My boyfriend and I have been dating and living together for about four months in Nakuru and we have a problem. Apparently, he was scheduled to marry my cousin about six months ago. Two months before the wedding, he told me that he did not love her and that it was me he had always loved. He cancelled the wedding giving no explanations to her and asked me to move in with him. We think it is time we made our relationship known. He has already proposed to marry me and wants to pay dowry for me. He had already paid dowry for my cousin and up until now, we have kept the relationship a secret. Please advise me on the best way to go about this. We are really in love and want to start a family the soonest possible. {Anita}
Your Take:
Lady you know very well that your cousin’s husband has paid dowry for her. To everyone else, you will be held responsible for the failed wedding and will be accused of planning to marry her husband. This will destroy everyone and someday in future, even your children will come to know that you snatched their father from one of their aunties. You’d better look for another man, dear sister.
{Nyakwar Oliech Atanda}
There is not much difference between a cousin and a sister. You are causing heart break, sleepless night, stress, depression and will soon bring shame to your cousin and family because of this. Even if this works, you will never have the support of your family. It is also said that we should do to others what you expect others to do to you. You are no different from her and he could as well leave you on the aisle and run off with another woman.
{Onyango Outha}
That is the last man you should ever think of marrying. Your family will never forgive you and he has shown that he is not a trustworthy man. Also, how would you feel if a cousin did the same thing to you? You are better off without a husband than getting into this marriage.
{Tasma Charles}
It is very clear from your explanation, that he is not a genuine guy. I don’t see why he would not do the same thing to you so think twice before accepting his proposal.
{Elly Makari}
You are only infatuated with each other and not really in love. Also, four months is a very short time to even start discussing marriage. Take time and think about this whole thing. He may find another woman and leave you just like he did your cousin. It might even be another member of your family.
{Titus Murithi}
Why is he keeping your relationship with him a secret? To avoid many negative and irreversible things, you must get out of this relationship now. Why would you take a man who left a woman with no explanations seriously? This will always work against you.
{Ouma Ragumo}
Being that he had paid bride price for her, you had better think twice about this. Your family is likely to consider you an outcast and you will even be seen to have been the actual cause of his break-up with your cousin. Everybody will blame you for this.
{Andrew Didy Chaplin}
Counselor’s Take:
Anita, the going has so far been smooth only because you have kept everything under the water. The thing about dirty little secrets is that they have peculiar tendencies to emerge prematurely and when (not if, but when) this gets out things will not be a easy as you want to make believe.
You make believe that your family will be appalled for a few moments then smoothly follow through to discussing dowry and marriage arrangements for the two of you, right? Wrong! First, this will be an embarrassment for everyone.
You will be labelled a back stabber, a cheap (very bad word) and most female members of your extended family will want nothing to do with you. You see ladies have an untold phobia about husband/boyfriend snatchers. The married ones will stay away from you lest you steal their husbands’ while the single and dating will stay away from you as well lest you ‘CONVINCE!’ their man to leave them at the aisle and run away with you.
More to this, nobody will even remotely believe that it all was his idea. Society places the blame for all broken relationships on two things, devil and the other woman. To them, you spin doctored every detail of this and snatched an innocent, caring and home loving man. This issue will always be discussed in low tones in your absence where you will be called very bad words then they will smile at you when you are around.
In our African set-up dowry is a very sensitive issue - even more sensitive that a wedding. Essentially, a woman becomes a wife the moment dowry is paid and accepted. This therefore implies that she was and still is his wife. In light of the new circumstances, your uncle (her father), may opt to return the dowry that was paid and carry out some rituals to end the former union. This is often embarrassing and to a large extent humiliating which will put both of you in murky waters.
I don’t mean to spell doom for you but there are no other possible outcomes from this situation. One of the most valuable things we have in life is the goodwill of family members. You can still get another man and start on a clean slate but you will never have a chance to regain the family’s goodwill if it is lost. Leave this guy while you can to sort out his mess and start all over. {Taurus}