Dear Pastor,

I am writing with tears in my eyes. I am 19 and living with my boyfriend. He doesn't want me to talk to any man. He is sending me back to school because I left home without passing any exams. I hardly went to school because my parents couldn't afford it. When I was 16, my mother told me I was big enough to take man so I should catch a man, and let him help me. I met a big man and he gave me money every week.

His daughter was my age and she saw a text that I had sent him. I told him I had missed my period. She told her mother, who called me and asked if I was pregnant. So I told her no. When I realised who I was talking to, I hung up the phone and changed my SIM card. I never heard from her again. When I saw my friend, I told him what had happened. He told me she knows something was going on between us we would have to stop seeing each other, but he would still help me.

When I met my boyfriend, he asked who was supporting me. I decided to tell him, the truth, so I told him about the man. He told me to stop talking to him and he would take care of me. He didn't want me to talk to any man at all. I went to live with him. He was living in a bad area but moved to a better one. He told the landlady that in three years we were going to get married. She said she was a Christian and didn't want couples living in her home unmarried. I told her I was different and I wasn't a bad girl, so she rented us the place.

A man stopped by the house to give me something from my sister. When my boyfriend came home, the landlady told him. He grabbed me and beat me. I tried to explain to him why the man came but he wouldn't listen. He said no man should come to his yard. The landlady heard him beating me and didn't come to help me. Her excuse was that she didn't know who the man was. I shouldn't have had him come there. Since that happened, I hate the landlady.

J.R

Dear J.R.,

Your landlady should be ashamed of herself. She should treat you as a daughter instead of reporting you to your boyfriend. By telling your boyfriend that a man had visited you, was to give the impression you were having an affair with this man. She is wrong, so very wrong. I understand why you hate her but I don't want you to. I want you to forgive her and to look at her as someone who doesn't know better.

The other person you have to deal with is your boyfriend. He doesn't have any right to beat you. It is true he is helping you but that does not give him the right to hit you. He needs to understand you can have him arrested for physically abusing you. He also needs to change his way of thinking.

There is no way you can avoid talking to a male. You will meet men, anywhere you go, but that doesn't mean you will become sexually involved with them. He will meet women, anywhere he goes, but that does not mean that he will become sexually involved with them either.

Tell him if he beats you again you are going straight to the police station and find another place to live. Tell the landlady you appreciate her help by allowing your boyfriend and yourself to live as tenants, but should learn to mind her own business.

Pastor