be able to relax, talk and invent initiatives to make it work for you.

Being pregnant would depend on your cycle. If you are a 28-day person, target the 11th to 14th day from the day your period started. But still go to your doctor to be properly guided.

Good luck.

She Returns From Her Trip Abroad Without Informing Me…

Dear Agatha, 

I am facing a problem which I need you to help me out. First it started with my knowing this lady I am interested in, but lacks the clue on how best to approach her. We talk, all right, but I haven’t been able to put my feelings into words. 

Recently she travelled to undergo a computer-training programme in the States (US) where her elder brother stays. During her stay there, we were constantly in touch, speaking almost every day on the phone just to know how the other was faring. 

To my hurt and pain, she returned to town without even bothering to inform me. You can therefore imagine my surprise when, unexpectedly, I ran into her. 

I didn’t show my pain, but agreed to see her later that day. I really intended to declare my love to her, but on getting to her place she couldn’t even stay for two minutes with me. She only told me she would still be travelling the following week.

Please Agatha, what do I do in a case like this? I am confused.

Confused Man.

Dear Confused Man,

Get it off your chest. Let her know you are interested in her. As it is now, beyond friendship there is nothing binding the two of you together. Even if she suspects your interest in her, the fact that you haven’t told her anything makes her not accountable to you.

As it is now, you are just a person she constantly chats with on the phone and whom she sees occasionally. If she didn’t tell you when she got back into town, it is because she doesn’t feel the need to inform you of her movement. 

Besides, she could be involved with someone else, the reason she doesn’t want you around her. It is one thing to constantly speak with you on the phone and another thing to have you visit her at home. While she can still explain her phone conversation with you as being from a friend, having you visit her will definitely be difficult to explain especially to a suspicious minded boyfriend. And she won’t be telling lie if she calls you a friend, because until the point you explain your interest in her to her, you are indeed a friend. For all she knows you might simply be someone who really wants to be friends with her, after all not every friendship between the man and woman must end in romance.

Rather than allow her go for the second time without registering your interest, if she is still around, go immediately to her to declare your true intentions. Tell her in whatever way you are comfortable that you are interested in having her as your special woman. Outline your reasons as clearly as you can. 

Confide your fear as well as confusion over her attitude towards you, especially the bit about her coming back to town without telling you even when you both talk frequently over the phone. By letting her know how much her attitude affected you emotionally, you are indirectly underscoring the depth of your relationship with her and how much every decision of hers affects you.

Because the two of you are trying to begin something new, the distance may not do your relationship any good, hence the need for you to find out what her plans are, if it includes relocating to where she did her computer programme. Knowing what her plans for the future would aid the two of you in working out the advantages your different ideas and personalities offer the relationship.

Once you are able to get rid of the fears inside you, pray for God’s wisdom and direction, what you should do and say would be clearer to you.

Good luck. 

Our Planned Trip To The Altar Causes Family Rancour…

Dear Agatha,

I am a boy of 27 years, Yoruba by tribe from a polygamous background. I came to know a lady about two years ago who incidentally is a cousin to my half brothers, one thing led to another and we started dating even though secretly. Last month we decided to make our relationship known to the world by taking the most reasonable step anybody in our age bracket will want to do, which is marriage.

 Both of us are employed with good prospects and so we thought our parents would be overjoyed at our decisions, but alas everybody has turned against us including my stepmother, her mother, my half-brothers, it’s only her father that seems to be supporting us on this issue.

 Please, Agatha, I need your candid advice. Is it a sin or a crime to date her? I need your advice as the lady has threatened to elope with me if we don’t have our parental blessings on this.

 O.A.

Dear O.A.,

In the part of the country I come from, and I did consult too, there is nothing wrong in the two of you getting married since there is no blood connection whatsoever between the two of you. 

However, both of you made a fundamental mistake in not first confiding in some influential people within the family. It was a technical error to come out in the open without first securing the support of some elders and youths who are the arrow heads in your family. 

It is called family politics. The resentment and vehemence in which both of you are being rejected stems from the perceived slight those who traditionally hold the power balance in your family think you have of them. Nobody wants to relinquish power willingly and some people flourish best when they are made the centre of focus within the family; they want to be the first to know everything and act as the clearing house for everything. Because you both failed to factor in their importance, recognize their vital roles and positions in your two families, they would work towards ensuring that nothing is achieved until both of you come back to base.

Honestly, without what we secretly term their meddlesomeness in intricate family affairs like the one you are facing, such issues will never be resolved amicably. 

These are the people you have to go back to; first to apologise and court their support as well as understanding. On account of this initial mistake, don’t stop at just identify these people; go with preferred gifts for them. The intention is not only to get their support but to break their ranks. Your visit may not totally erase the opposition, but would breakup the strength of the opposition, gaining you more support. 

Besides, you will get to learn more of the reason for their objection as well as gain the chance of educating them on why marriage between the two of you isn’t forbidden. You both could also use her father’s support to your advantage. His daughter should appeal to him to reach out too on your behalf.

Breaking up the opposition would see your side growing in strength which at the end of the day would make near consensus possible as it would water down resentment against you and your girlfriend. 

Eloping with her shouldn’t be the first course of action, but the last, if reasons fail to prevail. Besides since the father is on your side, you both don’t have to elope. With his support, a quiet wedding can be done in the registry. 

But is important you both go first to God to ask for His assistance especially going by the massive opposition to your union. 

Even though you are not bothered about it all, good sense demands you should take time to listen to all these complaints. In the interest of the uncertainty of tomorrow, critically examine those you think are worth considering. Both of you should do what must be done to avoid the danger signals to prevent those waiting for your downfall from having the last laugh. 

When a relationship is confronted with so much opposition, it needs plenty of prayers and wisdom to survive on account of those whose desire is for it to crash so that they can say, I told you so. It also requires both of you to be sure of what you are going into, ensuring that all the things that could be a threat to the relationship is honestly discussed and sorted out.

Family ties are usually the hardest to confront and defeat, because they have information no outsider has about your life, hence knows where one is the weakest. But going round to plead for support would help thin out those who are determined to make it their business it doesn’t succeed. The polygamous home is most time a slippery and treacherous ground to step on. Unless firm in God and equipped in His wisdom, you risk falling into a deliberately set up life wire.

It would make a lot of differences if you first commit your trips to these decision makers within your family to the able hands of God.

Even where the opposition is maliciously motivated, God’s presence in your life and relationship will help you both overcome. 

Good luck.