Hi Sis Noe
MY mother found condoms in my bag while she was cleaning my bedroom but she has not confronted me about them. I am a 23-year-old girl and my parents are strong Christians. Should I talk to her about the condoms? — Worried.
Reply
While you may be second-guessing yourself, rest assured that you were not stupid to keep the condoms. On the contrary, it is smart to have condoms in case your man turns up for sex without any. If you are certain your mum found the condoms, then it’s possible she already knows that you are having sex. The next step would be to choose how (or if) you would like to broach the topic.
Parents can be a wealth of advice and support in helping you navigate your relationships and even your sexual health. While it sounds like this scenario is not what you had wanted, this may be a healthy opportunity to be open with your parents about your sexuality.
However, depending on your parents’ views on sex and birth control, this may be something you choose to avoid talking about with them altogether.
While confronting the topic head on might lead to a productive dialogue, there are a multitude of reasons why this conversation may not happen at all. Parents are often just as nervous as their kids when it comes to discussing sex.
For this reason, your mother may never even bring it up, and it might just fizzle out.
You also mentioned that your parents are “strong Christians”. In some circumstances, talking about sex with parents is more than just awkward — they may react with threats or punishment.
If you think that discussing sex with your parents may negatively impact your life in a serious way, you may choose to not mention it. In this situation, if you want to talk to someone about your sex life, you may find it helpful to talk with a trusted family member, friend, or health care provider.
Hi Sis Noe
I broke up with my boyfriend because he beats me up. He is violent and aggressive. He was once arrested for beating me up. I broke up with him but he is saying he is going for counselling and wants me back. I don’t know what to do.
Do you think he will change? — Confused.
Reply
Relationships can be complex, and even more so when they are abusive. Abusive relationships are not bad all the time — there often are a lot of good times that can seem to outweigh the verbal, emotional, or physical abuse leading to people staying with their partner.
However, even the presence of those good moments doesn’t mean that it’s a healthy relationship for any of the involved parties.
To answer your question about whether someone can stop being violent, there is really no way of definitively knowing. With that being said, ultimately, the decision to go back to him or not is up to you.
Violence in a relationship often encompasses more than physical violence — it’s rooted in trying to exert power and control over a partner. Because of that it can also include emotional and psychological abuse.
This can take the form of criticising a partner, putting them down, trying to isolate them from friends, or keeping tabs on where they are at all times. Although your boyfriend loves you and knows that what he did to you was wrong, the fact remains: someone whom you love and trust hurt you, which can be painful and difficult to understand.
There may be hope in knowing that he wants to change his violent behaviour because in order to change he must be willing to do so and also have the coping skills to know how to do just that.
A violence intervention programme, such as the one your boyfriend is in, could help. Unfortunately, research shows that patterns of violence are often deeply rooted and can be difficult to change.
It can take years for someone to alter violent behaviour, and they must make a concerted and consistent effort. As your boyfriend is getting help and counselling, you might consider what support would be most helpful to you.
Making a major decision can be daunting, but talking to people to help clarify your feelings and needs may help you figure out what decision is best.
Hi Sis Noe
I am in love with a good man. He has a good job, he is handsome and my relatives love him but the problem is that he is married. He promised to leave his wife but up to now he has not. — Help.
Reply
So he is Mr Perfect — he is handsome, your relatives love him and he is a good man but wait . . . he is married! Why is it that you thought he might dump his wife and marry you? He was upfront with you from the start.
Perhaps you had a hidden agenda, just pretending the wife bit was okay initially? Let us say he will leave his wife and marry you, would you trust him as a husband? What’s to stop him from doing the same to you? This man is never going to leave his wife, the sooner you realise it the better.
Dump him and find yourself a single guy who will love you wholeheartedly.
Hi Sis Noe
My boyfriend does not like bathing. At times he goes for days without cleaning himself. I discovered this when he moved in with me. It is turning me off and it is now affecting our sex life. He is confused when I refuse to have sex with him. — Help me.
Reply
Cleanliness is next to godliness but clearly your man likes to hang out where angels fear to tread! He sounds like a good guy, albeit a smelly one, and apart from the greasy hands and ruined bed sheets, he could be a keeper.
The real issue here is what you need to address. That would be honest communication.
Trying not to hurt his feelings is creating insecurity in him, and unhappiness and dirty sheets for you.
You need to sit him down and have a talk, preferably over candles and some bubbles — the bath kind! Tell him all that you love and admire about him, reinforce his good qualities.
Tell him that you would like to always feel closely connected to him but that you are afraid that his bad habit is driving you away from him. Tell him that cleanliness is important to you and you find it a real turn on when he gets into bed freshly showered.
If he doesn’t feel attacked he will more than likely soap up, especially with the warm reception he is bound to find afterwards. Rather than jumping to all sorts of imagined conclusions, just be honest. It sounds like this relationship is worth it.