Dear Pastor,

I have been reading your column for a long time. I am 25 years old and I am engaged to be married. I got engaged one year ago and since I have been engaged my fiancé is not talking anything about getting married to me anymore. Before we were engaged he was eager for us to get married. He took me to the store and asked me to choose the furniture that I would like for us to buy to set up our own home.

He used to live with a girl in an apartment; he broke up with her and gave her all the furniture and only kept the stove. I told him that he should give her the stove also. He said no, but I insisted, so he gave it to her. He bought new furniture.

I did not move in with him. I am still at my parents' home but sometimes I sleep at his house. We have set the date of marriage twice and cancelled them. Once he said that the venue for the reception was too costly and another time he said he had to pay for his mother to do an operation at the hospital.

My parents keep asking me what is keeping us back from getting married and I told him. My father offered to pay for the reception but my boyfriend continues to make excuses. I have offered to return his ring and never to go back to the house, but he knows that I don't mean it. Sometimes I feel embarrassed, sleeping with him on a Saturday night and going to my church on a Sunday morning and knowing that his next door neighbour knew that I slept there, because she sees me there and at church.

My boyfriend seems to have changed his mind from getting married to me but I don't know why.

B.T.

Dear B.T.,

Time would tell if I am wrong but I must be frank with you, this man has changed his mind about you and he does not wish to marry you. Perhaps he intended to do so some time ago but he has changed his mind. Perhaps the best thing for you to do is to quit spending time with him at his house and to offer back to him his ring which means nothing to you right now.

I have said in the past and I repeat, that there are some men who are willing to buy engagement rings and give to women to keep these women quiet and to give them the impression that they will marry them. They do so to prevent the women form dating other men. And many of these women have been wearing engagement rings for many years while the men refuse to take them to the altar.

Don't make that happen to you. You are twenty-five years old. Give back the ring to this man. Tell him that he can enjoy his furniture but you are moving on.

Your father made an offer and he has rejected it. I am afraid he is using you. Bring an end to the nonsense.

Pastor