Assalam o alaikum,

I am 30 years old and married (love marriage) for six years with four kids. Recently I started talking to a female colleague who previously also took help from me discussing her personal issues with her boyfriend. That man used to treat her badly. I always advised her to leave him and find someone else. But since one or two months she had been very depressed and she discussed this with me too. I told her that everything in life is not about love and she should leave him and find happiness with a friend.

She then talked to me often on social media and I don’t know why, but I offered to be her friend. I was not just feeling pity for her. I didn’t want her to be sad as she is a very good person and a very good colleague as well. I am a very busy person, but I started taking out time for her, to sit with her and talk to her about her problems on the phone. I also didn’t let my wife know about this friendship, as she is very possessive.

In time I came to know that she liked me in another sense. I tried to counsel her that her thinking is not good, she should think straight and also that I am already married. Instead of listening to me she started telling me that I also have the same feelings for her but that I couldn’t say so. I don’t know what I felt but I didn’t think it was love. We decided not to talk for one day but I called her myself and told her that I missed her a lot. Ultimately, I confessed to her that she was right and I loved her too.

I am now treating her like my girlfriend. All this is not known to my wife and my family. I talk to her during office and duty times only. It is not the case that I don’t love my wife and my kids. I have always loved them. They are my life. But I don’t understand this second love? I am now deeply attached to her and I don’t want to hurt her. She loves me and I think I love her too. I am very much confused. How can I love two persons at the same time? Auntie, please solve my problem.

Confused

Dear Straighten up,

Auntie cannot solve your problem. Only you can. And the best way to do this is to decide today that you are going to love and be loyal to only your wife and your children. You say you love your wife, but the willing way that you got involved in this office romance, shows that you did everything to sabotage your marriage. You need to ask yourself why you did this and what is lacking in your marriage that you are seeking elsewhere. You have to be honest with yourself, get to the root of the problem and start working on rebuilding your relationship with your wife.

At the same time, I hope you do realise that the decision to reconnect with your wife and kids and to end this romance is the best one and for the highest good of everyone involved. Any other decision or distraction will only land you in a messy soup. From now on, you will make a conscious effort to protect your wife’s dignity because you have to go beyond what you feel and desire, for the sake of your family.

Also be an adult and understand that just because you have feelings for someone, is not reason enough to act on them.

And finally, figure out a way to avoid this woman in your office. Find another job for yourself or find one for her. For the longer you two keep bumping into each other, the harder it will be to stop your feelings.

Dear Auntie Agni,

I will turn 27 this year and currently there are no signs of any marriage for me. I am educated and work and manage my house independently. There had been good proposals before, but I declined because either I was not ready for marriage then or because I just didn’t like that person enough to spend my life with him. With some, it just did not work out even though I would have agreed. Maybe I was not good enough for them and that’s alright because everyone has a preference.

I do not want to marry just for the sake of it. It is not to say that that I am looking for an ideal or a fairytale marriage, but at least I would like someone who I am comfortable with and with whom my mindset matches. I just have a mom and I know she is worried and wants me to be married off at the earliest. People ask questions and I just don’t know how to answer them. I don’t want anyone to say that I rejected proposals; it makes me sound arrogant. I also have started feeling hopeless and I do feel scared of loneliness if I have to be alone later in my life. Please help me in lifting my spirits and telling me how I should respond to people when they insensitively question me.

Losing Hope

Dear Hope,

At 27 years of age, you are not over the hill. It may seem like a lot of girls around you are married, but there are probably quite a few who are not. In any case you cannot look for a good rishta, the way a hunter hunts for a lion. Marriage and rishtas happen when they happen.

Instead of fretting over when you will find that special someone (which is beyond your and anyone else’s control), it really is much easier to spend more time focusing on yourself. Ignore the people who ask you awkward questions and understand that they do it because they have sorry lives. Because things are going seriously wrong somewhere in their world, they want to make everyone else miserable too. Avoid these Negative Nabeels and Nabilas and don’t respond to them. They want a rise out of you and they want to make you feel miserable and so the best thing to do is to do and say nothing and look as if nothing happened. In fact, carry on looking normal. That should really frustrate them.

Also a point you may want to consider is that if such people are married and still asking you awkward questions, what does that tell you about marriage? Yes marriage doesn’t automatically fix the issues that people have. Despite the impressions that our culture gives of marriage being a cure all, it really isn’t.

So stop waiting for marriage and get in touch with your passion, instead. If you don’t know what your passion is decide that you will start figuring it out today. This is the time to do this, while you are still relatively carefree. Set out to do the things that you enjoy and which make you happy. Be fully engaged with life. The more you truly enjoy life and the more you connect with whatever excites you, the more likely it is that life will unfold beautifully and in unexpected ways for you.

Auntie will not reply privately to any query. Please send concise queries to: auntieagni@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, March 29th, 2015

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