Dear Jil, seems you have a VAT boyfriend – a Value Added Tax boyfriend. He brings some value into your life – you can now boast you have a boyfriend, and that feels good. But the value he brings is so highly taxed that when the tax is netted you have a serious deficit. This guy you call boyfriend – he’s feeding off you in the name of relationship.
There’s a principle I read about in the Holy Writ – one you wouldn’t ordinarily connect to relationships. The principle states that, “One will chase a thousand but two will chase ten thousand.” In biblical computation, a binary equation yields a geometric order of magnitude, not an arithmetic order. If two people combine, the yield is not x2 according to scriptures. It is x10 the capacity of each individual. Since a relationship is a binary equation the principle applies. The efficiency yield of a relationship must be significant.
Let’s bring it home. Don’t want to lose you to scientific argot. In straightforward English it means parties must bring significant value to a relationship. The combination should produce a tenfold increase in value relative to your personal capacity. If on your own the value of your happiness is y amount, with a husband or boyfriend we should expect 10y happiness. The formula is simple: H=10y. (H is a variable).
Marriages and relationships that yield these numbers can be described as highly efficient. Jesus spoke about the formula: “If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in Heaven will do it for you.”
It means therefore that a marriage or relationship should produce a significant increase in answered prayers. The efficiency yield of the power of agreement is unimaginable.
To destroy the potency of a marriage, the enemy employs division. Now you understand why division weakens marriages. Power in that marriage is reduced by a factor of ten. It will function at only 10% of installed capacity. It’s why tyrants and dictators employ divide and rule to destroy opposition. No external party can break your marriage if you and your husband are in agreement. It’s virtually impossible! Always strive for agreement in your marriage. Avoid division. Strife and contention reduce power in a marriage.
And we can safely conclude that a successful marriage is simply two hearts in constancy of agreement. You may like colour blue and I like red. What matters is we’re able to combine to produce colour purple. Beautiful things can come from a merger of differences. Parties in a relationship don’t have to have the same interests. What matters is that their differences cooperate with each other to produce harmonious combination. And so one party may be an art afficionado while the other is into zoos and aquaria. Forbearance unites the two.
When couples forbear each other’s interests the differences will cooperate to produce harmony. In other words it doesn’t matter that I don’t love what you love as long as I love you. I will go to the museum with you because I love you, and you will go to the zoo with me because you love me. Love is a powerful welder of incongruous interests. It’s what explains those relationships you can’t understand. How did we get into all this…? O yes, we were saying parties must bring value into a relationship.
It is a misnomer for a lover to come into your life and your happiness begins to go south. Your joy should increase, more of your prayers should be answered, your peace should increase… You should be looking more radiant, and more energetic, and you should be more cheerful and bubbly. And so the notion of a value added tax (VAT) boyfriend is a misnomer. Ditto the guy who comes into your life and turns you into a devotee of self-destruction through habits like drugs. Or the guy who siphons your money – so much so your business is threatened. He vamps your capital. That’s a VAT boyfriend and you’re not in a value added relationship. Same thing applies to men of course. There are VAT girlfriends.
As for this boyfriend of yours on National Youth Service assignment… You said you feed him, so much so you become broke. That must be some feeding! Why are you feeding him?! His excuse for feeding off you is that he’s paid a “stipend” and so can’t contribute economically to the relationship. So he sleeps with you, takes your money, eats your food… My, you’re the real National Youth Service scheme! The man who can’t be generous with a hundred dollars won’t be generous with a million dollars! What if you didn’t exist, won’t he feed himself? How do his fellow youth corpers feed themselves?
He’s not contributing to the relationship not because he doesn’t have, but because he’s a taker not a giver. He has a warped sense of man-woman relationship. Believes the woman ought to feed her man. Trust me, he’s boasting to his friends about you feeding him. His “love” will disappear once the service year is over. He’s going to depart for his state and all you’ll have left is an empty bank balance, empty pots and empty pantry. Come on, he earns a salary, has no overheads, pays no tax, medical’s free, pays no rent, no utility bill… Even his uniform is free. This guy is government pikin! How come he never has money?
You’re running a subsidy relationship. You have a value added tax boyfriend. Cut your losses. You’ve got to trust God for a good man, one who wants to take care of you and not feed off you. And he’ll do it. If you can just trust him.
As for this locust youth corper… I’ll get rid of him if I were you. He’s a selfish individual.
Your mentor,
LA.
© Leke Alder 2014