I am in love with an older man

Dear Pastor

I am 20 years old and I need your advice. I was living with my mother in a one-bedroom house. My mother is 40. from the time I turned 18, my mother started to tell me that I was a big woman now and that I should get my own place and live my own life because she got pregnant with me, which was why she was not better off.

Growing up, I knew my mother to have three different men. They did not live with us, but they came around. One of them was more regular than the others. I could never speak badly of my mother. She sent me to school and gave me lunch money. Her biggest complaint was that she didn't have any privacy.

When I was 19, I met a man and he told me that he loved me and he would take care of me. He told me that he had a house that he rented and that where he was living was not his own, but he was in charge. He took me to the house and showed it to me. I liked the place and we went out for three months.

I told my mother that I was moving out. She wanted to know where I was going, so I told her about the man. She wanted to meet him, so I asked him if he would meet her, and he said yes.

So I took him to meet my mother. She liked him and told me that if I didn't want him, she would take him. She was talking to him for a long time, and since that day, I have not trusted my mother with him.

He is 55 and he is very jealous of me, but I love him just like cooked food. Sometimes he treats me like his daughter and sometimes like his girlfriend. I don't like when he treats me like his daughter because that is the time he tells me what to do and what not to do. There are tenants living at the back of the property, and when the woman is washing, he doesn't like me to be talking to her or her children.

He likes to have oral sex and he got me into it. It is like I can't do without it now. He is planning to migrate and come back and marry me. I don't want to lose him, so please tell me what to do.

F.T.

Dear F.T.

It's unfortunate that your mother wanted you out of her house so that she could carry on with her men. Although your are her daughter, she considered that you were inconveniencing her. That was very sad indeed. She could have tried to get a two-room house and give you your own room. I think that is what a wise mother would have done. Wise mothers don't push their daughters on to the streets. They would encourage them to stay home until they are able to rent their own house or get married and move out. Wise mothers know that they will always need their daughters and their daughters will always need them.

Concerning this man that you have met, there is a big gap in your age and his, but it is not for me to condemn this relationship. You needed help from this man and he offered you help. At present, you love him and he is taking care of you. Don't worry too much about his jealousy. Older men are always jealous over their women who are younger. You will always have to assure him that you are faithful to him.

Your mother told you that if you don't want him, she would take over. Don't hold that against her. She might have spoken in jest, and that might have been her way of telling you that you should embrace this man as your lover. If you believe that this man genuinely loves you and you love him and believe what he says, you need not to be worried about his going abroad. If it is not possible for you to go with him, trust that he will come back and marry you. Just make sure that no young guy comes into your life and fools you. Be true to the "old man" and every thing will be all right.

Pastor