Think I’m ready to settle down and get married

Dear Pastor,

I am a regular reader of your column and I find it to be very helpful. I did not know that you are the same person on Power 106FM, giving advice.

Since I found out, I have been listening, and I have come to love the show. I am a 45-year-old man. I am not married but I am living with a woman. She has one child for me. I took her with three other children. Six months after we got together, she got pregnant. I did not intend to stay with her when I met her, but after she got pregnant, I told myself that I might as well settle down with her. She was working, so all the burden of the children did not fall on me. She got money from their father to help to support them.

I was living with my grandmother, and she encouraged me to rent a place and put up this woman. My grandmother has always promised that up until her death, I would get her house. She made a will. So now I have her house, and I am living there with the woman, her children and my child as a family. I hope to marry her because I can say that I have not found any fault in her. We have our minor disagreements and arguments. She likes to spend on her children and I told her that she should save more, and sometimes that causes us to argue.

I give her money every two weeks for the house. I save in the credit union, and I have got her to open a little account there for herself and our child. She said that the children's father has an account for them. I talked to a pastor about marrying her and he said that I should be careful. I asked him why. He said that some women change after they are married. I know that some women do change after they get married. Well, I am getting older, and I am eager to settle down. Would you encourage me to marry this woman?

S.G.

Dear S.G.,

This lady has proven to be a good woman, I therefore suggest that you should marry her.

We know that there is always a possibility that as your wife, she may demand more from you and that is why some people say women change after they are married. A man should not expect to have his own way and to do his own thing after he is married. His wife and he are to work together. He should not boss her around, so I disagree with the pastor you went to see.

Before you get married, this woman and you should go for counselling. Find a trained counsellor to do premarital counselling. You are fortunate to have received a house from your grandmother. Do your best to repair it and to support your woman and the children.

Let me get back to what the pastor told you. I remember some years ago when I used to minister in the parish of Portland, Reverend Dr McKenzie told me that he officiated at a wedding, and not long after, the groom came to see him and complained bitterly about how his wife had changed. He sent for the man's wife, and when she came, she pointed to the ring on her finger and said "Minister, this is what I was waiting for all these years and I get it now." So, to this lady, her husband could quarrel as much as he wants, she is going to ignore him because she is now his wife, and she has a big say in everything.

Pastor