I've not seen my husband in 11 years. Do I move on?

Dear Praise,

I want to appreciate all you have been doing and pray to God to give you more wisdom. There is a serious issue at the moment that I am a bit confused about. My husband left me and my son (2 years then) in search of greener pasture abroad and since then refused to call or respond to my mails. It has been 11 years of being away from us and along the line I met a friend who informed me that my husband had married a white woman. I confronted him and he said he only needed to get his papers through the woman. Since then he stopped responding to us and hasn’t sent anything to us as well.

I have focused on my son since then and working hard to make ends meet but last week I got a strange call from him and he was telling me about how hard it has been to divorce the white woman but assured me he would come back as soon as he is able to figure a way out. Do I wait for him or move on because I have chased out suitors because we are yet to officially divorce.

Miriam, Abuja

Hello Miriam,

My first response to your story would be a question from me to you and I hope you would be able to answer this question because therein lies your freedom and solution.

If we switch roles and you were the one that ran away with another man and married a white man just to get papers and call this man to ask him to wait for you would he oblige your request?

Once you can answer that question what to do becomes very clear. I suspect you are a Christian and afraid of what God said about divorce and all but trust me the moment a man leaves a woman to go sleep with another woman he already broke a covenant to establish another and that was why Jesus put the caveat ‘except for marital infidelity’ so the school of thought asking you to keep waiting for a man who is using another woman to get papers and has fathered 2 children needs to examine themselves. So this man used you and is using another woman and planning to dump that one and come use you right?

What if his divorce never goes through in the next 10years? He would keep having good sex and good family life while he places your own love life on suspension right?

I think you already waited enough except you are so sure he would come back and willing to wait which I don’t advice. He has already committed a sin against you, God and the state by marrying someone else without annulling the first. So I suggest you get a good lawyer so that you can become free legally to seek love and be loved by someone else.

The last thing you would want is to clock 50 and look back at what you could have done differently?

Please take a decision that serves your interest and the interest of your sanity and happiness.

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I AM 32 AND NEED A MAN TO MARY ME

Hello Praise,

I clock 32 and got the shocker of my life when my mum called and insisted I must find just any man to marry me or else she would organise a man for me. I have been unlucky with past relationships and it has affected me because all they wanted was use and dump me. I even spent a lot on my last guy but he eventually left for another lady claiming his father doesn’t want him to marry me. Please what do you suggest I do?

Tinuke, Lagos

Dear Tinu,

The first truth I want you to understand is that you can’t marry yourself hence you can’t afford to subject yourself to parental pressure. Have you asked your mum why she wanted you married? Is it out of love or because she wants to carry a grand child? I would have loved to get more details about your life but there was something that struck me from your explanation of your last relationship. From what I know of guys they wouldn’t mind ‘eating’ the money of a lady that is ready to spend on them but that also communicates to some of them that the lady would control them once they marry and while that is the thinking of weak guys it is a thought process that has made good ladies lose some guys they dated. You can support a guy but never take responsibility for a lazy guy or any guy at all.

A man who doesn’t have the capacity to earn and who freeloads on a single lady is a danger to that lady eventually. My counsel would be for you to take a look at yourself or visit a counselor and see how you can spend the next one year working on yourself to become indispensable to every man you meet and cultivate quality friendship because the pool of friendship is the best pool to fish for a spouse. However don’t be desperate or under any form of pressure from your parents or anyone for that matter. You have only one life to live and that life is your life not their life lest you subject your excellence to the mediocrity of a man who will make your life miserable. No man is doing you a favour by getting married to you. It is a mutually beneficial relationship.