JACKSON: About four years ago I fell in love with this pretty girl called Sherry. I was so sure she is the one and I saw us settling down together…
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We met at a time when her family was going through difficult financial problems. I helped them pay for electricity bills backdated as far as three years before.
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I helped pay for the remainder of her university fees. But after having done all this, Sherry said she doesn’t want us to be together. She left.
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I hear she treated her next boyfriend the same way. But as we speak, she is now getting married to this rich guy in town. I have learnt my lesson.
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Please use my story to warn other young men out there, and may you comfort me with any words because I truly want to let go and move on.
Hi Jackson. I sympathize with your loss of love, money and time. Hearing that you are moving on from this makes me respect you more.
In love both girls and boys should learn to say No. Often, girls should learn to say no to sex and boys should learn to say no with their money.
To Boys: When a girl asks for your money learn to say No. And don’t be apologetic because it’s actually your money; and till she is your wife it’s your money alone.
Spend money on her, but bear in mind that you are her friend and NOT her parent. Draw your boundaries.
Your fear of losing her is what makes you keep saying yes. Sadly, the love that money can buy is a cheap kind of love.
You rather lose her than try to keep her with money.
Use your money to invest in your house, education and the rest of your future. A woman who sees the future will come with you for the sake of it.
We were running a Love and Relationships Seminar the other day when one of our clients, a young man, asked
“Should I pay rentals and bills for my girlfriend? We are not yet married and I have seen many men robbed, getting their money squandered and experiencing serious heartbreaks.” – Frank
What has made my Love and Relationships seminars change so many thousands of lives around the world, is that we make sure we answer EVERY question during the seminar.
There is no question that is too easy to be asked or to tough to be answered. We all have to come together and find or share the truth.
Even if you come with a 100 Questions about love and relationships – we will tackle each and every one of them to make sure you are helped, transformed and that you step out into the world out there ready to find and keep lasting love.
So when it came to Frank’s question above, I decided to be as frank as possible. Most bad advice out there comes from the desire to please people.
Other people were simply going to give him that diplomatic answer “O Frank, if you feel like it’s owkay, just go ahead and do it. If you don’t think so it’s also owkay…”
That’s crap!
If you haven’t seen enough of life happening to give someone an answer – if you haven’t seen how most of those relationship setups have ended in tears ever since the sands of time… then just admit that you don’t have much information and advice nothing.
You rather hurt me with the truth than comfort me with a lie. If you are going to try to please me at the expense of truth, then you are NOT pleasing me, you are deceiving me.
There are some people who are running seminars and writing books out there – but the advice they are giving people is breaking them more than it is building them.
One day, ten years from now those people are going to look back on what those “Love Gurus” taught them and realise they were deceived.
Every morning during a seminar, I bow my knees and pray for the courage to share the truth, and that my heart be filled with love so genuine that it makes me a people helper when I’m tempted to be a mere people pleaser.
So when it comes to Frank’s issue…
I frankly told Frank:
Many young man are broke because they are being husbands at a time when they should be boyfriends.
They are broke because they are busy being husbands to women they haven’t married.
Taking care of a woman you haven’t married, is like installing tiles on a house that you are renting. You may cry one day when the real owner is revealed.
The wise thing is NOT to do it.
One guy even asked, “But how come there are some who do it, and get settled right at the end?”
The sad answer is, the success stories are a minority and that’s the problem. The majority are crying and will continue to cry.
Dating is only for assessing whether someone is suitable for you or not – it’s NOT a time to take care of anyone.
The problem is we get over excited when we fall in love. We forget that till we are married there are boundaries we can’t cross no-matter how in love we feel.
Some boundaries are sexual, some are physical, some are social and some are financial.
You are a boyfriend. You are not a husband, or anyone’s father. Know your financial boundaries.
I know you are feeling head over heels in love. You feel like your head is underwater though you are breathing fine, as John Legend sang. All of you loves all of her, but dear brother: Calm down.
Be wise. Being deeply in love with a girl doesn’t make her your wife. If she is poor, it’s not your poverty yet. Wait until the day you take her poverty by vowing “for richer, or for poorer; for better, for worse…” After that day all financial, physical and sexual boundaries between you will come tumbling down.
Don’t skip stages and start taking responsibilities of a husband when you are still a boyfriend.
This is just a time to know each other, it’s NOT the time to take care of each other. If you don’t respect boundaries and trying skipping these stages, I bet you chances are very high that you will cry.
I have seen Some girls ending up marrying men they don’t love, and that was because those men had done so much for them, the women were feeling too grateful to say no.
So she marries you, yet she wouldn’t be happy with you. And You, as a man, can never be happy living with a woman who isn’t happy living with you.
Even for just a day such a person would be a drag, and if you think you can do that for a lifetime and still be happy you will be kidding yourself.
Some girls leave – and the men are left hurt. One heartbroken guy sent a message through the Ask Moffat page on my website.
He was saying “I tell you, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for that girl. But still she left me. Why are women like this? Why?”
My real question is Why wasn’t there things you wouldn’t do? Why didn’t you have any financial boundaries?
She was your girlfriend. Keyword there is friend. Is a friend a wife? Does a friend become a wife just because she is a girl?
The other problem is boys and man out there don’t listen. Many men have cried and lots of them continue to cry because of this deception in love.
The deception that you have to prove your love or prove your manhood by first taking care of a woman before marrying her.
It’s like saying a woman should give you sex to prove that she loves you. Or take your hurting love bite on her neck maybe to prove she would still love you even if you turned out to be a vampire.
It’s like saying a woman should first give you babies before marrying her to prove that she can be a good mother to your children.
Women who demand you to empty your pockets as proof of your love are exactly like those types of man. They are using you.
They are NOT dating for love, they are NOT even dating for the future that they are talking about.
Some girls are dating you to eat what they can’t eat at home and to visit places they have never been. You are dating for love, but they are dating for fundraising.
– MOFFAT MACHINGURA
If you really love a woman, only prove it by marrying her. This “Husbanding” girls you haven’t married is more a proof of foolishness than it is a proof of love.
Calm yourself down. The money you make as a bachelor is yours to start a business or build your own home.
Years from now you will find you have absolutely nothing because you were renting two homes: One for you and another for a person you were not even married to.
If you have too much money, please go build your parents a house. Or your younger brother’s.
You are still single. Bless your family.
Buy her presents, take her out, take care of her hair, and spoil her – but do it for the reason that she loves you, you love her, and NOT because you are trying to buy her love.
Do it out of a desire to make her blush and smile, rather than the fear of losing her.
To Women: It’s easy to be selfish. But love is generous. When a man spends on you, spend also on him. When he orders lunch, order the drinks.
You don’t have to do much, and it doesn’t mean spend equal amounts.
Returning money favours with money favours is the greatest way to show you are not a money sucker and you are genuinely interested in making the friendship in your relationship grow.
To everyone: If you want to be someone’s partner, then you got to give because taking is easy.
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