How highflying job ruined my home…

With Auntie Agatha,gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com,Tel: 08054500626
Dear Agatha,
Until I began to read you three years ago, I held the view that columns like yours were a sheer waste of newspapers’ space. But I have since come to realise through your efforts that people like you are not just doing great jobs, but that you are very gifted in what you are doing.
I know this problem may sound strange but I am really worried and afraid of its consequences on my home and life. What more, I feel I am responsible for it.
You see I married my wife a virgin 16 years ago. I married her a very timid and respectful woman. She trained as a teacher but from the very beginning of our marriage I made it clear I wanted a full time housewife.
From that time, she has remained at home tending to the children and me. I opened a shop near the house for her when she complained she was getting too bored doing nothing.
I really didn’t need the money from her because the salary I made as a top bank executive was more than enough for us to live in comfort.
Although my job was very demanding, I sometimes come home very late when the whole household was asleep. I naively thought she understood me very well.
Once or twice she I made attempt to protest my constant absence from home, but I always shoved aside such complaints. I reasoned she had no need to grumble because every year, she and the boys always visit any country of their choice. We have three children, all boys. The eldest is 15 while the youngest is nine.
I have never denied her anything within my powers to give. We have also never had any fundamental issue in our marriage. She does as I tell her. I was very much in charge of my home. At least, so I thought.
To make matters worse, I didn’t even perceive any change in her person or attitude until one afternoon on my way to an emergency meeting in Abuja, I came home to get some few clothes for the trip.
You can imagine my shock when I walked in on my wife and her lover. Right in my living room, he was kissing her. Needless to say, I couldn’t go for the meeting. I had to call on my deputy to go in my place. If I expected her to be remorseful, I was wrong. She told me it was over. That she was tired of playing second fiddle to my work. She told me that all the years we have been married, I have never treated her as a person. That the only time I know she is a woman is when I want to sleep with her. She told me to go and marry my work.
That night she didn’t bother to sleep at home. Fortunately, the kids were in boarding school, so I didn’t have to explain the whereabouts of their mother to anybody.
For two weeks, work was the last thing on my mind. It was the longest time I had been away from my desk without being on official duty.
When news of what happened in my home got to our families, my immediate younger sister and only sibling blamed me for neglect. She told me how many times she had come to my house and found my wife weeping and complaining about my attitude towards her. She took time to remind me of how she had tried to draw my attention to what I was doing to my marriage and self but that I didn’t listen.
My children also took side with their mother. As a matter of fact, my eldest son told me I wasn’t much of a father to any of them. He said, I should marry my job and money and leave their mother alone to be happy.
It has been six months without her and my children. It may sound strange but I have come to realise that certain things are more important in life than money, but I don’t know how to get her to even listen to me. I am a lonely man who needs his family back.
Agatha, please help me. I have forgiven her because I found out from my sister, that the date with the man I caught her with was her first and that they havent slept together. Through the efforts of my sister, she dropped the idea of filing for divorce. If there is one thing with her, she doesn’t lie.
I don’t know what to do to bring my sons and wife back. Please help me.
Zeb

Dear Zeb,
Go to her and your sons. We are all prone to making mistakes as we journey through life. The important thing about falling is our ability to rise again. Both of you have made mistakes and since you as the head of the home has come to that important place of realisation, that point when we take stock and know that we are responsible for the reactions of others around us, then solution is at hand.
Since your wife is close to your sister, get her to fix a meeting between the two of you. Even though you are willing to forgive and forget the past, there is the need for both of you to talk first. You have to know the deepness of her pains, disappointments, resentment, shame and determination to know how to approach the issue.
Don’t assume that simply because you have realised your mistakes, willing to forgive her and move your marriage on that she is keen on coming back to you.
Both of you must appreciate that for your marriage to survive its injury you must go back to the very beginning. You both need something vital and interesting from the past to navigate the future. Without the memory of your early days, even you may get to a point of regrets later down the road. Just like she has to answer the vital question of whether you are enough for her, you must answer the question of whether you will be able to delete from your memory the sight of her in another man’s arms.
Will you ever be able to trust her; beat your chest that she is with you all the way? I ask these questions not to discourage you but to make sure that you have really put this nasty experience behind you. The tragedy of asking her to come back while you are still holding her to her mistake would be too much for you, your children and marriage to bear. This is why you must exorcise completely the damage that incident did to your psychology as a man.
It is also important you get to hear from her what she intends to do with that relationship. Though it sounds out of place to discuss your wife’s other relationship with her but given the reality on ground, it is important you also get to hear from her and know where you actually stand with her. It would be dangerous for you all now to assume that she still want the same thing as you do.
Bear in mind she has suffered emotionally longer than you have done and has had more time to think of her options. It may not be easy changing her mind in a day. This is where you have to draw into the hertiage of your past. If she is right that you have never had time for her due to your work schedule, how do you plan to resolve that problem? How are you going to make out time for her now when you have never seemed to be able to do that? This is one question you must have a ready answer for before meeting her. Frankly, this is the crux of all these problems you are having in this marriage. You have to go to her with a solid arrangement to convince her that you are also willing to make the necessary sacrifice for the marriage.
One thing you must never overlook is this, a woman that has made up her mind to leave her home for another man must have given a lot of thoughts to the consequences. And for your children who are boys and your only sibling to go with her shows that she does have a point. She may be condemned for her decision but you pushed her into it.
The fact that you could delegate when you walked in on her and the other man, stayed at home for sometime after she left shows that all along you were simply using the job as an excuse to stay away from the home. It may not have been your intentions in the beginning, but over the years it actually became one for you to escape staying at home. Do you know the reason you have been running away from your home and family all these years? The knowledge is integral to the successful resolution of this issue between your family and you.
Even if you have made up your mind to leave the job, to have more time with them, you must be honest to admit why you have all these years deliberately neglected your family. Such admission would be of assistance to your wife in knowing where to pay more attention to in her appearance, home or relationship with you. It would also explain a lot of things, which until now have been a source of concern to her, like you having affairs outside the home. You will have to explain so many things to her and later to the children too.
The bottom line is that you must be ready to make extreme sacrifices while seeking this peace.
Above all, appeal to God who has all our hearts in the palms of his hands to intervene in this matter.
Good luck.