₦airaland Forum

I actually did ask him how he would feel if other guys were calling me at 2 in the morning & I kept ignoring their phone calls or if someone told him I was at the club with another guy & I hadn't told him. He says it would be fine as long as I am not messing around with the guys.

Am I being controlling just because I ask my boyfriend who his female friends are? I mean he openly shares info about his guys friends, why all the secretiveness about his female friends. He won't answer their calls when I am around, I've had people tell me about seeing him at parties or bars with other females, I took it upon myself to call a few of the girls and was told that he said he was single. We are not married but have been dating for 5 years. I am not opposed to having friends of the opposite sex as I have a few guy friends as well. The difference is that he knows my male friends by name and when they call I answer their calls & chat just as I would if I were alone. If I am going to hang out I tell my boyfriend and sometimes invite him to come along. I am not demanding that he stop having female friends or even that he introduce me to them, only that he can tell me their names and start answering their phone calls and stop acting so shady. He says it is none of my business who his female friends are and he will handle it like a man & says that if any of them ever tried to take it farther he would cut them off, he says I am trying to control him and refuses to tell me any of the friend's names. This is starting to make me wonder, why so secretive & defensive! Am I being controlling? What does his behavior mean?

I have been in your shoes. It was almost a year after dating that my boyfriend confessed to having a son. He did not really tell me on his own, I started getting suspicious and looked into some things and found out on my own, when I approached him about it he first tried to deny it but then once he saw I had all the information he admitted it. The reason he kept his child a secret from me was because he was still living with the child and the mother. He worked night shift the mother day shift, so he said he lived there only to be able to care for the child because neither one of them could afford daycare expenses. He also said he was not financially able to get an apartment on his own and he was also driving her car to get to work, it broke down to him hiding it from me because he was dependent upon the mother, he needed a roof over his head, a car to drive, and he said he knew if he told me the situation that I would have not dated him, he said he didn't want to lose me, during this time he did spend the weekends at my apartment but during the week he would stay at the mother's apartment, all the while I thought he lived with a guy friend. I had not only found out he was keeping a secret about having a child but also where he lived and what he did with his time. He would always be so tired and I would ask him why, he said he worked 2 jobs. Of course now I know the real reason, he was working all night and staying up all day watching his son. He was right if I had known he still lived with his baby's mother when we started dating I would have told him we should wait until he can afford to move out from living with her and then try to date. Because I had already invested a year of my time to him when I found out it was really hard to walk away and I did understand his reasons for hiding it, I don't think that made it okay because it would have been much better if he would have been upfront about it in the beginning. Shortly after I found all this out he got his income taxes and used it to move into his own apartment and bought a cheap car to drive to work. Once the secret was out I could see that he didn't have anything with this woman but the child and the prior financial dependency upon each other. I met her one day when she was dropping off their son and she already was engaged to someone, that is how I knew what my boyfriend had said was the truth, they didn't have any type of relationship going on they were basically living as roomates. This has definatley caused trust issues for me to him, as now I second guess everything he says, the thing that is different in my situation is that in all other areas he has been great, he is very respectful and anytime he has extra money we spend it together, he is always worried about me paying things and he has tried really hard to earn my trust again.

From my experiences no you can't make another person change. You only have power to change yourself. I was in a marriage for 10 years with an alcoholic and time & again he said he would change but never did, I finally realized he will continue to drink as long as he wants to. Now I find myself in a relationship with someone who I have come to realize lives a life of party. Most weekends he is out until 4 to 5 in the morning, I have spoken with him about it, and ask that he start being home at least 2-2:30, he refuses saying there is nothing wrong with what he is doing, I am reevaluating this relationship as our beliefs are too different. I think you have to either accept someone for how they live, or you have to realize that you are not compatiable and let that person go to be free to live as they please.

I want to ask how people who are in serious relationships or who are married would feel about this situation.
What if your partner went out late at night, drinking at a party, with another man or woman? Would this be okay with you? What if your partner tries to justify it by saying they are just friends, would that make it okay to you?

I think you should mention it to him, that to me shows respect for your relationship. I think if one is in a serious relationship or married each partner should know and be aware of the other's friends, whether female or male. This keeps any doubt out of the relationship,

Why would one need a lust partner if they already have a boyfriend or girlfriend? Shouldn't you be getting your sexual desires attended to by the person you have a relationship with. A lust mate is another word for saying cheating, that is if you already have a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Just to update on my situation, I had a Yoruba woman try to translate the message for me. She said the girl is not speaking Yoruba or Pigeon English. She said it sounded like the girl was speaking Igbo. My friend who was trying to help me brought up the possibility that the girl Labake may not really be Yoruba but using someone else's name because maybe she is in the US illegally. I really don't know what to make of this now.

Okay so now I am in need of a translator. I decided to go the route that Ikomi has advised. I am just sitting back and letting him play for awhile, during this time I am watching him, before I talk to him I want to have as much information as possible. While I visited him over the weekend, I was able to get a voicemail from his phone. He was in the shower and the coworker of his called his phone, she left a message. He does not have a password on his voicemail so I was able to check it, I then forwarded it to my own cell phone so I would have the message. Now my problem is that I don't understand it, I don't know which tribe the girl is from, her name is Labake, but not sure if that is an Igbo name or not. The language she is using is not understandable to me. I think if I could know what this message says then I could know what she is saying to him, and therefore be able to make a better conclusion as to if this is more than he is telling me. I want to find out before I talk to him, I don't have anyone that I know who can translate this message for me. Anyone have any suggestions?

I guess I shouldn't have directed the question strictly to the women, looks like the men have some very good advice giving skills. Thanks for your time!!

Thank you Ikomi for your insight on my situation. I really appreciate it and you have given me some things to think about.

My story is so long, it would be so much easier to discuss speaking, I have been dating an Igbo man for over 3 years, we dated 1 year I moved in with him, during the time I lived with him there were never any female friends who stopped by, and I rarely recall any phone calls to and from females. Then after living together a year, I had an opportunity to go to another state and go to university expenses paid. I felt this was a good opportunity so we discussed it and decided I should go, he said he would join me later. After moving, I found out I was pregnant, so I had his daughter. Since I have lived away we still see each other at least every 2 weeks, he does call me everyday. The issue we are having is that now that I am gone, so called female friends are coming to his apartment. When I question him about these girls and why they never came around while I lived there he says it is his culture, that it would be considered disrepectful for the girls to stop by while I lived there, but now that I am no longer there it is okay. I feel the opposite, I would rather have them come while I lived there, so that I could meet them and know who they are. Then sometimes when he comes to visit or I am there visiting he gets phone calls, sometimes really late at night or early morning. He says it is female friends telling him of an African party he said it is culture for people to call each other to let them know of parties. I once again asked why it only started happening once I moved out, that when I lived there he hardly ever even went to parties. Now the latest thing is a girl he said he met at work, he claims she is going through a hard time and has no family here to help her. He says she has two small children, that she got kicked out of where she was living and he helped her babysit her children and let her use his mailing address to get her mail, he also said he helped her move her stuff to the new place she was going to be staying. I only found out about all this because I saw her mail at his house with his address on it, I think he should have let me know what was going on. He swears it is just him helping her out because that is your culture. That when another African needs help you help them. He said she only comes to his house when he is helping out with her kids. However last time I was there visiting we went to one of his other coworkers house where he goes to party and drink sometimes, and she was there. He never even introduced us to each other, however he claims she has known he has a girlfriend. While we were there she mentioned during conversation times that everyone had partied at my boyfriends house, including herself. After leaving I questioned him because he had said they never hung out drank or partied together, which now I know is not true. I think there may be something else going on with this friendship or he wants something to go on. I am so confused I do not want to be jealous and controlling but I think he is crossing the line since he is in a relationship. My question is are these things culture, or does it sound like he is trying to play one over on me?

I am American girl, in USA, I am interested in meeting a trusted Igbo woman, for friendship and advice. I am in a relationship with an Igbo man, and am very confused. I prefer having one person that I confide in with problems this personal, I am not comfortable talking to Igbo women who know me because I don't want them to gossip or tell my boyfriend things that I may be asking them about. Any advice on how I can find someone to trust to discuss my issues with I am in need of advice I want someone from the same culture as him, so that I can make sure I am not being overly sensitive on the problems I am seeing in our relationship. Thanks for the help.