THE LETTER

 

My dear Jil, I feel I need to write you once more about that “f” word – forgiveness. Forgiveness is a hard thing no doubt, and yet it’s the easiest of things. Forgiveness is only hard when we regurgitate and re-experience the pain and the trauma visited on us. Memory loss, and the willingness to have memory loss are critical to forgiveness. There are experiences that should not be relived. Every time you recall a painful experience it’s like peeling the scab on a wound.You make it fresh and draw blood. It will eventually heal, but it would now take a very long process of attempted healing of scabs of memory. There are things we should let go in life, memories we should never revisit. If you come out of a trauma it’s best to leave it in the past rather than going after your enemies. You survived! What makes you larger than those who do evil to you is the largeness of your heart, not the constriction of your heart. We do not have the capacity for revenge. It’s why revenge consumes us.

There is an old saying that he who seeks revenge must first dig two graves. And the movies haven’t helped us. Those who seek revenge in the movies tend to come out on top, but those are movies. In order to do revenge first you have to amass inordinate capacity. Then you have to divert your life. And so instead of going forward in life the avenger must make a cul-de-sac turn and go back into the past to revenge. But nobody ever comes out of revenge unaltered. Forget the movies. Revenge is a dark tunnel. Those who pass through either never emerge, or emerge as darkness. They become familiarised with evil, become defensive and testy. Revenge does that to you. Unfortunately revenge is a spiritual quantum we haven’t figured out. As is forgiveness. What is most worrisome about a vengeful spirit is its ability to affect the future and utterly eviscerate it. We can’t get into the right future by settling scores from the past. Forgive.

Now I know this guy has done all this stuff to you, but must you do the same to yourself? If you’re willing to let go of the memory, and are willing to take a long-term view you’ll discover forgiveness is easy. Like many things in life forgiveness is a decision. It’s like healthy eating, or exercise, or decision to quit smoking. You can’t devote your life to avenging the past. It’s a waste of life’s most precious resource – life itself. In the movie it takes only one hour to do revenge, but in real life it consumes a lifetime, your lifetime. Yes, he treated you badly. Countless abortions for him, countless sacrifices… And then he jilts you. But if you think about it, you’d better thank God he manifested before you married him. You want a husband manifesting love and kindness after marriage, not meanness and wickedness. Yes, it seems you wasted your life being with him but there’s a principle of redemption of time. God redeems the time. You have to consciously forgive. It’s a decision. Once you take that decision evil has no mastery over you. But if you seek revenge then evil will master you, making you pernicious, turning you into that which you loath.

Your life is too valuable to be seeking to take revenge on a heinous ex boyfriend. And some people are so motivated by the devil himself that you’d have to be doubly evil to exact revenge upon them. Life has a way of settling scores. Leave revenge to life. You just move on with the remainder of your life. You have your life to live. Don’t waste it on revenge. An appreciative guy will come. But your heart will repulse such a suitor if you’re full of bitterness. You’ll become suspicious of the innocent, punishing the blameless for the sins of the ex. Don’t allow this guy’s evil to crush your spirit. And don’t transmogrify through hatred into darkness. You will become hardened on the inside seeking revenge. And hardness does not bode well for a new relationship. Relationship is soft, it is vulnerable. A hard spirit can’t be in one successfully.
When the right guy comes you’ll thank God you never married this guy.

Resolve never to become life’s casualty. Resolve this thing will not get you down. The best way to move on is to move on. Tell your friends you don’t want to discuss the break again. Just move on. Your friends mean well but in monitoring the guy’s life they peel your scabs afresh. What’s the value of the chronicle of his life to you – whether he’s now dating another girl, and so on. What’s the value to you if he’s not been able to find your replacement, finds it hard to move on in life. His inability to find your replacement is not the determinant of your value. That he got a finer girlfriend is not a devaluation of your currency either. The new girl is not you, can’t be you! What you want is to have a new man who’ll love and appreciate you for who you are and what you are. What you want is that someone who’ll appreciate your giving and generous spirit. Generosity is who you are, not what you do. You want someone who appreciates a woman who loves devotedly and affectionately. Sometimes we cast our pearls before swine and they trample upon us. But the fact that swine trample upon us doesn’t mean we should become swine ourselves. You don’t get into the mud with a native of the mud. To you getting into the mud is fighting dirty, but to the pig he’s just cooling himself.

Forgive, let go of the past and move on. The best revenge is the emergence of a beautiful you – the woman whose spirit can’t be broken. You really ought to pity him. Can you imagine what he missed! Move on!

WILL IT WORK

Dear Jack, listen. I’m not saying there’s no love, but will it work? That’s the real question. Don’t conflict the love between two parties with the mechanics of the relationship. Think of it as a car. The concept design may give you fuzzy feelings but if the engine has issues you have no car. The feelings of love are like those fuzzy feelings about the concept design of the car… Oh, it has leather interior… The design…Oh so marvellous! But what about the engine of the car? Now, nobody mixes up the feelings about the design of a car with its engine. But the two are not mutually exclusive. The feeling of joy derived from the design of a car is not the same as the mechanics of the car. Two different things. In the same vein, falling in love with someone is a separate issue from the workability of the relationship.
You may be in love but the relationship just can’t work. Both can happen together. If the relationship can’t work the love is just fuzzy feeling. And there are relationships that just can’t work. To show that love and workability are two different issues, think of the fact that you may love each other yet keep fighting. In that circumstance it’s unwise to marry. The love is there no doubt but the marriage will be hell. You don’t marry on fuzzy feeling alone. There has to be the practical consideration of whether the relationship will work. If the relationship will not work, don’t proceed to marriage. You already know it will be a miserable marriage. It’s why two people can love each other yet end up in divorce. They mixed up love and workability. You’ve got to think of the workability of a relationship. You’ve got to ask yourself, will it work? If you duck the question of whether a relationship will work, you will have to answer it in marriage. If as you draw near to your wedding you feel miserable and troubled, that is indicative of something un-good. It is better not to go into a marriage you’re not sure of. You don’t marry to please people. Not even your parents. There’s that point in a wedding preparation when everything seems to be on autopilot. It makes a bad marriage inevitable. And so despite misgivings, people just plod on instead of applying brakes, and despite knowing the marriage won’t work. I call it autopilot syndrome – mechanistically going into a miserable marriage because IVs have been sent out. Marriage is not bondage. It’s meant to be a thing of joy not misery. If you already have signs of misery why go ahead!
Let’s reverse the situation. Say a young girl is dating a guy and she’s considering marriage. Just like the guy, she’s got to ask herself, will it work? And she has to answer honestly. Now, some people talk about marrying potential, no problem. But there are two types of potential. There’s evidence-based potential and there’s dreamful potential. Evidence-based potential is a young man who’s driven and ambitious, and wants to succeed. He’s not lazy; he’s applying himself – making the most of his opportunities. He’s passionate about success. But dreamful potential is the guy who just talks and dreams. He’s lazy. Won’t even lift the spoon to his mouth. Oh, he knows how to write love letters, build castles in the air, but he can’t deliver the goods. He dreams of BMW, Ferrari, Porsche… Boasts about buying a Mercedes roadster for his wife. And yet he’s lazy. He won’t go out there and make the best of life. He won’t go out there and strive with life. He expects things to fall into his laps, doesn’t believe in hard work. He talks about “smart” work. Oh, he’s a connoisseur of tastes and wine, he’s culturally literate, knows all the right stuff. But he’s too lazy to work. He makes excuses, has all the justifications for non-attainment. So you have a picture of two young men. Both are potentiated but only one has evidence-based potential. Evidence-based potential is simply, morning shows the day! That’s the summary.
If your girlfriend has to push you to take life serious, to make you work hard, that relationship will have a problem. She’s going to become tired at some point, whether before, or after the marriage. She’s going to be carrying an inordinate and disproportionate amount of load in the marriage. She’s the one who’s always going to be trying to get things done, to get things fixed. When the sofa needs to be changed and you don’t move, she gets it done. If there’s a need to buy a new freezer and you don’t move, she gets it bought. There’s a problem in such a relationship. I trust you’re not that kind of guy. That kind of guy is going to be potentiated forever. That’s not potential; it’s lack of drive. And so you need to have drive. You need to want to succeed. Life of course won’t give you a free pass. That’s why determination counts. Or everyone will be a billionaire. Life respects a determined young man. Life will eventually bow to a determined young man who’s unfazed by his humble beginnings.
Yes, everyone is potentiated by God but we must turn ourselves into evidence-based potentials. When people see a young man they should be able to project: this one will make it. That’s evidence-based potential. Glaring facts people can see is what we refer to as evidence-based potential. You’ve got to make life respect you. You’ve got to strive to attain. There are levels of attainment of course, but the key is that you maximise your potential whatever it is. And so all that love is good, but love must deliver the goods if you want respect. And the more you attain the more your girlfriend will be proud of you. You boost her image as well. I’m afraid that’s the way life works. It’s why you never give up despite discouragement. You don’t give up on your life. You don’t want to be in a relationship and you’re not respected. Industrious young men get respect. Don’t just strive to be respected, strive to be admired. And that’s what I’m talking about. You know what I mean!

BAD LUCK

My dear Jil, you don’t have bad luck, you’re just exercising poor judgment. I get a lot of mails like yours from young women who have had successive broken relationships. These women sometimes feel there’s something wrong with them; that’s why their relationships don’t lead to marriage. They wonder why almost immediately after break up the guy goes on to marry someone else. But if you check some of those cases the women should actually be thanking God they didn’t marry those guys. They can’t see that because emotions get in the way. It’s natural in such moments to feel emotionally down. It rives a lot of women when a guy breaks up and just months after marries another. Creates consternation. Here’s the problem in your situation: you get so excited about the prospect of having a relationship that you commit too fast. You don’t get to know the guy. You really never knew any of the guys you dated – who they really are. And so the facts about them that should have informed your decision to date or not to date are hidden from you. You essentially based your commitment decision on your feelings of wanting to be in love, rather than facts. Facts that should inform your decision to commit to a guy, not just feelings. You lay yourself open to surprises committing to a guy you hardly know. And many, if not all these guys you dated were full of surprises. One or two even had live-in lovers and you never knew. And that’s why one in particular never wanted you to come to his house. That should have raised a red flag. How do you date a guy and you don’t know where he lives and can’t visit? Obviously he’s hiding something from you, or trying to keep you from discovering certain things. You should wonder why.
There are facts you should know pre-commitment, not post facto. You ought to know the person you want to date. Don’t forget he’s potentially your husband. The clues and hints are always there. It’s just that you choose to ignore them. Your objective over-writes them. So it’s not about bad luck but hasty judgment, and poor decision-making. Hence the string of break-ups. Those relationships were bound to break anyway. If a guy is serially cheating on you how’s it going to work? You want fidelity but he’s the antithesis of fidelity. Such a relationship can’t work. Will be full of heartache. Now, if you knew he had a fidelity challenge you wouldn’t have dated him in the first place. Or at least shouldn’t have. Such a relationship is bound to collapse because there’s a clash of values and expectations. It’s that clash of values and expectations that invariably leads to the wreck of all your relationships. Two can’t walk together except they are agreed. That’s an ancient saying. Why don’t you find out all you can about a prospect before committing. When the next guy comes around, don’t be hasty to commit. If you don’t know him and he says be my girlfriend, tell him you hardly know him, that you can’t commit. In other words develop friendship first. The marriage is going to built on friendship anyway! See if friendship is even feasible before taking on the official title of girlfriend. You can’t call yourself a girlfriend when there’s no friendship. Girlfriend is made of two words: girl and friend.
Facts are sacrosanct. It makes sense to ask oneself certain questions before plunging irrevocably: Do you really know the guy? Do you have certainty about his relationship status? Does he have a job? What does he do? Where does he live? Who are his parents, or did he drop from heaven? Is he the serious type, or he’s just looking for sex? What are his antecedents? What does he want in life? Is he the marrying type? Is he the caring type? All these are easily verifiable from asking direct or indirect questions, and from asking around. Engaging him in free-flow conversation will give you insight. Things slip out when people talk at ease. And learn to listen, and to read in between the lines. Most facts are in between the lines. Now, I’m not saying be paranoid; but at least listen to what is being said as well as what is not being said. What is not being said is as important as what is being said. For example, if he hardly talks about his mother you may want to know why. What are the reasons? Did she abandon him? Do they have a terrible relationship? Is she difficult? Or she doesn’t care? Or maybe she’s late and he doesn’t want to dwell on it. Or he’s ashamed of her, or whatever the reason. All these facts may make him sensitive. Or may point to the fact you’re going to have an interesting mother-in-law.
What is not being said is a conversation in itself. And it’s full of facts. Ditto if he doesn’t talk about his father, or his family at all. Of course if he hardly talks about his job you should also wonder. And what you’re not sure about or need clarification on, ask directly: “Jack, I noticed you hardly talk about your mum, why?” It’s a very valid question in an impending relationship. Don’t forget that mum he hardly talks about is your potential mother-in-law. His dad is your potential father-in-law. In a relationship you look before you leap. You check that there are no crocodiles in the water. It’s not Discovery Channel. Don’t commit to a man you hardly know. Or you’ll find out what you should have found out when the relationship breaks. And each successive break has an emotional cost attached. Breakages can be emotionally expensive. There’s no curse on you. There’s no witch haunting your fortune. You just dated guys you shouldn’t have dated. So don’t be afraid you won’t marry. Just date the right guy. Date a sincere and honest man. And if a guy is in a relationship and wants to date you, he should first extricate himself before coming for you. He shouldn’t use you to break his relationship, or you’ll get a bad name and bad rap. And you’re innocent.

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!

if you lose your life to this marriage you
will have yourself to blame. Truth is not always
politically correct. Neither is wisdom. If I were you I'll repudiate the advice of those religious folk who
insist you should stay in this violent marriage and
pray. These people are legalists who do not believe in
divorce under any circumstance. Until THEIR child is
in danger. Then you'll see them find a loophole in
their doctrinal ideology through which they pull their
daughter out of danger. They cannot abide by their
own legalism once their ward is involved. You're in
a very dangerous marriage. You married an abusive
man. Get OUT before you lose your life! Don't 
make yourself a religious experiment of the efficacy
of prayers to change a violent husband. Once a man
has crossed the line of violence once, he's 
susceptible to crossing it over and over again. I don't care if he's jazzed or under the
influence of a witch or voodoo. Those are academic
questions. Safety first, then theological disputations
and interpretations later.
Of what value is your marital theological correctness
if you lose your life? You'll be analysing doctrine in
heaven! This man doused you with petrol and was
desperately looking for a lighter to set you on fire and
you're talking theology. You escaped death by
whiskers and some people are telling you to stay and
pray. Would they make THEIR own child stay? Prayer
can change anything I agree. But you're not the
Redeemer. And anyway you can pray from safety. Get
out of this horrible marriage. You may not be lucky
with that petrol a second time around. It might be in
the night. And if your pastor thinks it's rebellion for
you to refuse to stay in a violently abusive marriage
despite his order, so be it. And to think you were
pregnant! You had to jump an entire floor through the
balcony just to escape. You cheated death twice! Your
blood be on the head of those who admonish you to
stay in such a horrible marriage if you lose your life.
There are too many cases of women losing their lives
to violent husbands. Do you want to be the next
statistic?
Yes, you have no job and you don't know how you'll survive economically if you leave but you'll 
figure all that out later. And it follows a pattern. First
the man tells you to resign from your good job so you
ostensibly take care of the kids. Then he promises to
take care of all your needs. And it feels the man loves
you so much you don't need to work. But if he's so liquid, why doesn't he hire you a nanny so
you can take care of the kids and remain employed?
When he's made you totally dependent on him then
he begins to deny you means. You now have to beg
for every penny. You're at his mercy. The pattern
is common. And I'm surprised your family hasn't stepped into this situation. You mean they'll 
just keep spectating until they lose their daughter!
Someone should come and remove you. The sentence
of death by hanging can't compensate for the loss
of your life if this man kills you. And that same child
you're so worried about preventing you from
leaving? Well, you're going to leave him behind in
death. There are some things nobody needs to tell you
before you move out of a marriage. If your husband is
sleeping with a knife under his pillow as a defence
measure against you, should you stay?! What if he has
a nightmare one day or has a dream in which he
thinks he's slicing bread but it's your throat!
The thing about abuse is that the physical abuse is
nothing compared to the psychological degradation.
Even if you survive the physical abuse, trauma and
fear would have been imprinted into your psyche. If
the very thought of your husband sends you into panic
attack something is terribly wrong in your marriage.
And how do people insist on using scriptures to
compel a woman to stay in an abusive marriage?! The
man himself has repudiated the duty of care specified
in the holy writ. How can he then claim a right under
same? I can't imagine Jesus asking a woman to
stay in a life threatening marriage in the name of
legalism. And a lot of what people do is misinterpret
scriptures and take it out of context to suit their
ideology. In a sane society, you would have gotten a
restraining order against this man. He should not
come near your 3km radius. Go back to your father's house, or to the house of an uncle or any relative.
Just run for your life. The notion of violence in
marriage contradicts the very concept of marriage.
How can a marriage threaten a life? If you don't 
want to be a newspaper headline, run before this man
kills you. There's something so final about death
that makes us impotent. With the finality of death all
revisions of history are rendered mute. Just wishful
thinking. When the deed is done and you've lost
your life, those same folks who insist you stay will
conduct your funeral. When this man has killed you
your son will end up an orphan. The state will kill him
too. Then what happens to the child? If you want him
to have any chance at parentage run from this violent
man.
You have to take responsibility for your life. Stop
hoping for instruction from folks to leave the marriage.
You're the one going through the battering. None
of those religious advisers are. Your situation is
academic to them. And how is it that a single young
man who knows nothing about life or marriage is
pontificating on wrongness of divorce? These
contemnors of yours know nothing about marital
trauma yet they're authorities on marriage and
divorce. How does marriage become bondage? How
can marriage be life imprisonment? How can marriage
be a death row or mental asylum?! Marriage is meant
to be loving and supportive. Marriage is meant to be
full of kindness and consideration. The very notion of
marriage as a horror chamber is something you must
vehemently reject. But like I said it’s your life. But
my conscience is clear. Leave this violent and
unstable man. The economy is bad right now and
soon someone's going to tell him you're the
witch affecting his business. Let your memory serve
you well. Remember the women who lost their lives to
violent marriages. Run from an abusive marriage.

SILENT HELL

Dear Jack, what I'm  trying so hard to help you
avoid is the 20year Mistake. You see, there
are some relationship mistakes we make in life that
take twenty years to get out of. I know it sounds
incredible but it's  the truth. There are many â
20yr veterans all over life. You're just not
aware. A typical mistake that can cost you 20yrs of
your life is impregnating someone you don't love
who becomes mother of your child. You can't wish
the child away. It matters little whether you marry her
or not. Opportunistic sex has consequences, and once
a child is produced you step into unplanned history.
That woman will be in your life for the duration of the
life of that child, meaning till you die, other things
being equal. No young man plans for that. It was
opportunistic sex, remember! Just lust finding a
partner. But life insists if you go that way, it means
you planned for the consequences. You can't
complain. You have to adjust your life accordingly for
having a child out of wedlock.
And it's not just opportunistic sex that can produce
the 20yr problem. Marrying someone you
shouldn't does the same. The warning signs are
always there. Better to have a broken engagement
than to have a broken marriage. If your girlfriend is a
serial cheat for example, you can't complain of
unfaithfulness in marriage if you go ahead with it. The
signs were there, but you chose to ignore the facts.
She already showed you she wasn't going to be
faithful. What usually happens is that some people
take on the mantle of messiah, seeking to accept
their girlfriends. And they seek to prove their
goodness by insisting on pursuing marriage to
someone who'll bring them sorrow. These are
insistent do-gooders who want the praise of the world
for marrying the wrong woman. There's some
psychological reward they get for insisting on going
into marriage with someone with questionable
tendencies. Having been rewarded for bad behavior,
the woman of course continues with those morals and
they begin to suffer. Having forgiven so much, they
then get annoyed at discovery of one more instance
of cheating after marriage. They become mean to the
woman, terribly mean. Their character changes. They're angry. The reason they're angry is because
they feel they should be rewarded with fidelity for
enduring so much. They feel the woman should
reward them for overlooking the past and ignoring the
facts of infidelity during courtship. That kind of
marriage is essentially over. The condition precedent
needed to make it successful is out of the man's
control. The marriage can only work if the woman
reforms, and the man can't control that factor. It's up to the woman.
When the success of a marriage is dependent on
reformation of a partner's character that's a
difficult one. Why marry a thief hoping for reformation
of character? What if he refuses to reform? What
becomes of the marriage? The normal challenges of a
young marriage are thus compounded and burdened
with major character issues. How does a young man
cope in a marriage with such reformational character
challenge? It's tough. Always deal with facts in
your relationship, not wishful thinking. If your girlfriend
is a thief, you're dating a thief not someone who can change. If you want to marry a non-thief,
date a non-thief. Why go for a thief you hope will
become a non-thief? It's like all those guys who
want to marry a civil servant but then go for a
businesswoman hoping to convert her. Why?! A lot of
people make this mistake. They don't  deal with the
facts in front of them, they don't acknowledge the
facts. If a woman dates a man without drive for
instance, she has to accept the high possibility of an
unmotivated husband. Going into marriage with such a
person with a view to changing him is rather
presumptuous! If you can't accept the man or
woman in front of you don't go into the marriage.
Deal with facts. If you date a lazy person you have to
accept the very high probability you'll have a lazy
spouse if you marry. Ditto if you date the unhygienic,
someone with similar standards of hygiene as that
improbably named character from Asterix. Does that
mean we're saying people can't change? Of
course not. There's always the possibility of
redemption. But when you approach marriage you
must take a pragmatic view. You deal with the facts
in front of you. just saying that simple mistake
as per marital choice can cost you 20yrs of your life.
But the time you finally come out of it, you'll be
shocked twenty years have gone. And then you're
going to have years you can't account for as
years in depression, years in battle. The depression
and those battles are huge distractions. They divert
your energy.
Marry right. If you choose to marry someone you don't love or who doesn't love you, you married a
stranger essentially. Without love couples are
emotional strangers in cohabitation. The lack of love
and affection will of course produce indifference,
which then produces emotional torture. That
emotional indifference can easily lead to adultery and
hatred. Then the home becomes hell. And couples
don't have to have a shouting match before a
marriage becomes hell. There are silent hells. When
your spouse quietly tolerates you, you know you're
in a silent hell. When your spouse makes no complaint
but won't touch you, you know you're in silent
hell. When you and your spouse don't quarrel but
your marriage is essentially functional, you're in
silent hell. When the state of the marriage makes
even the food stale and you have to swallow it, you're in silent hell. And when you can't solve a
marriage problem however you wish or try, you're
in silent hell. When to all appearances you're a wonderful couple but can't stand each other
you're in silent hell. A good marriage is heaven. A
bad marriage is hell. It's that simple. Why risk
putting yourself in jail for twenty years. If it's
obvious it can't work let it be. I want it to
work is sometimes an expression of foolishness.
Don't put yourself in silent hell. That's not an
accommodation you should go for.