₦airaland Forum

Dear Mimi,

I am a 42 year old man. I grew up in a staunch Catholic family and observed all the catholic ceremony. I got married ten years ago to a catholic woman and together we decided we would be catholic only in name. So our Sundays are spent at home with our children. The issue is that my mother-in-law recently started living with us and has started nagging us to go to church. At first I obliged her, woke up around 6am to make the long drive to her pentecostal church and endure the screaming and shouting. However I told her today that I am not going to church and neither is my wife or our two children. All hell broke loose she screamed and cried that I have led her daughter to hell, that I am preventing her from pursuing God and that we must go to church or I divorce her daughter. My wife who cannot stand up to her mother said she will follow her mum to reduce trouble. There is my problem- my wife also detests church and I feel betrayed that she would keep going to keep her mother happy instead of herself and our marriage happy. I said she can go if she wants but my children will not go. What should I do?

-Church Mother Drama

Read more at:

http://www.herald.ng/wife-hate-church/

Dear Mimi,

I know this may sound like I am jealous but I am not. My boyfriend of two years broke up with me and is marrying someone else in less than one year. What pains me is that we are both HIV positive and we don’t know who gave the other but for the two years of our relationship, we took our medications together and kept it our secret. Our agreement was that we will marry each other. We are educated enough to know that if we stay on our medication, we can live long and good lives. My issue is that he became born again shortly after our diagnosis and became fixated on marrying a virgin. He started calling me dirty and promiscuous and would go as far as insulting me that I am dirty, that’s why I have HIV. This is so bad because we don’t know who gave who HIV. He started attending one church and soon was dating an alleged virgin in the church. That is who he is about to marry. Should I tell her he is HIV positive? He has been doing the faith talk and claiming not to have HIV. I don’t know if he has told her, should I tell her or should I just mind my business?

-HIV Alert!

Read Mimi's Reply at:http://www.herald.ng/mimi-knows-boyfriend-hiv-marrying-another-woman/

Dear Mimi,
While I was in university in Ireland five years ago, I met a Nigerian lady at a church service. After the service, we went to lunch together and got along so well that we ended up in bed that same night. In the morning, the lady told me she was not interested in me past this and refused to give me her address or number.

I was heart-broken and spent many years hoping to see her anywhere in Ireland. I moved back to Nigeria after school and now engaged to a beautiful lady. Our wedding is in September.

Last week I took my fiancée to the airport to pick up her elder sister. I was shocked to see the elder sister was the same lady I met and loved all those years ago in Ireland.

The sister doesn’t seem to remember me but seeing her has triggered all these feelings I buried inside and I don’t know what to do. Should I break my engagement and see if I can get a real chance with my love from the past?


– Stuck in the Past


Read Mimi's Reply at: http://www.herald.ng/mimi-knows-slept-fiancees-older-sister/

Dear Mimi,

I am a 23 year old man living outside Nigeria. Two days ago I read on the news of a mother and son who have been arrested for being n a romantic relationship and are facing jail time. I am scared because this is my story. My mother had me young when she was 15 years old. To avoid disgrace, her parents sent me to live with a distant aunt outside Nigeria. I knew of my mother but was not allowed to speak to her or see her. When I turned 20 years old and started university, I reached out to my mother on Facebook. She is now 35 years old and so beautiful. We talked everyday on the phone for a year before she came to visit me. Once we saw each other, we hugged and next thing were kissing on the mouth. Needless to say, we have been dating for two years now. My dilemma is that I want to marry her but I know society frowns on it. What should I do?

Read more at:http://www.herald.ng/dear-mimi-biological-mother-love/

I am a 36 years old woman married to a 29 years old man.

We have been married for two years. Before we got married, I told my husband I did not want to have any children as I had a bad childhood and do not want to have any children because the world is such an evil place. He agreed and even said he was not interested in children either.

Recently his family have been agitating for a child and now my husband is saying he would like us to have at least one child. I love my husband but I am very sure I do not want to be a mother.

What should I do?

–Don’t want to be a mother


Read More at: http://www.herald.ng/mimi-knows-dont-want-mother/

Dear Mimi,

Last year my husband of six years and I decided we needed to spice up our sex life. During our christmas vacation in Dubai last year, we ran into an ex girlfriend of my husband from his university days. This woman was pleasant and pretty and we all ended up having dinner together. After the dinner we went to a bar to have drinks and one thing led to another and she and I started kissing. I was afraid my husband will be angry but he encouraged us to go on.


READ MORE AT http://www.herald.ng/party-husband-ex/

Dear Mimi,

You have to help me. I am facing a very serious dilemma. I went to an all girls’ Federal Government secondary school in Nigeria. I don’t want to say the name of the school. Anyway, in that school it was normal for girls to have girlfriends and kiss and date. People thought it was a thing that happened just because it was an all girls’ school. The idea was that it’s just a phase and we were dating girls because there were no boys around. Most of my school mates who had girlfriends later on graduated, went to university and married men. I had a senior girl who was my girlfriend in school and after school we continued our friendship but also went beyond kissing. I realized our own was not a phase that it was real feelings and attraction. At that time, I didn’t really know what homosexuality was, all I knew was that I had genuine love feelings. Anyway, my girlfriend went abroad and I stayed in Nigeria. I went to university and later on got married to a man. Last year, his step-sister returned to Nigeria and lo and behold… she is the same girlfriend I had in secondary school. All the feelings returned for me. I thought it was a phase but because she went out of Nigeria, she had been living life fully as a lesbian. Now we have been sleeping together and she wants me to follow her out of Nigeria to live together and possibly marry. I don’t have any children for my husband. He is a nice guy but I am gay. What should I do?

-Lesbian Love(sick)




Dear Lesbian Love(sick),

This is incredible!! So you couldn’t do any investigation before you married a man whose step-sister was once your girlfriend?? This is very irresponsible of you. I won’t blame you fully. I blame the society we live in that made you ignorant or blind to your sexuality. What you have done to your husband is cheat on him. You have committed adultery regardless of the gender of your cheating partner. My advice to you is to be true to yourself and stop cheating on your husband. If you want to live as a lesbian then do so but do it without hurting innocent and unsuspecting parties. The huge scandal here is not that you are gay, but that your partner is related to your husband. Please be honest in your dealings and do the mature thing, which is to stop cheating! I wish you maturity.

Love,

Mimi



-Mimi knows something about everything. If Mimi doesn’t know, who else will. Write in your questions to mimiknows@heraldng.com

http://www.herald.ng/mimi-knows-love-husbands-sister/

Dear Mimi,

I am a 32 year old woman with three children. I have one daughter and two sons. My oldest son who is 5 years old is my first child. My daughter and son are twins and they are 18 months old. My 5 year old son has been portraying what may be considered female traits. He wants to wear make up when he sees me putting it on, he constantly wears my shoes and hats and loves dancing. Normally I would not be too concerned about this but this past July, we were visiting family friends in another state and I heard my son introduce himself to other children using a girls name. When I called him over and said, thats not your name, he said “thats my new name because I am a girl.” I do not know what to do. Should I be worried? I don’t believe in beating children or lazy advice like pray about it. I need practical information. Thank you.

-Confused Mum





Dear Confused Mum,

Thank you for writing in. The term “transgender” is generally taken to mean someone who has a gender identity, a gender expression, a gender performance that is outside of the expected cultural norms for their assigned sex at birth. In this case your child’s assigned gender at birth is male, but he expresses as female. There are a lot of kids in the stage just before puberty who have gender nonconforming behaviors, who I would not label as transgender. The truth is that we don’t really know whether that child who is gender non-conforming in childhood is going to go on to have a trans identity in adolescence or adulthood. What we do know is that by the time kids reach adolescence, if they have a gender identity that is different from their sex assigned at birth, that it is very likely that they will continue on to have that gender identity.

In your case, I will advice you allow your son express the gender he wants maybe privately and see how it goes. You must wait for post adolescence to make any changes. There is nothing to do but love, accept and allow your son explore. Don’t get concerned with what people will say or think, people always talk anyway. Stay focused on providing a loving and nurturing home and see how things go. There are lots of resources online for parents of transgender children. I wish you courage.

Love,

Mimi



Mimi knows something about everything. If Mimi doesn’t know; who will? Write Mimi at mimiknows@theheraldng.com

http://www.herald.ng/is-my-son-transgender/