Letter to Jil

Dear Jil,

Now this is new to me: You have an assistant boyfriend?! Sounds like football club set up… you know, coach and assistant coach! There’s your main boyfriend. And there’s this other guy you’re side-dating, secretly. So you have a primary relationship and a secondary relationship. Sex is not involved in the secondary relationship. Continue reading →

Dear Jil,

You know it’s a bit hard to argue with those in the legalistic chambers of Moses about divorce. They insist there can be no divorce under any circumstance, until of course it’s their daughter, or sister. Sometimes it’s ignorance, and sometimes it’s that judgmental condemnatory spirit garnished in bigoted religious sadism. Continue reading →

Dear Jil,

Judging by all you’ve said, you’ve got a wonderful gentleman. Seems trustworthy to me. But you don’t trust him. There’s a trust “gap” you’ve created… your 10% safety margin. He can’t bridge the gap. There’s virtual resistance. There’s a reservation inside of you – an illogical reservation… a just-in-case! A teeny weeny just-in-case! You find yourself holding back from him, not totally trusting him. Yet there’s no basis for it. Continue reading →

Dear Jil, the late Arch Bishop Benson Idahosa was a most interesting man. He had all these anecdotes, some so hilarious; but they were nuggets of wisdom. He famously illustrated a piece of wisdom with the story of two Volkswagen Beetles. You have a flat tyre, you drive a Beetle. Your neighbor has an extra tyre, he drives a Beetle. Why pray for tyre, he asked! The lessons are myriad, the simplest being the unnecessary spiritualization of commonsensical situations. And the unnecessary complication of otherwise linear decisions. Now, what I’m going to say to you is going to rub some religious folks the wrong way, but that’s okay.

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Dear Jil, I can’t over-emphasize this enough: marry someone you love, and who loves you! It doesn’t mean you won’t have quarrels. Couples disagree ever once in every while or less. But the love you have for each other will keep pulling you together. Love has a gravitational pull.

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I saw a wedding picture posted on Twitter the other day. Perhaps you’ve seen it too. The groom is dressed in a chiffon cape, had a silver crown on his head. His shirt, if we can still call it that, looked more like a blouse. It had a blue trimming of ribbon. To be honest the man looked more like the bride than a groom. He out-brided his own bride.

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My dear Jil, you have to forgive your father, otherwise you’ll jeopardise your marriage.

There’s a special bond between fathers and daughters. It’s why fathers are protective of their daughters. It is also why daughters are especially hurt when fathers offend the unspecified expectations of that bond. Without forgiveness that offence is carried over into marriage, but it’s buried deep in the psyche. It’s triggered by fears, and similitudes of past offences and experiences. Then comes over-reaction.

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My dear Jil, this thing we call love, it’s not feelings you know. Feelings are like thermometer. It can measure heat but it is not heat. The palpitation of the heart you have – that’s not love; it’s just the INDICATOR of your emotions. And thank God for those palpitations. They interpret our feelings for us.

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My dear Jil,

I just don’t get it! And to be honest with you, the facts are giving me a bit of headache. I do realize how much you want to marry. At your age marriage can be a desperate aspiration. Your mum’s despair is an articulated truck of cheap blackmail and constant nagging. She’s facing social pressure. Her 35-year old daughter is not married. But she’s the least of the issues in the circumstances. Continue reading →

My dear Jil,

You must know when to pull the plug on a relationship – lest you waste your youth. If time were static, or we lived in the days of Methuselah, I’d say luxuriate with the spring of your life. But you’re not getting younger, and he seems unable to make up his mind – your boyfriend I mean. Continue reading →