I’m not too sure about her love

Dear Agatha.

Thank you so much for you concerns over the problems of people. I’m always impressed by your opinions. I want to share with you my own problems.
There is this lady I pursued for a relationship for upwards of four years from the very early moment that we entered into the university.

 She was always giving me the cold shoulders because of a relationship she told me from the very first day I made my intentions known she was into. She said she wouldn’t want anything to destroy it.  

That was her story until our final year when she called me to give me the answer I always desired from her. When I demanded to know what happened with her relationship, she told me the man involved wasn’t interested in marrying her again as he has answered to the call of priesthood. 

I was glad at this piece of news. However, I have become increasingly worried of recent following the ASUU strike. She has not been calling me as frequent as I think she ought to be doing. This is making me doubt her even though I know she is a stickler to her words as well as truth.  

Besides, I don’t want any situation where after committing myself to her,
she ends up disappointing me.

Worried Boyfriend.

Dear Worried Boyfriend,

The foundation of everything in life is trust. There can be no progress without an element of trust. You must have to trust in your own judgment to belief in what this thing is all about.

For a relationship especially, once there is draught of confidence in the person and his or her words, it becomes absolutely impossible to motor the pedal of the relationship.

No matter what your doubts are, learn to have faith in her words which you yourself acknowledged as her bonds. You don’t have to wait for her to be the one calling you; you also have a huge responsibility to her. If the truth must be told, she is going through clouds of doubts too. Like every normal human being, she may easily come to the conclusions that you may not be as smitten as you were about her when you first approached her considering the reason for finally accepting your offer of a relationship with her.

It is too early to become worried. As a man who cares for his woman, your major responsibility and concern should be to find out what is happening to her, not use her silence to question her loyalty as well as commitment to you.

She too could be putting you on display; to know what your reactions to her would be should she not call you as often as she ought to have done.

Besides, when in doubt of anything be bold enough to ask openly to avert the negative consequences doubt visits on a striving relationship.

The danger of pursuing this line of thoughts is that you would be bringing back all her pains of the disappointment of her previous relationship. Don’t ignore the fact that she didn’t give him up of her own free will. She lost him to the service of God. There is no way she won’t from time to time remember her loss. She told you the whole truth concerning that relationship because she knew she could trust you with the information as well as gain your support to be herself.

Give her all the understanding she deserves by trying to see her or call. Find out if you could come over to visit her, to see how she is doing. This is what a relationship is about. You must be willing to make the essential sacrifice for the sustenance of your relationship.

Also, you must find ways of getting to understand her the more by asking the right questions concerning her own challenges and hopes in life.

That she is now your girlfriend is just the beginning. For a man who invested four years chasing after a woman, you should take the relationship more serious than you are.

If you wait for her to make the next move, she might not, given the fact that she is yet to heal from the loss of her previous relationship. Should you be cold or doubting of her sincerity, she could be more reflective of the wisdom of coming to you instead of going to a completely neutral person.

This could really make her more dissatisfied and discouraging of staying in the relationship.

And if you doubt the depth of her feelings or reasons to think she came to you on a rebound, be bold enough to ask her. Just as she has a right to be happy, you too have a right to assurances from her.

By making clear your fears concerning the viability of the relationship, given the circumstances she came to you, you signal your willingness to give this relationship a solid chance of survival.

Providing the platform will enable both of you move on without the excess baggage of doubts, regrets and disappointment. It will also help you two focus on the important things that should be put in place to grow your relationship.

It is a matter of knowing how much you want her and to go about it.

At every point, learn to objectively discuss your doubts.

Good luck.

She couldn’t even wait for my return

Dear Agatha,

Please help me. I have been in a relationship with this girl for two years. We were very close until late 2011, when I left for South Africa. I returned to Nigeria to find out she’s dating someone else. I have tried to ease her off my mind since I returned three months ago but to no avail. 

Although she didn’t tell me anything, I can see the writing on the wall. I’m confused that I can’t find a replacement!  

Confused Guy.

Dear Confused Guy,

There is nothing you can do at this point but to move on. she has made her choice; you cannot force someone who isn’t willing to continue in a relationship to go on.

In addition it isn’t every relationship that must end in marriage.

Experiences like this only help to define life better. If you are astute, you will know what to avoid in your next relationship.

Furthermore, not every relationship has the resilience to withstand the loneliness necessitated by long distance. The truth be told, a man or woman used to having sex on demand and whose body cannot stay without it for a long time will not be able to cope with the knowledge of having his or her partner so far off. If your girlfriend falls under this category, she may really have wanted to wait for you but had to do what she did to prevent the greater scandal of her sleeping with different men hence her decision to settle for one person.

Also, it would depend on the understanding you both had before you traveled. If your relationship was an open-ended one, it would be asking for too much to expect her to wait for you.

Whatever might have happened, move on but not before you are completely healed of the emotional pains of this relationship. The reason for this is simple, if you go into a relationship in your current state of mind, you will not only end up hurting the innocent woman but also yourself at the end of the day.

So clean up your act by asking her pointed questions on why she left you the way she did.

This is necessary to enable you rest the ghost of this relationship once and for all.

No matter what you do, be patient enough to heal so you can have the broadness of mind to begin afresh. If you should go into a relationship in your present state of mind, you might never be able to give your best considering that your mind is still fixed on the circumstances your ex left you.

Irritating as this may sound, the naked truth is that she is happy with the choice she has made; you owe it to yourself as well to be happy by making the decision to let by gone be.

Good luck.

Share a problem With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626

How can I get through to her?

Dear Agatha,

I appreciate all your efforts to others. I have a sister that I live with, as a stranger. What I mean is that, my relationship with her is like that of a distant person even though we live in the same house. I have tried to make her my best-friend, but the more I try, the less I succeed. She hardly tells me things especially about her male friends. 

Each time I ask a question, she would refuse to answer insisting I mustn’t know everything about her. Is it right for her to have her own secrets? 

I’m really scared for her and wouldn’t want her making mistakes she would regret later. Worst still, she hardly takes advice from me or anyone at home. She is always claiming to be right and knows what’s best for her. I respect that though, but I want to give her some advice that can be useful to her only if she can open up a little bit.

 She is in her early 20s and still in the university. I need some advice from you as to what I can do to have a good relationship with my sister.                                  Worried Sibling.

Dear Worried Sibling,

Chances are in your growing years, subtle sibling rivalries; jealousies at the disposition of your parents towards each of you caused this major bricks-wall in your relationship. Sometimes too, the overbearing attitude of older siblings to their younger ones also make the younger ones, very secretive about their lives to avoid unnecessary rancor and bad feelings in the house.

These feelings may not have been intentionally generated but are nevertheless there and go into the future to deprive siblings of that natural loseness.

It takes a lot of patience and understanding to undo all the pains, not too pleasant memories of those early years.

Sincerely, it is not by poke-nosing into her private affairs that you   achieve the closeness you obviously crave for.

By wanting to know about her private life, you not only put her on a defensive but spur her determination not to say anything to you.

Rather than advertise your so called interest in her private life with so much force, which to your sister is uncalled for and very questionable, begin by trying to unlock her reason for wanting to keep things to herself.

To do this right, ask yourself the obvious question of your contribution to what this young woman has become. You could have over done things as well as over demanded respect as an elder sister when you should have offered her friendship in those early years.

You cannot demand for such information you seek from or offer the kind of concern to a person who has never been your friend. Such things are only shared with someone you have a history of confidentiality.

From your younger sister’s attitude, you have never earned her trust to demand for information on her relationships.

The best route to getting her to soften up to you is; to first of all befriend her by getting to find out who she really is. It isn’t about being siblings but about becoming good friends. This is because a time comes in the lives of siblings when seniority gives way to understanding and friendship.

First you have to learn to respect her wishes and not try to force your opinion or thoughts on her. She is no longer a child; give her credit for her actions and decisions. Even if you don’t agree with whatever she is doing, there are better ways of getting her to open up than the use of tyranny which you are employing to get her to open up to you.

The moment you accept that you could have hurt her by your methods in the past, the easier it becomes for you to get her close to you.

To earn her trust, you must give room for her to make fun of you, laugh with and at you without fear of provoking the anger of the elder sister or of being accused of lacking in respect for one older than her.

You must get round her resentment of you by asking her pointed questions on what went wrong between the two of you in your growing up years. She has to see a genuine concern by you to mend the broken fences of yesteryears before she can have confidence to allow you into her restricted area.

Sometimes too, the fault could come from the label the entire family give to a particular child as a result of his or her peculiar character. simply because parents think  one child difficult doesn’t mean every other member of the family should go with that appellation. To do that is to isolate the child and make him or her very careless about the feelings of every other member of the family.

Since you clearly do not know what is wrong, there is no harm in asking her out-rightly what her grouses are and how you can be of help.

You must get her to talk first about all her resentments against you and others. It is called unlocking the entrapped pains of the past. Her memory bank must be free from every unpleasant recollection of the past. One of her angers could be, why are you now concerned about her life, her mistakes, when you have never bothered to find out about her and the way she felt in the past?

Getting to discover her will give you glimpses into her thoughts, reasoning as well as what makes her tick.

Furthermore, you must also be ready to share your stories of experiences with her. You must open up to her on your sadness, disappointments as well as joy to get her to trust you with her own special moments.

It is called trading respect and friendship.

Note that trust isn’t something that happens in a day; it takes time to entrench. Therefore don’t be in a hurry to fast track it. You have to set the basis for it by going out of your way to share secret information about yourself with her. The deal here is, if you cannot share your secrets with her, why expect her to willingly share hers with you?

She has to stop seeing you in whatever mold she has placed you previously, before you can get her talk to you so freely about herself and life.

She is set against interferences because you make it so obvious that you have all the panaceas to the problems of relationships and that is the reason for your coming close to her.

Perhaps, this is also a clarion call to other members of the family to rethink their opinions of her. You should be the catalyst of change to reconcile every member of the family.

Your concern for her should be seen to transcend her relationship to her comfort wthin the family.

Once you are able to drag her out of her self imposed prison, getting her to give you her secret file to peruse and discuss will come naturally.

In addition, you must always bear in mind that unsolicited advices aren’t enforced on people; to make them priceless and appreciated they have to be demanded for. Obviously, there is nothing very wrong in her relationships to make her crave for help yet. No matter how hard-lined a person is, it will get to a point in that person’s life when seeking for help becomes inevitable.

Until she is ready, you cannot force her to listen to whatever you say or appreciate your concern for her.

You should also learn to pray for her especially and all other members of your family in general.

There is nothing beyond prayers in our quest to do the right things in life.

Good luck.

Is it proper to call him?

Dear Agatha,

Thank God for your life. While serving last year, I dated a guy; unfortunately, our relationship didn’t work out. 

In December, last year, another guy I served with and who is more an acquaintance, than a friend, informed me of his interest in me. According to him, he developed interest in me after we passed out.  

I told him to give me time to think about his offer but he was too hasty about the whole thing insisting his mother was on his neck to get married. He said he didn’t want his mother getting him someone he didn’t like and that he has already informed his parents about me. 

This scared me. Since I wasn’t sure about him; I delayed my response to him on the matter. Since then, he has kept sending pings to my phone. Because of the tempo of his pressures, I became confused and told him that the relationship won’t work. He said I was wicked and we stopped communicating. A month later, he called to inform me that he can’t get me out of his mind. I
still told him to give me time, and he promised to.

Strangely, he hasn’t called to ask about my reply. The question is this, should I call him or text him about my interest, because I want to give him a chance or wait for his call? 

Another thing is that he got a girl pregnant while we were serving and that was a scandal. Do you think he loves me or trying to get me because of his parents? Is it right to get involved with a guy who has a baby outside wedlock? According to him, he said the parents of the girl refused him marrying her. What do you suggest I do?
Ms Chi.

Dear Ms Chi,

The all important question here is, what do you want? When he was pressurizing you on giving him an instant reply, you got angry with him for being too much in a haste and now that he has given you the freedom in the whole world to work out your feelings for him, you are still not comfortable.

What do you want him to do? He appears to have learnt from his first mistake hence is not about to get on your wrong side by coercing you into giving him an answer you aren’t prepared to give.

Since you asked for time, you are the one who should call him to tell him the decisions you have made concerning his request.

If you don’t call, he may just assume that you are either not ready or interested in dating him.

So if you want to give him a chance in your life; let him know your new position concerning him.

And you should before his interest in you wanes.

As for the question of whether he wants you for himself or is asking you out just to please his parents; I don’t think so. In the first place, his parents don’t know you and weren’t instrumental to generating his interest in you. Had you been a protégée of his parents’, your line of thoughts would have had some merits but since they don’t know you or has any inkling into your character, there is no need for you to think along that line.

Yes, his parents may have motivated his interest in marriage, but certainly not in you. If you have identified something you like in him, give both of you the chance to discover yourselves with a view of seeing how far you can push this relationship.

There is nothing wrong in getting involved with a man or woman who has had a child. What you should concern yourself with, is the understanding between this man and the mother of his child. You would have been worried if he denied the pregnancy or refused to acknowledge the child. The fact that he offered to marry the lady, is a good sign that he is a trustworthy man.

The fault didn’t come from him. The girl’s parents, according to you refused their daughter marrying him.

If they hadn’t opposed him, perhaps, he would by now be married.

The fact that he came back and humbly doing your bidding as you requested, shows he has certain amount of true feelings for you. The whole essence of a relationship cannot be realized in a day. It takes time to water a good relationship to maturity. By the time you are with him for sometime, you will be able to answer by yourself some of the issues bothering your heart. Suffice to say, there is no relationship without challenges or sacrifices.

At this early beginning, both of you should spell out what you expect from each other as well as the limits you are prepared to go.

As long as you know what you want and have placed your plans in the hands of God, don’t worry.

Good luck.

Share a problem  With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626

Should I give money to this herbalist?

Dear Agatha,

Recently, I came across an  advert in an Ibadan based national newspaper of a herbalist who lives in Ikorodu, Lagos. When I called this herbalist for assistance, he said I should text my name to him that he could make me rich in my business with unique powers without any side effects. He demanded for a fee of N25,000. 00. 

He said he has helped pastors and custom officers to succeed. I am a graduate and have been without a job for five years. What do you think I should do? Should I trust him and go ahead with his demand or proposal?

John.

Dear John,

Life is about choice. You either make the choice to trust God or help Him to achieve His purpose for you.

Life is a huge battle field which only the focused come out smelling like roses. It is your right to make the decision to be happy within the limits God has provided or embrace other ways that may appear successful in the beginning but which at the end of the day come with severe challenges.

There is no choice you make that doesn’t come with sacrifices and consequences. You must also realize that what appears to be a short-cut now might not be so in the future.

The Bible says we should test every spirit to know which is true.

Besides, if you have been unemployed for almost half a decade, how do you propose to raise N25, 000.00? Given the hard economic situation in the country, who is ready to part with such an amount of money?

In a situation like this, you have to be guided by certainty rather than uncertainty. If you have N25,000.00 what kind of business can you do that is sure to give you some money after paying the principal? In the first place, what business plan do you have? It is good to quest for wealth but money doesn’t fall from heaven. For whatever charm he is going to make for you to work, you must have an idea of what you want to engage in.

The world’s most successful businesses, started with very modest ideas and finances.

Only a fool will invest without first having a clear cut idea of the returns or the essence of an investment.

If you have a plan, look at what difference it can make to the overall picture of your business plans before going ahead with whatever prompted you to respond to that advert.

A good business plan works better when segmented. It allows every component to function independent of the other if the need arises.

Although the decision of what you do eventually is yours to make, but learn to be wise in your moves to avoid the double tragedy of having to pay for a debt you didn’t even spend a kobo out of.

Good luck.

Share a problem  With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626

I’m in love with my pastor

Dear Agatha,

Please I urgently need your help. I am in love with my pastor. It is so profound that I cannot stand the sight of his wife.

 I live everyday for him and even see us getting married sometime in the future. I am a member of the church choir. 

What should I do? I cannot live without him.

Laura.

Dear Laura,

Leave the church before you destroy not just the church but this man’s home as well. the intensity of what you feel is capable of making you commit a crime; the kind you will end up regretting only after you have done it. What you feel isn’t love at all but infatuation, a kind of obsession capable of even killing a perceived rival.

The fact that you are unable to stand the sight of the wife is an indication that you are crossing the line of sanity. If what you feel is normal, you will be able to fight it because true love is a gentle spirit which can last forever without being violent.

That you are dreaming of the two of you getting married is in itself an indication that if given the opportunity for you to harm the wife you will do it without blinking an eyelid as long as it a means getting your heart’s desires.

You must realise that everything you feel for this man is wrong. Apart from being a married man, which makes him unavailable to you, he is also a servant of God, commissioned to uphold the words of God. If you tempt him to derail, a lot of people would derail with him; the thousands of people who have faith in him and his ministry.

These are people who have tied their everything to the ministry of this man, who see him  as a representative of the God they don’t see, whose words and works give them a glimpse of the nature of God.

As a chorister, you also occupy a unique place in the church; that of ministering to the spiritual needs of the people through songs. Doubtless, temptations are a compulsory part of the life of every true Christian, the truth however remains that when such temptations come, we use all we have to ward them off.

The truth is, the more you are exposed to the company of this pastor, the less likely of ridding yourself of these feelings. What you feel for him will only get worse.

Even if what you feel for him is the real thing; there is no way you can have him. Therefore stop tormenting yourself by building castles in the air where this man is concerned. Move out of the church, away from everything he represents. Frankly, you need the presence of another man, who cares for you to neutralise whatever you feel for this pastor.

You will never be able to accept another man if you continue to nurse your fantasies about being the wife of this pastor.

When you move away, it will be easier for you to pray yourself out of these feelings. Many a time, out of sight can weather down strong feelings of love. If you don’t want to do it for him, do it for yourself because at the end of the day it is your reputation and life that would suffer.

You cannot live everyday for a man who isn’t yours. It doesn’t make sense. We are all entitled to some forms of fantasies but when it becomes as strong as you living your life for someone who is out of your reach, then it is a very dangerous feeling. You must therefore learn to begin to live for yourself, have dreams of a man of your own.

Once you grow the determination to leave this man, you will discover a freedom you never thought you had; the liberty to trust more in your person.

Above all, ask God for help to overcome this temptation.

Good luck.

-Share a problem  With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626

All he wants is my body

Dear Agatha, 

I have a boyfriend I love very much. But the issue here is, he has been pressuring me to have sex with him. I have kept resisting him. 

He has however vowed to keep up the pressure until I agree to what he wants from me. What should I do?

Worried Girl,

Dear Worried Girl,

When a man makes it so obvious that his only interest in a woman is to have her in his bed; the woman either makes the choice to end the relationship if she doesn’t want to submit to his desires or agree to what the man wants. I say this because when a man makes sex his sole agenda in a relationship, the chances of the woman having the desired peace to grow the relationship will never happen.

There is nothing you do or say that will change the mind of this man who has openly told you that sex is the reason for his interest in you. You may love him, but he doesn’t want anything from you beyond sex. For all he cares, once you agree to sex, nothing else matters.

The danger of staying around him is that of him wearing down your resolve not to give in. Also the fact that you are still around him despite your refusal would make him come to the conclusion that you are only playing hard to get. Should you become a little careless in his presence, this kind of man could take advantage of the situation to  have his way with you. All he will do is to apologise but the harm would have been done. The longer you stay with this man, the higher your risk of being hurt. A man who really cares for a woman in that special way doesn’t market sex as his major interest for approaching her for a relationship.

Such unrelenting demand underscores his sole interest in you. This man wants free access to your body at any time he desires it. At the end of the day, if you are not careful, by the time he has his fill, he would dump you for another woman.

The essence of a relationship is not to have sex but to examine a couple’s compatibility level. The period of a relationship is to expose two strangers to the struggle of merging two opinions, dreams and efforts together. The only way to achieve this is to strive for ways of being committed to what each person is bringing.

But if the interest is limited to sex, the ability to grow the relationship to maturity suffers a major set back in that time that should have been invested in discovering and mending strong and weak areas would have been wasted on sex; an ingredient that can be customised after every other thing is in place by the couple to give the relationship that extra favor.

But if everything is absent; sex alone no matter how good between a couple, cannot sustain a relationship.

This is the reason you must put a good distance between the two of you; look for someone else whose interest in you goes beyond your body to your mind. By staying too long in a relationship you know lacks a future beyond what pleasures your body offers the man, you are denying yourself of the opportunity of meeting with the right man.

By staying, you are only indirectly telling yourself that you don’t have a dream of what you want precisely from life. A woman who has a dream, is sure of where she is going will never allow any man like the one you have in your life reduce her worth to sex.

So one thing you must do is to have a dream, a focus of what you want from life and what you want to give back to it. Your importance in life begins with a solid dream. This naturally becomes your focus in life, the peg of everything that you do. If you had this kind of vision, you won’t allow just any man into your space since the image of the kind of man to drive and motivate your dream would be clear in your mind.

Therefore, step out first to give yourself a focus in life. Once you do this, it will be easier for you to know what to do with this man who has made sex his reason for wanting you in his life.

Good luck.

-Share a problem  With Auntie Agatha gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626