Who should I listen to?

Dear Yemisi,

I don’t know how to start telling you my life experience. I am a 32-year-old lady looking for a partner. I graduated from the university some six years ago with pomp and fun fare hoping for a better tomorrow.

During my latter days as an undergraduate, I ensured that I did not have anything serious to do with men because of an earlier experience in the hand of a guy who I had thought was my all in all.

It happened that when we were at 100level, we fell in love blindly and in the process we got involved in premarital sex which later became almost a daily affair. It got to a time that whenever the guy was not around, I always felt lonely and incomplete.

While what I would describe as immaturity or ignorance, I was put in the family way which the guy and I agreed to do away with. After getting out the unwanted foetus, we never learnt our lesson as we continued having fun at will.

By the time I took in again, I was in 300level and we felt at the initial stage that we should not tamper with the pregnancy, as I told my guy that I would bear the brunt of spilling the bean before my parents who felt disappointed and embarrassed by my decision to keep the pregnancy which later gave me an extra session as the early stage characterized by early morning sickness and the discomforts affected my studies.

I stood on my early decision to have the baby and to later continue with my studies. But along the line, I never knew that the guy I was dying for had long made up his mind not to have anything to do with me based on my insistence to have the baby.

All I could notice in the guy was that he first started by distancing himself from me which later resulted in total abandon. After I was delivered of a bouncing baby girl, he actually gave me a red card that he was not responsible for the pregnancy and he was ready to swear by anything.

Well, not to bore you with all that happened in the process, the guy has failed to show up to claim the girl. I went back to the campus leaving the girl in my mummy’s care. The guy, decided to treat me as a leper and since that time till I graduated six years ago I have been left to bear my cross.

This experience of mine made me to run at every appearance of anything in trousers. Now that I am at my wits end, I think I have to put the past behind to move on with my life. I have been approached by many for my hand in relationship that appear altar-bound.

I have not been able to get my acts together because of that singular fact that I am a single mother that is not known to many even to my toasters. Out of fear of not wanting to disclose my status to whoever is interested in having me as wife, I told two of my close pals my feelings because I would not want this issue to hurt anybody’s feelings if it is discovered through other people that I had a child out of wedlock.

The very first friend I shared this with, said that I should not disclose to whoever is interested in having me as his wife that I have a child because no man will want to be responsible for the care and upkeep of another man’s child while exercising fear of childlessness after getting married to her. She said what has happened to me is a ‘secret to be kept forever’.

My interaction with the second friend was another kettle of fish, as she opined that the only available option for me is to open up on this issue without hiding what I have gone through in the hand of a man I believed was the man I would later say ‘I do ‘ after our studies.

My parents are of the view that calling a spade what it is right from the outset will not only ensure my peace of mind, but give the prospective spouse reason why he should respect my gut and sincerity. They went further that they will only agree to be part of my wedding if the truth is told by me and no third party involvement.

Dear Yemisi, I am at crossroads. Whose advice should I respect and take to before I am left in the cold?

Xtie, Lagos.

Dear Readers, Xtie is in dire need of your sincere pieces of advice on what she should do to keep her sanity. Kindly send your intervention to yemiaofoalju@yahoo.com or 08055001741.