Dear Agatha,
It took me a long time to make up my mind about this. But I couldn’t resist after going through many of your responses to issues, and seeing how helpful you have been though sometimes, not quite empathetic.
I am worried and confused. I have been married for 12 years without an issue due to my wife’s series of medical challenges. We are comfortable and love each other. I have done a lot to assure her of her security and she and her family appear very appreciative.
However, I have been facing a lot of pressure from my family and close friends to seek children from another woman. The instinct to be a father is now overwhelming me. Unfortunately, my wife is not keen on adoption as suggested by me. Considering the fact that she is the one with the problem, I had thought she ought to be the one insisting we adopt a child and not the one resisting.
When my wife suggested sometime ago that she may allow me to impregnate another woman should all efforts fail, having done practically everything modern medicine and technology has to offer, I went into a relationship with another woman preparatory for this possibility.
Because I didn’t obtain the permission of my wife before going into the relationship, I had to persuade this lady to terminate my pregnancies. Now it appears that the approval my wife once hinted for another woman to have my babies is false. I deduced this from her reaction when she knew I was having a relationship. Frankly, I tactically leaked this information to her to gauge her reaction. How self-centered our women can be. We were both 28 years old when we got married.
My wife would rather keep the status quo of having just the two of us together, basking in our comfort, and keeping families away, especially mine. She is not the friendly type. She is contented with spending her whole time with me by her side, with her rosary, and being emotional about her health issues since she knows I am very sympathetic and emotional as well.
Our life centers on just the two of us, though I have found a way of identifying with some indigent families through the church. I am financially responsible for 10 children.
Agatha, my family and close friends think something must be wrong with me to continue with the situation and they think I would regret my actions in future. My marriage has been largely peaceful. So far I have shielded my wife from any problem or embarrassment from my family but she is increasingly becoming selfish.
I have now come to love this other lady, and she loves me sincerely and has been all over me in the past two years. This has not reduced the love I have for my wife anyway. She isn’t out to displace my wife, as she is even more of her advocate; but wishes to also have a future with me. I somehow wish my wife would, accept this challenge gracefully, discuss openly and sincerely with me on what will make me happy; possibly also embrace adoption which I am willing to do in addition to hopefully having my biological children somehow.
I am trusting God to visit her, open her womb to conceive and to cure her of her weeping and sentiments.
Should I allow this other lady get pregnant and later marry her traditionally? I would make sure they don’t live together under the same roof. But I may have to stop taking communion, as I am an active catholic; this I consider a big sacrifice.
Agatha, this problem is the biggest that can confront a married couple. In my short life, I have realised that what belongs to you is yours. Please advice.
Worried Husband.
Dear Worried Husband,
No matter how unbearable this situation is for you and your wife, be rest assured you don’t have the right. A lot of couples have gone and are going through similar situations in their marriages.
Even those who don’t have the challenge of children have issues too with their marriages. The underlying factor is complete tolerance through faith in God of whatever situation beckons in marriage.
If we all had crystal balls to preview what our marriages would be, many of us would have opted to stay single rather than face the challenge of living with our heart choices. Unfortunately, God didn’t give us that power to see into the future. Even those who claim to envisage far ahead, more often than not, only allude to the surface problems and not the issues that make some marriages hell on earth.
But we must all carry a cross because life itself is for only those who aren’t intimidated by challenges. From the very beginning of life, a baby has to struggle to come out of the womb. Without that struggle and determination to live, the baby is doomed even before it has the chance to live. Those who choose not to defeat the powers that control the passage from womb to earth, die before birth or at birth.
You have chosen this woman as your lawful wedded wife. To give up on her now is to terminate the dreams and reasons you voted for her above all the other women that came your way before you married.
Doubtless, one of the reasons you married her may be suffering a major set back; her attitude may be very uncooperative, irritating, selfish and unreasonable but one thing is true amid all these, you vowed before God and man to be with her through thick and thin. Wrapped in this vow is a covenant to stand by her whether she is fruitful or not and she with you if you are impotent. Embedded in this vow is, even if sickness makes either of you a cripple, you would stay together.
You also told the world only death can free either of you from this vow. From your own admission, your home is peaceful unlike many homes blessed with children that are like film clips taken from the best of horror films. The presence of children in a marriage isn’t a panacea for a happy home. They only announce the productivity of the couple and not necessarily give peace. If having children in a marriage signposts marital success, then a lot of marriages that are going up in flames today would have stood the test of time.
That couples blessed with children are daily breaking up tells you that the peace you have with your wife is priceless. Definitely you have the right foundation to battle your challenge successfully. What is missing now is the will power to continue on your part and the apparent selfishness of your wife to appreciate the sentiments of your heart desires.
Your patience and understanding is obviously wearing thin. At 40, it is natural for you to feel what you feel now. You are in your middle age; that age both men and women take stock and ask the important question of their tomorrows. You have gotten to the future you have always talked about, the one you have etched in your mind’s eye. You have hoped for 12 years that the picture would take form but at 40 when diminishing returns begin to occur in all humans, fear and desperation have taken over from hope. Faith in God has given way to questions; reasons to extreme anxiety.
This is what is making you court the trouble of having another woman in your life; the one who though is an advocate of your wife but who at the same time wants to spend the rest of her life with you. There is no way your peace will not be affected once you have two women in your life especially where one is fortunate to produce children and the other still looking unto God.
It would deal a fatal wound on the heart of your wife who has in her own way invested in your success story. This other woman maybe getting pregnant now but may not be able to conceive once she becomes your wife. Life is very strange and its ways only known to God, its creator and keeper.
Already, God has answered your prayers but you are not just looking at that direction. Those 10 children you are caring for hold the key to your happiness and hope of being a father. The thing is to get your wife to support your ministry and give her attention to those children. If she does, she will find out that she doesn’t have to weep anymore. Those 10, if she permits herself to love and care for them unconditionally will take away her loneliness, sorrow and give her the opportunity at motherhood.
She would eventually be called mother and you daddy. They will become like your biological children. They are the gifts God has prepared for you to be happy; the key to your marital success.
Her involvement with them would open her heart to listen to your suggestion to adopt a child. What she needs is exposure to the dynamism of these children you have unwittingly agreed to be father to.
End your relationship with the other woman because if you were the one having problems with your reproductive system, how would you feel if your wife begins to have extra marital affairs?
Go straight to God in prayers. Don’t break your covenant with God so He doesn’t break His with you.
Good luck.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment