My boyfriend doesn’t trust me at all

Dear Pastor,

I am 25 years old and I have gone to bed with seven different men in my lifetime. I am not lucky with men. When I went into a relationship with my sixth boyfriend, I knew it wouldn’t last because every time we had a little disagreement, he would say that was why he did not trust women. He used to have a girlfriend and she got involved with her brother-in-law.

She was caught in bed with him and she had to run for her life. It happened two years ago, and her sister has refused to talk to her, no matter how hard she has tried to ask her for forgiveness. Her sister has forgiven her husband because they are still together. I told my boyfriend that he should not take other women’s behaviour to judge me, but he says no matter how you look at women, they are all the same.

I cannot have any privacy at all. My boyfriend goes through my phone whenever he feels like and if he sees any number that he doesn’t know, he calls the number.

One day, we got into a fight because of a text message he saw from a man and I refused to explain the type of message. He asked me to leave, so when he was gone to work, I called one of my brothers to move me out and to take my stuff to the country. I also turned my phone off. For three days he was driving up and down looking for me. All of a sudden, I was a good girl to him. I am back with him Pastor, but I have not moved back my things. I cannot trust this man and I don’t want his ring. That is what he is promising me.

All of these men are telling me that I am sweet. I am tired to hear that.

Why is it that women have to suffer so much? I know that I am not a bad girl. I don’t have children and I have never cheated on my boyfriend, but I have male friends. I can’t go anywhere without this man. Give me your advice.

E.L.

Dear E.L.,

Why did you go back to live with this man? You knew that he did not trust you; you must have felt that he might change overnight. This man has a big mouth and that he does not know how to control it. You have not been unfaithful to him, but he feels because he is a man, he has the right to push you around. A good relationship has to be built on trust and evidently this man does not trust you, so both of you should not be together. You made a mistake by returning to him.

Even if this relationship does work, both of you will have to attend counselling sessions and this man’s dirty habits will have to come to an end. He has to stop doing things like going into your phone and calling numbers that he doesn’t recognise and wanting to know everything. This is clearly not a good relationship.

I hope you are employed. I don’t see both of you having a future together. Young girl, if you were to agree to marry this man, you will be very unhappy in the future and that’s the way I see it.

Pastor