Dear Agatha
May God bless you richly for your wise and loving counsel on different issues bordering on very sensitive areas of life. Amen.
I met this girl at a wedding in July 2009. I was the best man while she was the chief bride’s maid. I asked her out and she accepted.
She told me she has a school boyfriend and pleaded with me to give her time to sort herself out with the guy. I agreed to her request. After some months, she called to let me know that she is no longer going out with the boy.
The problem I’m facing now is that any time she comes to Lagos to visit me, the boy calls her on phone and the manner in which they talk tells me they are still together. But she keeps assuring me they are just friends now.
There is also another guy who calls her all the time. The impression she gives me of this second guy is that he is interested in her but she isn’t interested in him; that she sees him as a friend.
When I went through her phone one day, I saw a text message she sent to this guy; and at the end of the message she wrote that she loves him.
When I confronted her with this, she told me the guy assisted her with money and that was what informed her sending the message to him.
I’m confused. I don’t know if she is faithful or she is just playing with my intelligence. I love this girl to the extent that I want to marry her.
I am 34 years old, she is 23. She is a final year student in a university in Eastern Nigeria.
Please I need your advice.
Vicky Jnr
Dear Vicky Jnr
Don’t rush anything with her. Take each day as it comes. This attitude would enable you to get to know her more than you do now as well as integrate trust into the relationship.
Every young girl has a number of men interested in her. For certain reasons, some of these men would never leave her life, no matter how much she tries to discourage them. They end up being permanent friends and helpers to each other.
I am sure you also have females in your life that you started out liking but ended up with being just friends.
That these men are calling her isn’t the same as she is dating them.
The endearments we use in addressing people close to us come from our own disposition to life. If she is a liberal-minded person, and as a show of appreciation for helping her out of a difficult corner, the endearment may be a show of gratitude rather than for any romantic feelings between the two of them.
You can only be sure if she is telling the truth if you are both mature enough to handle this matter without suspicion.
One way is to ask to thank the man for being very supportive of your girlfriend. Don’t do this because you want to find out if she is telling the truth or not, but because you are desirous of being friends with those who are her friends.
Do this without prejudice. If she resists, don’t push, drop the issue for a while before taking the steps of discussing your observations with her.
In discussing your feelings, don’t make it appear as if your aim is to unearth whatever it is she is trying to hide even if that is precisely what your intentions are.
Every relationship needs a great measure of trust to be fully lubricated. Don’t lose sight of the salient fact that before you came into her life, she had people in it; just like you before you met her.
If these calls really bother you so much, it is not just letting her know; outline the damage they are doing to the relationship as well as the fact that you may not be able to cope with them any more.
However, there is an issue you should address with all the seriousness it deserves. Why would she go to another man to pay her way when you are in her life?
Is it that she doesn’t have the freedom to approach you for financial help? Did you know she was in need of money for something?
Whether we like it or not, when a young lady is desperate for money and the man in her life isn’t forthcoming, she is exposed to all sorts of temptations from other men.
At the point of desperation, it takes only the grace of God for her not to fall prey to the many temptations coming her way. If what she needs money for is such that has a deadline, the chances of her capitulating to temptations are high.
That she sourced for money elsewhere underscores a relationship that has not fully berthed. Even if you don’t have money to give her, you should by right be the first person for her to come to.
That you didn’t know anything about her need and subsequent solution to it means you both need to sit down to either discuss your relationship or re-evaluate it altogether.
When a pair is in a relationship, everything about one should be the concern of the other. Trust is a two-way thing. Nothing should hold back the other person from seeking the help of the other.
That she didn’t tell you confirms that trust is in very short supply in your relationship with her.
So, it is more than the issue of you not trusting the nature of her relationship with these other men; it is nature of your relationship with each other.
It is only when you resolve the thorny issue of the quality of your relationship with each other that you can both talk about all the other distractions you are facing with third parties.
You may have the intention to marry her but is your intention transparent to her? Are your signals very strong enough to warrant her to rely on you completely? Every word needs an action to give it life.
Above all, both of you need to search deeply into your minds to know what you want from life first, and from each other; to be able to move on with this relationship.
You both must be ready to invest yourselves into each other’s life to make it give this relationship the boost it deserves.
One thing you should never do as a man is to search through your woman’s phone. It demeans your status as the leader of the team as well as erodes your confidence as the man in her life. Maturity is allowing things happen in their time and season.
If any woman is cheating on her man, the evidence of her unfaithfulness would eventually manifest and certainly not by going through her messages.
If she has the confidence to take these calls while with you, these guys may not be the real threat. The real threats are the phone calls that would not be answered or would be answered in the bathroom or some isolated place.
When searching for a clue to one’s partner’s unfaithfulness, look for them in the things that are not being done rather than in things being done.
Furthermore, stop acting desperate. Only an anxious man would go through a woman’s phone. Learn to be confident in your abilities as a man. Every relationship has its strength as well as weakness.
Learn by heart what is the strength of your relationship with this woman, and hold on to it jealously. If she is meant to be yours, she will eventually be.
Good luck.