My father’s mistress is my mum’s friend

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626

Dear Agatha,

I have always known that my father is having affair with a woman in our neighbourhood. He is always with her and the woman happens to be close to my mother through another friend. This other woman through this friend is now a regular visitor to our home, to the extent that she brings edibles like fruits to my mother. During a recent party in my mother’s family, she not only accompained my mother but was among those she trusted with the cooking and distribution of the food.

I have caught my father severally with her but I don’t know how to warn my mother about this woman she is beginning to get close to. I am afraid for my mother’s life. I don’t want to lose her to another woman’s desire to become my father’s wife.

My father is the kind of man that doesn’t discriminate against any woman that graces his bed. I suspect my mother knows some of his escapades but may have decided to look the other way to preserve her marriage.

Please help me. My mother is really getting too close to this woman for my liking. I am 21 years and the first of my parents’ children. I am too young to be without a mother especially my kind of mother who is responsible for our education and feeding. Without my mother, I won’t be graduating next year at all.

Agatha, I am afraid. I don’t know how to introduce the subject to my mother without breaking her home.

Lola.



Dear Lola,

For a young lady of 21 years of age, you are very sensible and caring. You definitely have all the reasons in the world to be apprehensive because a lot of women have unwittingly fast-forwarded their deaths by befriending their husbands’ girlfriends.

You don’t have to tell your mother the real reason you don’t want her close to the woman to avoid problems in your own family. Your mother may know about all the other women, but finding out that she has unknowingly become very good friends with one of them may really hurt her beyond words.

For a woman that has put in so much for her family, she may not be able to endure the embarrassment of this incident. It may be the last stroke that would break the camel’s back.

There are three things you can do on your own without your mother ever finding out. The first is to go directly to your father. Without being rude, let him know that you are not unaware of his affairs with other women. Tell him while you are willing to ignore all the other women in his life, you will not tolerate a situation where he brings into the house his girlfriend.

Knowing that you are aware of the nature of his relationship with your mother’s so called new friend would moderate his reaction to you especially as he isn’t in a position to exercise excessive authority over you.

Besides knowing that nothing about his other life is hidden from you will make him consider so many things. Most men don’t like losing the respect of their children. He may not be able to control his libido but once you confront him with what you know especially as it regards his girlfriend’s association with your mother, he would take the steps to ensure the two are not friends again. Trust me, men are very good at terminating relationship between their wives and friends they don’t like.

Subtle threats of holding him responsible for anything that happens to your mother would make him really act fast about putting an end to the relationship between your mother and his girlfriend.

Your second visit should be to your mother’s friend. Again, be civil until you find out if she is aware of the relationship between the other woman and your father. But don’t neglect to tell her all you know about what is going on between your father and the other woman. Threaten to report her to your mother and her husband as well as telling the whole world what you know if anything happens to your mother. Chances are she would personally end the relationship to protect her name if not necessarily to protect her relationship with your mother. No woman wants her marriage to break down, so once you make the threat of telling her husband about everything, she would think twice about continuing with her friendship with the other woman.

The final visit is to the woman herself. Here, you don’t have to be subtle or respectful because her kind of woman doesn’t deserve such courtesy. Go with the determination of confronting her. If you cannot go on your own, enlist the help of a male cousin or uncle. Let her know that the next time she comes to your home to see your mother she may not be lucky to go unhurt.

If possible, report the incident of your visit in the nearest Police Station incase she gets nasty.

By the time you finish with all three of them, this woman would stay out of your lives for good.

Also try discouraging your mother from accepting things from people she is just meeting. You could warn her by claiming to have bad vibes about this woman.

Above all, there is the need to really talk to your father afterwards. Find out why he thinks he has to be involved with other women to make him happy. Listen to him even if you think he is wrong. He may really have one or two points against your mother, which you may not be aware of.

Also ask your mother one or two probing questions concerning her marriage and relationship with your father.

This way you would know how to really help your parents have a happier home and marriage. And don’t neglect to rest everything about your parents in the hand of God.

Good luck.