Dear Agatha,
I have a problem with my spouse based on lack of trust, and it has shattered our relationship. I don’t trust him neither does he trust me. This lack of trust has caused so much suspicion that it is affecting the quality of our relationship.
I have tried to erase whatever reason he has to be distrustful of me by being transparent in anything I do but he seems so doubtful of me.
Now he has sent me away from his house, even though he isn’t faithful and sincere in his dealings with women who have succeeded in ruining our three-year-old marriage. He wants to go ahead with divorce and I have not really made up my mind about it for now.
What do I do now?
Okoro.
Dear Okoro,
Don’t go ahead with the divorce proceedings until you are both sure there is nothing more you can do to help your marriage get back on the right track.
Use the opportunity provided by this break to do some soul searches. Where did you go wrong? If you say he doesn’t trust you, it means you, like him, have broken the bond of trust and friendship in the marriage?
What did you do to bring about his lack of trust of you? Did you, out of pains, also go out of your marriage to do what you shouldn’t do? Frankly speaking, a marriage without trust is like a house without foundation. Have you ever seen a human being without the firm support of a bone frame? Without trust as the frame of marriage, it is lifeless. Whatever is the issue that brought your marriage to its knees must be serious and requires absolute honesty as well as efforts on your part to bring it back to life.
While I appreciate it hurts massively to know that your partner has been cheating on you, men can be excused by the society for such indiscretion while a woman would never be forgiven. This is because the body of a woman is built to house while that of the man is built to plant. The body of the woman is sacred, it hold the secret of life because it gives life to the world. The delicate nature of the role of the woman to life makes it abominable for her to open the sacredness of her body to any man once she is married. There is no over-emphasising the importance of her role in the life of her and family. This is why she must never do anything to destroy the trust of her sacredness in the life of her family because to do so is to call to question the legitimacy of the family unit.
The woman’s body holds the secret to her husband’s pride and honour. Her body not only gives authority, legality but also right to her children, the right to their paternal heritage. Once the trust is broken, she not only gives everybody reason to question the legitimacy of the children but their claims to be members of the family they claim to be theirs.
By so doing, she exposes her children to the ridicule of every mischievous mind. This is what lack of trust does to a woman and her children.
When a woman goes outside her home for an extra marital affair, she is not just putting her own reputation on the line but that of her entire children as well.
This is why a woman must never allow the pains of her emotional bereavement in her marriage push her into any compromising situation.
Can you forgive yourself of the offence you committed in the process of justifying your actions against his treatment of you? The healing process begins from our own solid realisation of our own inadequacies. This way, it becomes easier for us to accept that imperfection is the heritage of the human race.
You have to first of all make this peace with and within yourself to acquire the understanding and needed strength to fight for your man. To do this, you must want the marriage and him like never before. You must acquire the emotional strength and maturity to forgive him of his own weaknesses as well as the appreciation to make him forget all these other women.
To achieve this, you must know why he seems to go after these women, why he has found it almost impossible to remain faithful to you.
The best place to start from is the very beginning of your meeting. Has he always been like that, you finding excuses to justify his behaviour? Has be ever been faithful to you if yes, when did he change? What are your own contributions to his behaviour? How much have you changed since your marriage vis-à-vis your look, attitude, character as well as values?
What is your housekeeping like? Can you cook him an unforgettable meal? Apart from the physical relationship, do you have emotional and spiritual relationship, which infuses friendship to transform a relationship? You have been married for three years, how would you describe your marriage, happy or frustrating? Do you love your man enough to make you fight to have him back or are you of the view that you are better off without him? Is your marriage blessed with children? If yes, the interest of the children too matters and if not, is that why you are having problems?
These are issues you must tackle before setting on the mission of recovery. Admittedly, with you out of the house, the issue is going to be a lot difficult to resolve unless you have the support of his family and friends. These are the groups of persons who can conveniently mount a pressure on him to change his mind.
Since asking you to quit his home, have you tried getting his family or friends to intervene in the matter? If not, why? No matter the situation between you and them before, go to them to help you speak with him and get him to do a re-think. This is the time for you to be honest in your situation and thinking.
Don’t go back if you know deep down that you made a mistake. Most times, we discover too late that a terrible mistake has been made in the choices we made; even though the society expects us to continue to live with the mistake to please it, it gets to a point when it becomes unbearable.
You and this man are the ones at the centre of it all; you know when you can no longer tolerate the situation. Once you both get to that point, the best is for you to go your different ways to avoid both of you doing something monumentally stupid and fatal. Be honest, if you cannot tolerate each other again, don’t go back to him to please anybody.
But if you feel deep down, in spite of the current situation between both of you, don’t be discouraged by your previous attempts at getting him to trust you. Bear in mind that once lost, trust is always difficult to re-build. It takes patience as well as an openness of mind to kick-start it again.
Things can still work out between the two of you, learn to give it your best shot for the sake of your peace of mind as well as happiness.
Learn to pray too because you need the help of the author of marriage, God, to make things work well. If you started without Him, this is the right time for you to begin again with Him.
Good luck.
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