Dear Agatha,
What I am about to share with you is shameful and very complex indeed. Yet it is a situation that I can no longer handle on my own due to the several implications of what I have done.
I got married five months ago. On the night of my spinster’s party, I agreed for the last time to sleep with the man I was to marry. I knew I wasn’t too safe but I did anyway without using protection. We didn’t get married because my parents didn’t like him due to his family background.
My mother as a matter of fact called him a gold digger, hence the recourse to my second boyfriend at the time. Although he is okay, but my heart and soul belong firmly to the former.
Unfortunately, the car conveying my husband and I home from the reception venue of our wedding ceremony had an accident. Nothing happened to me but he was injured that he had to spend the first month of our wedding in the hospital. We didn’t get to consummate our wedding until about six weeks after. And before then, we hadn’t made love for almost three weeks because of the wedding preparations. I menstruated three days after we made love.
At first, I didn’t know the signs of malaria I thought I was having nothing to do with pregnancy. Knowing the phobia I have for hospitals and doctors, I ignored his prompting to go for malaria tests after self-treatment appeared to be ineffective.
Eventually I was forced to go to the family doctor when it became very obvious that it was more than I can handle. It was there I discovered I was pregnant.
From the date of the pregnancy I knew without being told that it wasn’t my husband’s.
Since my husband was waiting to hear the results of the test, especially since I can’t keep the information about the pregnancy away from him, I told him. He was happy. I had to lie about the age of the pregnancy to give me time to think of what to do with it.
Agatha, from that date, I am five months gone. Even as I write, my flow hasn’t stopped. The doctors say in some women, it is normal. I have gone to another doctor, a good friend of mine who in the past helped me out of difficult situations like this to terminate this pregnancy, but declined, recalling the warning given me the last time I did. He told me I would be lucky to get pregnant again and that if I did, it might be my only chance of having a child as my womb has become weak due to repeated abortions. He also said I could die if I attempted aborting this child.
I went to see another medical friend of mine who also confirmed what he said after examining me.
My worry is what do I tell my husband when the baby is born full term? Even if I succeed in lying to him about the age of the baby, I can’t deceive his mother, a retired matron, as well as his elder sister, a doctor.
I love my former boyfriend and would always love him, but don’t want to lose the influence of my husband’s family. His family name is one that will help open very difficult doors and help me build my home interior business.
Agatha, how do I get out of this before I am found out? Do I insist he is the father of the child citing the time before the wedding as the time I conceived the child? I want time to establish myself before saying anything about the paternity of the child. Please I need help.
Timilehin.
Dear Timilehin,
I can only advise someone whose mind is really seeking help, one ready to listen to the voice of reason, not one whose mind is made up and has an agenda to accomplish. From all indices, you have made up your mind on what to do so why bother seeking counselling?
Much as I suspect you will not take to it, I want you to consider the interest of your unborn child who at the end would be the victim of your manipulations. This child may never forgive you for denying it the right to the father and the peace of its security.
From all that you have said, you are not in love with either of these men. Yes, you may have deeper feelings for your former boyfriend, but not enough to make any form of sacrifices for him or what you both shared. In the first place, you wouldn’t have allowed yourself to be persuaded to marry another man if what you feel for your boyfriend ever ran deep. You left him because you saw an opportunity to enhance yourself economically through the influence of your husband’s name.
The first step to finding a meaningful solution to your problem is to admit the truth to yourself. Be bold enough to declare what you really want from life. This way, it would be easier for you to make or accept meaningful solutions.
Between this child’s happiness and the material gains you hope to have through this family, which one do you think would be more beneficial to you at the end, the coldness of money or the warm love of your child?
It is essential you begin to think about all those tomorrows when the decisions of today would begin to bear fruits. Although the doctors are not God, but what if this child eventually turns out to be yours, can you withstand the consequences of this child rejecting you and everything you represent?
Yes, the attraction of his family’s wealth and influence may look great now, but what if they discover you to be fraud before you even have the time to tap into their wealth and power? Don’t forget the mother being an experienced matron can tell with expert eyes the age of a pregnancy, so also can the elder sister, a doctor. Has it occurred to you that they can let drop the age of the pregnancy in the presence of your husband who in turn will argue that you are not that far gone given the age of the pregnancy you gave him?
Do you know this could instigate suspicions from your husband and in-laws and a reconfirmation examination ordered. What about the doctor, he too can easily divulge the information you are trying so hard to keep to your husband since he has no way of knowing what you are trying to keep from your husband.
He has as much right to ask the doctor for information about his child as you. In the first place, the doctor who confirmed you pregnant is a family doctor, one known to him and possibly his whole family. There is little information concerning your medical history that you can keep away from your husband and his people if they want it. You can only keep such information from him if he were a boyfriend, not the one picking the medical bills.
Because you have already lied about the age of the pregnancy, there is no way you can insist on another age and make him accept. The fact that you came straight from the hospital and gave him the age of pregnancy would make it difficult for him to accept you made a mistake. So, forget that line you are contemplating because it would only expose the more what you are trying to hide.
Even if he wanted to listen to you before, forgive you and cover up your shame, the fact that you were ready to lie your way through his life, foist someone else’s child on him, and also force him into living with all your past mistakes as well as denying the chance of having a child of his own through your own careless living, would at the end make pardon difficult for him to grant you.
Whether you tell him now or not, he would still find out the truth so why not face it now by telling him while you still have the chance of going back to your former boyfriend? He may not have the money your husband’s family has now, but with your support and love; he may come to be richer and more influential than you ever imagined.
Yes, you took a careless and costly decision, but it would be more fatal if you refuse to face the consequences of your mistake now. If for nothing else let him remember you as one brave woman instead of a gold-digger, one who is only interested in his money and not in his welfare.
Open up to him. The worst that can happen is for him to withdraw his interest from the marriage. But if both of you are destined to be together, you will both find a way of resolving the issue between the two of you. Most men are ready to cooperate with the women in their lives provided the woman is honest. By giving him the right to make a choice, you free yourself from the repercussion of his anger and rejection.
What will destroy you isn’t the fact that you are carrying another man’s child, but your dishonesty. God will grant you the strength to do what is right.
Good luck.
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