Ms Cyprah

Q. A very good friend suspected that her partner is up to no good. When he had a shower, she looked into his mobile and discovered that he was exchanging saucy picture text messages with some girl. Firstly, do you think its right to touch your partner’s mobile/his things. Secondly, would you forgive him/her?

A. No, not at any time. Just because two people come together in a relationship does not make them clones of each other or make them into a two headed person. They are still individuals deserving of privacy and respect, above all. 


Wherever someone feels the need to search their partner’s things, you will find much distrust, discourtesy, jealousy and insecurity. Yet one cannot be too insecure in a relationship otherwise they gradually become intrusive, interfering, possessive and dictatorial. No one person can ever fulfil everything a partner needs. So the more space couples are given in their relationships to thrive and develop, the better that relationship would be. It allows for breathing room and the person to know that they are not being ’spied upon’. 



So what if he has a few ’saucy’ picture texts? Many women make the mistake of believing that once they marry someone or settle down with them, they can change that person from how they were. But that is pie in the sky hope because marriage or a relationship is not about being a different person, being in a prison or doing things differently. The only new thing required in that relationship are commitment and respect from both partners. If there is full commitment there will be appropriate behaviour between the parties. And if there is respect, there will also be trust, love and appreciation. 



Moreover, would we like someone searching our things behind our back? Once we deny someone else their privacy and respect in a relationship, we are heading for trouble because nothing can survive under possessiveness and insecurity. If you suspect your partner is not being honest, the best thing is communication and discussion, in case something is missing from the partnership. One should always forgive, especially where there has been no direct affair involved. 



More important, a relationship is a two way process. If someone is looking outward, 9 times out of 10, something is missing from the home for that person which is not being addressed. Only facing up to some home truths will change the situation

Q. If I needed a shoulder to cry on, would you give me yours? If I called you at 3 o’clock in the morning to say my little child is sick, would you rush over to help or just tell me to call 911 and hang up?

A. I would like to believe that I am an excellent friend to others, according to my values and efforts, but friendship is not dictated by expectations of what should constitute ‘good’ friendship. The best friendships are unconditional, no expectations, except what the moment or context dictates. It means that each person gets the chance to play to their strengths rather than being expected to do what the other person wants just because they define friendship according to their singular or selfish way.

The best friends accept their friends as they are, warts and all. They do not wish them to be clones or behave in similar ways. There was a lady who I was close to for many years whose friendship broadly consisted of a few calls on the phone and the odd meet-ups to go to the club. One would question what kind of a superficial friendship that might be. But one day, in an emergency trip involving my daughter, she was right there for me. She took the day off and travelled the 12 hours round trip with me, always supportive, always encouraging. Yet ‘closer’ friends were nowhere to be seen at a time when I really needed someone most. That action was such a surprise to me.

That also taught me a valuable lesson: that we must never judge our friends just by our standards otherwise we rob them of their individuality as we tie their friendship to our needs and expectations instead of just letting it flow. When we take people as they are, instead of imposing our expectations, we actually allow them to blossom and help us in their own way, not ours. Friendship is not a competition to see who can do the most as a ‘friend’. Friendship is about value and when we truly value someone we don’t expect them to show why they deserve that value. They just automatically merit it as people.

I am a writer and motivator. I would be there to motivate and encourage you in my own way, and perhaps do it much better than someone who doesn’t have my skills. Whereas another person who is good in a crisis will probably not think anything of being there at 3 am to help. Everyone is different, and by allowing people to be the kind of friend THEY want, not what we want, we will find some fantastic gems in people. A friend shouldn’t have to ‘prove’ anything to us about friendship except simply to be there for us when they feel it is right.

How do you want it to be expressed to you? Which way of expression do you find more meaningful and romantic?

I love to hear the words ‘I Love You’, either face to face or over a telephone. It is the most beautiful statement of intent in a relationship, especially when said in front of a person where you can see the sincerity on that person’s face and see the love in their eyes. Yet many people find those words hard to express because they fear how the recipient will react.

It seems that most of the discrepancy between couples when expressing their love comes down to the type of person they are and how they see that expression taking shape. Some people like to show their love with gifts. They find it hard to say aloud and would prefer to let an item of love express that feeling for them. Other people believe that doing things for their loved ones should show their feelings enough and so they don’t have to say it. Worse still, they probably feel embarrassed being openly told “I Love You” or being given gifts, and might mistakenly believe that the other party doesn’t love them enough because they are not doing similar things to match.

“I Love You” is very poignant and beautiful, but many people also fear its consequences, just in case they say it to someone who then expects great things of them. So, sadly, they clam up. Or they might believe that uttering the immortal line ties them into a relationship forever and so they stay mum, robbing the friendship of its magic. But saying ‘I Love You’ does not predict anything about the future. It is mainly about the present and the depth of feeling we have for another significant person at this stage. It simply reflects our feelings for that moment in time.

In a week’s time you might not feel you love that person, for whatever reason. But just for that magical moment, ‘I Love You’ seems so right and should be shouted from the rooftops with joy!

How controlling can lead to abuse

Q. Me and my partner have been together 5 years and in that time I have lost all but a couple of my freinds. If my friends come around my partner is rude and arrogant and usually ignores them and goes into the room and watches TV. If he is drinking he will talk to them but be cruel and immature. If we get invited places he walks in like he has a chip on his shoulder and acts like he can’t wait to get out and is sometimes aggressive towards people. I dont know if it’s too late but should I try and see my friends without him? Should I go to places without him? He just likes to have our life at home and thats it!

A.This is a very sad state of affairs which you would need to act upon if you wish anything different as he won’t do anything about it. Your partner is a controller and the only way he can control you is by ignoring your friends and treating them discourteously so that they will stay away from you. That is the strongest form of emotional abuse. Controllers do not like their partners to have outside contacts, not even their relatives, as it lessens their power. They tend to be lacking in social skills, are rather boorish to others and do just what they please, without thinking of the effect on their partners or the other person. The only people they care about are themselves. Your partner also sounds very insecure and seems to fear the effect your friends would have on you. So by behaving badly to them, he immediately lessens their influence and keeps you to himself to make you dependent on him and to restrict your activities.

Sadly, the answer is entirely up to you, as your partner will never change. You have allowed him to do what he pleases for so long, you have lost out completely. He has got the results he wanted because you are now increasingly isolated, which is precisely what he planned. So you have to now decide if that is the type and quality of life you wish to lead. One of the top five factors for keeping us alive longest is our social interactions and the friends we have. In fact, it is No.2 on the list, a vital ingredient of the quality of our lives. If you ignore your friends, or gradually have no friends, it will begin to cause stress for you which you might not even be aware of. Not only that, it totally limits your life experience.

Once you make your decision on the kind of life you really want, then act upon it. If you decide your friends are important, then you must see them, with or without your partner. It is very important to get on with your life in your own way as a unique human being for your own personal development. If you have to change yourself and your basic needs to please another person, he would be the wrong person for you. Those who love you will accept who you are, as you are and, most important, the things and people you value and cherish. They will encourage you in your efforts, not try to limit your world and life.

Please do something soon before you find yourself completely at your partner’s mercy because that is when physical abuse begins: when people lack support and friendship and become completely dependent on their partner for interaction. That is no way to live. It would merely deprive you of essential stimulus and keep you living in fear. Start by getting a couple of key friends on your side who could give you emotional support. Start seeing them at least once a week for coffee, drinks or whatever, to get you away from your partner. Gradually you will build your courage to do whatever you think is right for your long term relationship or your future.

I think it depends on one’s culture and perspective. If one is from a culture where marriage is seen as very important, an essential part of family life, then one would not be able to avoid getting married, otherwise a lot of people would be upset about it and one would feel excluded and rejected. But in the 21st century, where more people are remaining single or living in relationships (like in the UK) than getting married, it seems that an increasing number of people don’t care about marrying anymore and prefer to live together and many of these relationships are working.

In the UK living together has risen by 30% over the past decade, while marriage has declined, in fact to its lowest figure since 1895. It is not such a stigma anymore to live together or to have children out of wedlock, so many people now please themselves in the kind of home they have. For a variety of reasons, more people are forsaking marriages, perhaps because of a lack of commitment, or for the freedom it gives to break apart at any time without worrying about the high cost of divorce. Whatever the reason, it seems to be the trend of the future.

Personally, I was married for 39 years and enjoyed it to a great degree. I liked the security it gave, the sharing and companionship, and the feeling of belonging without having to keep wondering where the relationship is heading. I have also enjoyed my freedom since leaving the marriage and would probably not get married again, all things considered. But, a part of me believes that when we love someone, unless we are prepared to show that commitment, whether for one day or 10 years, we should be married, otherwise what is that love really about?

If I met the right person, and he wanted to get married, I would certainly consider it because it would be lovely to pledge myself to someone I want in my life, for however long it lasts. I do not need a marriage certificate to show me that I love my partner, or vice versa, neither do I need to be married to appreciate the relationship. But a marriage also allows friends and family to share in that joyous occasion by declaring our love publicly, and we are all here for each other, not simply to live in a selfish way. The public pledge together gives a very strong message about how we feel for each other and the commitment we have. So I think being married would certainly give the edge for me, though I appreciate that the choice of not being married rests with the individual.

Dating sites are public companies offering a specific service - to bring people together. They are not very private clubs with stringent membership rules. They are there for any member of the public who wishes to partake of their services. As such, they should aim to offer the same service to everyone, particularly through making participation inclusive. Currently, there are over 7 million users of dating sites in Britain, so any racism in the operations would be significant.

Most dating sites serving the UK have a choice of the colour of a partner. As they are predominantly white in membership, there is a virtual proliferation and promotion of racism against those who are not white, while encouraging them as members too. Yet that offensive choice is not necessary at all because everyone has the opportunity of screening out whom they do not like privately by ignoring certain approaches or politely declining any contacts from unwanted daters.

The worst culprits are Dating Direct (more than half of all males seem to use this option of choosing ‘White/Caucasian’) and the template used by the Times, Guardian and Telegraph dating sites which has the ridiculous anomaly of matching people up at a very high rate, yet without properly acknowledging the colour selected. How can someone wanting a white person match highly with a black person when the very act of being racist in choice would have negated that person from the very beginning?

As a Black woman who would have paid my money to use the service too, I would feel aggrieved to go into a profile which matches highly with me, only to see that the person has put “White/Caucasian” only. How on earth can I be a match for someone who wants a white partner? Surely, as that is an important requirement for some people, once they select that choice, it should make the match either very low or zero. I really cannot be an 84% match for a racist!

We are all entitled to the person of our choice, but in a mixed and diverse society, we have to ensure there is inclusion and fairness. There are three main reasons why such offensive choices are wrong and merely promote racism:

1. Every customer of any dating website deserves the same quality of service because they all pay the same fee to use it. The least one would expect is that they are not insulted by having to read profiles which are clearly exclusive and discriminatory of them. A customer is not being served if they are treated in any kind of offensive way.

2. Allowing people to make racist choices in a public forum belittles the users of that forum who do not match with the majority and treats them in a derogatory way.

3. It encourages racism in a public place, allowing it to be tolerated openly, when it would be against the law n other organisations.

There is no need to actually state a choice for colour on any dating site, unless that site specifically caters for a certain type of daters (like mixed relationships etc.), and that would be most obvious in its promotion and guidelines. Anything else is offensive and discriminatory and merely panders to the worst racism in users.

Q. Everyone has heard the old saying, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” but has anyone thought of the other side of it: all the pain and heartbreak you would save yourself if you never got attached to someone? Most normal, healthy, functioning adults require some kind of companionship that could very easily lead to love. But is it really worth it?

A. Everything we do in our lives is ‘worth it’, simply because life is a journey and we start off very green, very inexperienced and rather ignorant of it then finish up very wise, resilient and much stronger for what we have to endure. Everything we experience along the way is designed to toughen us up. We cannot avoid pain and hurt no more than we can avoid pleasure because they are two sides of the same coin. Nature is about balance. If we only had pleasure, we would not be able to deal with the crises in our lives and if we had only pain, we would be very weak in health and fortitude. Everything we go through also teaches us something.

The reason why some people suffer more pain from their relationships than others is because they tend to blame their partners for any disappointments and repeat the negative patterns in their behaviour with others down the line instead of reviewing what went wrong, learning the lessons from it and being an even better person for the next connection. Many people don’t really know what they want and often settle for second best until they get burnt later on. Others prefer to live in denial about their lives and so tend to keep getting what they’ve always got. It is better to love than not at all because pleasure always comes first in the relationship. One has to go through pleasure to get to that pain. Not loving might keep away the pain, but that is not living either, as there would be no pleasure too, just a fossilised human being wallowing in their fear without any real life or joy.

Every experience in life has a purpose - to help us to be the best we can all round. When we deliberately resist experiences and fear to take risks we remain stunted in our growth without exposure to the new challenges in life which are essential for our development and evolution. It doesn’t take much to be an onlooker in life and do nothing. But the person who does nothing is usually nothing too, in fact rather insignificant and very bland, in the eyes of others.

Q. I love my fiance and want to be with him forever. But the advice I need is to know if it’s normal to think about some of the things I think about. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be single again, to have the excitement to just go and do what I please. The excitement to sleep with whom I want. I wonder if there is someone even better for me out there. These thoughts just crowd me sometimes.

A. If you wonder about being single, it means you need change, or a new challenge, in your life. You are bored with your life and are trying to convince yourself, by saying how much you love your boyfriend, that you are happy. But you clearly are not. When people get together they forget about natural evolution in their lives. We are forever growing, every day, week and month. So the person you were when you met your boyfriend is not the person you are now. You will always need new challenges and stimulation to be a whole person.

Stop resisting that change and seek it. If you are not married, then the whole world is there for you to explore on your terms, not someone else’s. If you do nothing about those feelings, you will regret it. Further down the line, when you are older and things might be much worse, you will wish you had acted! Take note of those thoughts going round in your head. If you were truly happy and secure, they would not be there. It could be that you are simply missing your life with your friends, especially at such a young age, and that can make you wistful.

Perhaps the best thing to do is to start going out, say, once a week with your pals, to give you and your boyfriend some space and not make the relationship so claustrophobic. You probably won’t feel so closed in and will begin to feel that you are not missing out on anything. Then you won’t feel the need to leave your friend in order to feel better. Otherwise you will regret this time of your life as you watch other women having the freedom you are now yearning for. Good luck.

No one should stay in a bad relationship for four main reasons:

First, whatever you are experiencing in that marriage will make you worse in anxiety, stress and ill health over time. We are not meant to be constantly unhappy. We are here to be happy so that when there is a crisis, we can then react with more confidence and skill. When our bodies are constantly up in adrenalin and negativity, it erodes our capabilities and gradually makes us stressed. Eventually, stress can kill.

Second, a relationship is supposed to make you happy, not sad. Two people do not get together to make each other unhappy, to argue all day long, or to be nasty to each other. The purpose of any relationship is love, affection, communication, respect and enhancing the quality of each other’s lives. By pooling resources, people get a better existence. If your relationship is not serving that purpose, then it is not a relationship at all. It is just two people living together for convenience, and at the expense of each other. That is no way to live.

Third, the longer you stay in that state, the more unhappy you will get, the more you will lose your own ability to love as you gradually get bitter, angry and resentful and the more you will be like your partner. You are not getting the results you desire in the relationship because you are waiting for him to change (as you say ‘he refuses to fix it’). But the only person who can ever change satisfactorily is yourself. No one else. Once you change your behaviour, the other person will change too. Why should he change if you are treating him the same, accepting his attitude and reinforcing that bad behaviour too? There is no payoff for him, in his eyes, so he will just make you promises and keep doing what he has always done, just as you are doing what you have always done too. But in such a situation you will only both keep getting what you’ve always got. Your future matters the most. It is not about him. It is about you and your child, so it is up to YOU to make decisions about your life, whatever the consequences are, and do them. He would have to change too because you wouldn’t be acting the same way anymore!

Finally, the bad relationship you are experiencing will also affect the emotional well being of your child. Your daughter is learning by your actions and is not being exposed to a lot of love just now because kids are more sensitive to parental unhappiness and conflict, no matter how you might try to hide it. It is best to be in a loving situation by yourself than a constantly conflicting one with someone else which your child has to be part of. It will gradually damage her own development too if all she has to see is your unhappiness and his bad behaviour.

If you are unhappy, your mind is trying to tell you something: that you are ready for a new start and a new life. Once you have talked a lot and there is no change, it is time to act. Nothing else will give you what you want except action on your part. We all deserve happiness and if you stay in that relationship, everything will deteriorate around you rapidly because nothing can get better in such a situation. Furthermore, you will merely be fighting against yourself by ignoring your own needs. Leaving a bad marriage takes courage and is certainly not easy to do when one thinks of all the practicalities and where children are involved. But as one who had to leave a bad marriage after 33 years, I can guarantee you that once you make the decision, the doors will open for you and it won’t be half as bad as remaining where you are, believe me.

However, only you can make that decision and in your own time. Good luck in whatever you do, but you will be fine.

Q. I like this guy who is my co-employee.. He’s not that good looking, but he’s smart and really sweet to all. Every time he comes to my desk my heart is really happy. I’m afraid of what I really feel for him because it’s been 3 yrs since I haven’t had a boyfriend. My last one left when I was 3 months pregnant and I don’t want to be hurt this time. If I go into a relationship now, I want it to be the last. If I have a relationship this time I would like him to be my husband, who will accept and love my child. Is it okay to say to him that I like him?

A. A question for you: Would you say you were exactly like every other woman out there? If your answer is ‘NO’, why are you judging this new man on the same lines as your ex-boyfriend? Every person is unique and deserves a chance to prove themselves in life before being judged. Secondly, you must move forward from your last relationship and start to think positively, otherwise you will simply get what you expect. For example, if you keep expecting someone to steal from you, they won’t disappoint you in the end! If we expect negative things, that’s all we’ll have too. So move out of your past. That’s gone. Be cautious, by all means, but don’t be paranoid that everyone will want to hurt you.

Life is too short to do nothing about your feelings. You deserve some happiness so, if this guy makes you feel good, just say hello to him without expecting him to marry you! Don’t tell him you like him until you get to know him better. Stop burdening your situation with fearful thoughts of what might happen. You might even die tomorrow, and then? Just take everything in your stride and start a conversation, then let it unfold in front of you. He probably likes you too and just needs an opening, but it also takes time to know someone and their desires. And, if he doesn’t seem to like you the way you like him, no big deal. Someone else will come along soon. Just accept it and wait for Mr Right. If you allow people into your life without pre-judging them, you could be in for some wonderful surprises.

Don’t keep saying what you want from a relationship. That’s how people get hurt by expecting perfection, or expecting people to act to expectations, and human beings do not behave like that. You will just keep getting hurt if you expect only what you want. Just allow any friendship to develop first, then gradually see what happens, or you might frighten guys away by being too intense. The best relationships are not those that we try to control, but those we allow to unfold in their own way. We tend to get what we want not by forcing things, but letting them happen, and often when we least expect it too.