My Foreigner Wife Is Dating Her Father’s Friend

Dear Agatha,
I always find your response to people’s questions very educative. I will need your help and advice on some issues in my relationship.
I got married four years ago to a foreigner. A year after we got married, I got to know by accident that she was having an affair with her father’s friend. I found out when she travelled to her country for holidays and I had to go through her emails. 

I found the mails both of them exchanged, the expression of lovers sentiments and emotions by the two of them. 

In one of the mails sent him by my wife, she told this man how much she missed him. I printed out the mails and showed my wife on her return. She admitted to the relationship and begged me to shield her.  I obliged her and kept quiet about it. 

However, six months later she started behaving funny, she left home for four days because of a little problem we had and left my son and I at home. She came back only after I called her parents who I think ordered her to come back.
After we settled the problem, she told me she would need to go and visit her parents to enable her unwind from the tension generated by the misunderstanding between the two of us. She promised to stay for only a month. She left in January and till now is yet to return. Every month she asks for permission to spend an extra month. The last time I spoke with her demanding to know why she has abandoned her matrimonial home for this length of time, as well as for her immediate return, she told me she was doing a course and will only return when she finishes. She ended up hanging up the phone on me.
I am sick and tired but I am just taking it easy for now to avoid making a costly mistake which is why I want your help. 

Agatha, what do I do next?  

Luiz.

Dear Luiz, 

What is preventing you from travelling to wherever she is to find out why she is refusing to come back to you? Surely, something of interest must be keeping her back. It is also important you know what the position of her parents in all this is.  After all, when she left home the excuse she gave was that she was going to spend a month with her parents. And if the one month has extended to six months, you reserve the right to know why they have decided to keep her with them and even allowed your wife go for a course without your express permission. 

This matter has gone beyond you and this woman to her family. If her family isn’t giving her the support to stay away from her home, there is no way she would have stayed away from her marital responsibilities for such a length of time. 

It is clear from what is happening that there are issues within your marriage that you as the head of the home are not giving all the seriousness they deserve. 

Irrespective of where she is from, the marriage rules are clearly defined the world over. A woman once married stays with her husband and not her parents.

When a woman persistently craves for the company of others more than her husband, it means there is something missing in her marriage.

This is something a telephone conversation will not be able to resolve. You must see her to know why she has abandoned her home, went for a course without first discussing it with you and her feelings towards being married to you. 

Plead with her to be faithful to you. Insist she tells you the truth; that if tired of the marriage, she should be bold enough to let you know instead of fishing for excuses to end the marriage. 

The obvious lack of longing on her part for you is a dangerous sign of lack of interest in the marriage. Given her closeness to her father’s friend, you must find out if the relationship has been reactivated for her to stay away for this long. 

Sincerely, you have my sympathy but you must, after discussing with her, take a firm step to avoid too much emotional injury to yourself. The danger of you allowing her and her family control the marriage would be the lack of respect for you and erosion of your self-esteem as a man. 

Your visit would also provide you with the opportunity of meeting with her parents and dispelling whatever negative impression they have of you. Man to man, confront your father-in-law and demand to know why he is giving support to his daughter to ruin her marriage. The problem here isn’t as much as the lady’s but her parents who appear to be backing her way of life. Had either the father or mother, insisted she went back to her husband, explaining the slippery terrain marriage is, perhaps, her conduct would have been moderated along the line of honour and responsibility to you and her child. 

If the result of your meeting with them isn’t satisfactory, involve your family as long as there was proper marriage rite. Your people have a right to ask for the whereabouts of the woman they came to seek her hand in marriage. Whatever the knotty issue is, it helps to bring it to the open with a view of finding the right kind of solution to it. 

Where you have made mistakes, be man enough to admit it. There is no marriage without issues but a lot depends on the willingness of the two parties to move forward. If you are prepared to overlook her moral behaviour; forgive her, let it come from you and not because someone or people pressured you into doing it. And if she is unwilling to come back to you, don’t force her into it. Allow her the freedom she craves because from what you narrated, you lack the kind of authority to keep this woman in check. 

One salient point to note is the thorough understanding of your cultural differences. If you are still interested in her, in your own interest, make out time to know what the culture of her people is and her family in particular. Unless you both know what to avoid as well as what is forbidden, you will keep having issues in your marriage. Chances are what we consider to be taboos here may just be a way of life in her country, hence the need for clarity when going across the boarder to get a spouse. I am sure if both of you had made the effort to discuss each other’s expectations, whatever it is that is bringing about this tension would have been ironed out before now.

Sincerely, at this stage, you must be prepared for the worst scenario. It is either she comes back or not. When a woman leaves her home for six months without giving a definite time of her return, a lot of thoughts must have been invested by her to get to this point; therefore dangerous for your emotional health as a man to put in too much hope on her coming back to you.

This is the right time for you to get close to God since He is the only one who has the powers to help you overcome.

Good luck.