Dear Agatha,
When I was 16, a distant cousin of my father raped me and it resulted into pregnancy. Being Catholics, my parents didn’t agree to an abortion. They thought it would be using a sin to cover a sin. I was sent to the village to have the baby. Immediately the baby was born, it was given to an aunt of mine who after several years of marriage didn’t have a child to call her own.
I was sent back to Lagos to continue my education. Being very brilliant I was able to catch up with the others. Nobody in our neighborhood knew I was pregnant. The excuse my parents gave to the school and everybody was that I was recovering from a strange illness. Even in the village, not many knew about it since I wasn’t allowed to go out of the house while I was pregnant.
Since I didn’t have anything to do with the child since then, I didn’t think it necessary to inform my husband when I met him and we agreed to marry.
Besides, except for that brief time I stayed in the village, I have never seen or heard from the child.
You can therefore imagine my shock when my parents called me recently to inform me that my 17-year-old daughter is not only asking to see me but that it has been decided by the family that she comes to live with me. My aunty who adopted her died some few months ago and my parents, who would have naturally taken her in are really too old to care for a teenager.
Her father died shortly after the incident of rape.
How do I tell my husband of seven years about her? How do I explain that she is a product of rape? How do I explain her presence to my in-laws?
Knowing the kind of man I married, this could really end our marriage because he is that kind of prim and proper person. I recall the fuse he generated when he discovered on our wedding night I wasn’t a virgin. He almost walked out on the marriage but for his mother who had to intervene on my behalf. Unfortunately, his parents are both dead.
Having met my daughter who is the mirror image of me, I feel the need to be close to her; make up for all those times I have been away from her. Though my aunty did a wonderful job on her, I want to play my role as her mother. She is in her first year at the university. I took time out to explain to her so many things she didn’t know and she is quite supportive of me.
Please Agatha, help me!
Helpless Wife.
Dear Helpless Wife,
Frankly, you left it too late. No matter the circumstances in which you got pregnant with this child, you should have told your husband from the very beginning everything about your past. Had you done that, this child won’t be coming to him as a huge surprise. Put yourself in his shoes, how would you feel if he were the one springing this surprise at you seven years after your wedding?
The excuse you gave about his reaction to the fact that he didn’t meet you a virgin isn’t tenable. The information should have been given before that night and at any rate, why didn’t you use the opportunity provided by his reactions then to open up about your past?
Even if your aunty adopted the child, the truth of it is you are her biological mother. The child was taken off you to give you a chance at life not for you to deny its existence completely.
Granted, you were raped but you should have long taken responsibility for the child because whether you like it or not, she is not only your first fruit but also an integral part of you.
Also, your parents didn’t act well. Long before now, they should have encouraged you to tell your husband. Asking you now to take the child without your husband having prior knowledge isn’t the right way to tackle such a sensitive matter. The first step would have been for them to brief you, offer to explain the situation to your husband themselves knowing that the gravity of this issue is capable of destroying your home. Since your parents-in-law are both dead, it is their duty to help you manage this delicate matter with all the maturity and wisdom it deserves.
Because of the delay in telling him, he may not believe your story about the rape since you have never mentioned it to him. If you go on your own to break this kind of news to him, your marriage may not survive it at all therefore, mandate your parents to go with you to first tell the person he respects the most in the family before going to him. Even if he has the intentions of walking away from your parents, the presence of this other person would cushion his reactions. Sincerely, only your parents have the maturity, experience, as well as the right words to break this kind of news to your husband. Their presence would not only moderate his reactions to the piece of news but also give details of how it all happened and why the information was kept away from him.
The essence of getting his people involved even before he is told is to forestall the gravity of his reactions, as well as take care of how to present the issue to his family.
For now, don’t push the issue of having your child come live with you. It has to be a gradual process. Allow him to chew this large chunk of meat before giving him another one. Let the decision of whether or not the child should come to stay with you during the holidays come from him. You can be very involved with her by making out time to speak with her everyday on the phone as well as going to visit her in school until such a time your husband is comfortable being a father to a 17-year-old stranger.
Don’t be deceived. That he has accepted the fact of the matter isn’t the same as giving you his complete trust again. For sometime which is a very normal reaction, he is bound to wonder at your past life which may for a long time influence the way he responds to you and anything concerning you. One of the implications is the quality of trust he would have for you, as he would often wonder if there are other things you are not telling him.
It would take more than mere apologies and pleas on the part of your parents and you to make things right again between the two of you.
More than ever before you have to learn to be absolutely patient, loving, caring, respectful and attentive to him to win him back again, forget whatever he tells your people or his. The fact is a major crack has occurred in your marriage, which needs to be sealed as soon as possible and you are the only one who can do it.
Use the woman in you to woo him back; to make him talk about his disappointment and also to vent his anger if and where necessary.
To be fair to this man, you didn’t act well. Despite not being your fault that you were raped, you should have given him the right to decide whether he would marry you with a child or not. What you are doing now is like forcing him to accept this situation irrespective of what or how he feels.
It is for this reason you must do everything within your power to keep him happy by asking God through prayers to help you do what is right.
Good luck.
Posts
