Letter to Jil

My dear Jil, I commiserate with you on the loss of your baby boy. The loss of a child is not easy. It breaks human will. There’s a correspondent ache without pain. You’re numb, just numb, feel nothing. It’s a tough thing. Losing a child can be so tough on a marriage. There’s all that guilt and anger…emotional unavailability… These are raw emotions. Grieving requires a channel. It must be ousted. It’s why it’s good to cry. It’s a catharsis of the soul. The bile is emptied out as we inconsolably vent our pain. Grieving for a lost child can be tough on marriage. The frustration of reaching out for that which is no more can cause one to lash out at those proximate.
Unfortunately, those proximate to us are our loved ones, the ones sent to comfort us. And so we punish them for their love in our grief. Continue reading →

My dear Jil, I’m not exactly sure what you want from this gentleman. It’s been one complaint after another. Not exactly sure what you want him to do about the issues you raised. It’s either you’re going to accept him with his background or you’re not going to. You’ve got to make up your mind. You count it against the young man his parents went through divorce. But how exactly is that his fault, or his business? Boy met girl. Boy married girl. Boy and girl couldn’t work it out. Boy and girl got divorced. How is that the fault of their children? Why label the children?

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My dear Jil, my question to you is really quite simple: Do you want to be life’s victim? Of course what he did to you was despicable, and I still don’t understand why guys do that. Why string a girl along and with very active lies build false hope in her about marriage, knowing fully well you plan to marry someone else? It takes a certain kind of lying capacity to string two girls along with the promise of marriage, actively taking marriage steps like visiting their families, and yet have no intention of marrying one or either of the girls. It takes a certain kind of character. It’s appallingly selfish, abominably unnecessary and most destructive. Such behaviour guts the life of the victim. They become life’s carcass, the flesh eaten off their soul. These things destroy other people’s lives – emotionally and psychologically. Sometimes financially and socially. That’s not something one should be responsible for.

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My dear Jil, I’ll try and answer your questions and address those issues. The definition of beauty from a man’s perspective is actually more complicated than even men realise. It’s why it seems we don’t know what we want sometimes. In practical terms, we tend to separate attraction quality beauty from relationship quality beauty, from ogling quality beauty. These are complicated mechanics. I’m just trying to break them down artificially. It’s actually a mesh of overlapping and integrated gears.

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My dear Jil, let me tell you a story. There was this guy who always seemed to over-reach. He never sought to date according to his station in life, he always reached above his station. He had an unestablished car repair business, was moderately educated, was not blessed with good looks or good anatomy though he imagined otherwise. He didn’t have much money either. He struggled with finance. But he was blind to all these. He somehow felt his calling in life was to date the most beautiful women in his local assembly, and not just beautiful women but rich, beautiful women. As one can imagine, it takes guts to date a rich beautiful woman. You need a sense of self, and also your own money. You hardly get respect living off a woman. If you don’t want to be known as a toy boy to a rich woman, you must have sufficient means relative to the status of the woman. That brings respect.

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“There she was standing by the roadside in the morning. The air was fresh. It was just a few minutes after nine. She stood there wistful in proportions, her face ever so subtly animated. The shadows of her thoughts passed over her face like the passing of the clouds above. Or like the shadow of a plane descending over a terrain, the shadow trailing it like a disembodied entity bound to the locus. It glides surreally.

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My dear Jil, sometimes it’s good to talk to married women so you learn from their experiences. You have to be discerning of course. Be careful what you listen to. You have to exercise judgment about what is good for your ears and what’s not. We can learn from the bitter marriage experiences of others without imbibing a bitter spirit. A forerunner is a walking traffic sign, a harbinger of news about dangers ahead. So it’s good to talk to those who are married so you learn from their experiences. Save a gifted bachelorette, there’s hardly anything a bachelorette can teach you about marriage. She has no practical knowledge. There’s the theory of marriage, there’s the practical of marriage. Experience matters more. Continue reading →

My dear Jil, it would seem you and your boyfriend are coming from two opposing finance philosophies. You have two different finance personalities and perspectives. You’re prudent and believe in financial planning. He’s not. You’re conservative concerning finance. He has a laissez-faire attitude towards finance, believes things will somehow take care of themselves. He projects on future earnings. Which means he gets into a credit situation today hoping to plug the hole with future earnings. And so he spends his salary to the limit, banking on payday. And if there’s any problem with payday, he borrows money using his paycheck as collateral. In other words, you live within your means, he lives beyond his means, literally. That’s the simple deduction.

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My dear Jil, I will be failing in my duty as your mentor if I do not present an accurate and complete picture of life to you. The very nature of life can get lost in the crack of discussions about love and marriage. Such discussions naturally evoke imageries of romanticism, beauty, love and harmony. And yet all those are contextualised within a frame called life.

Here’s the thing about life: Life is tough! Man is born unto trouble. Only the strong survive. You must be strong. You must survive. You cannot afford to be weak. You cannot afford to give up. You cannot afford to turn back.

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My dear Jil, you shouldn’t get careless with your marriage. There are people who want what you have.

First, you have to be careful about not being available to your husband. That’s not really wise. He has needs – physical and emotional, and you’re the only legitimate fulfilment agency. As an entrepreneur, he particularly needs your moral and emotional support. He needs you for this journey called life. He needs your partnership. It’s important he feels he has you by his side, that he can count on you and your advice. He needs your consultations too.

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