My wife reveals ugly past, 19 years after

With Agatha Edo Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com,gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com,08054500626

 Dear Agatha,
 I do appreciate your approach to counseling on issues concerning relationships, which is why it fascinates me when I read your column.
I have been married for over 19 years and blessed with two children who are 18 and 17 years of age, respectively.
Prior to my marriage, my wife told me of a failed relationship she had. That relationship produced a child, who unfortunately died after both had parted ways. I accepted her and assured her of my commitment to our relationship. We were married according to their traditional norms and later in the church. Like every other couple, we have our fair share of ups and downs, which in most cases, we resolve amicably.
However, I am shocked by her recent revelation shortly before the New Year. She drew my attention to an issue, which according to her, has been a burden and serious concern to her all these years. Before she told me what the issue was, she expressed her regrets at not telling me since getting married to me.
She explained how she was impregnated by a man at the age of 15, which led to her father sending her out his house.
According to her, she stayed with a relation until she had the baby.
After the birth of the baby, the mother of the man she had the baby for, came from Ibadan and took her and the child there. It was there she completed her secondary education. She further disclosed that she had two more children for the man. Throughout that period, she narrated, the man never knew or met any of her relations, and she was not in contact with her people too.
However, the man was transferred from Port-Harcourt to Lagos and had planned to settle down there.  She explained that an arrangement was made by the man with his friend to convey them to Lagos from Ibadan. It was while they were travelling down to Lagos in a van that they had a fatal accident, resulting in the death of her man and his friend. According to her, she was unconscious and was rushed to a hospital. The whereabouts of her three children remained unknown.
She further explained that after she regained consciousness, further tests were conducted on her by a psychiatrist to ascertain her mental fitness. She, according to her narration, went back to Ibadan and met the man’s mother who showed her where the man was buried.
When they both realised that neither of them was with the children, they searched all the motherless babies’ homes and hospitals within the area of the accident without any trace of the children.
Having concluded this tale, she sought for my forgiveness and asked if I would send her away from the house.
There are some questions I have asked her that she hasn’t given me satisfactory answers to. Since telling me this story, I have been emotionally and physically depressed. I have not responded to her question on whether I would send her away or not, because I am still consulting more people especially as she said her mother is aware of everything that happened to her.
 I need your advice.
 
 Betrayed Husband.


Dear Betrayed Husband,
Asking you not to be angry is like telling a hungry baby not to cry. You have every reason to be angry, disappointed and even pack up the marriage. Sincerely, if you ask her to go, nobody would blame you because she not only betrayed your trust in her person but has also, in more ways than one, disappointed you.
If you insist you never want to see her again, nobody would blame you against the backdrop of the gravity of what she has done.
But we know that none of these is a solution to the issue at hand now. Asking her to go won’t erase from the fact that she has been your wife for 19 years and that you both have two children between.
It won’t also remove the fact that you are both legally married and have shared some very wonderful moments together as man and woman. She has made you into who you are just as you have done same for her.
Your strength and joy go beyond the two of you; your children are part of that wonderful heritage you have both built in your 19 years as a couple.
There are also those minute details which on the surface appear not to be significant but in the long run add up to have made your marriage survive all these years.
Honestly, when complex issues like this come up in a marriage, all these factors are what must be added up before a decision is taken. All those people you are consulting, including me are not involved in your history or know what the strength of your marriage really is.
Your marriage couldn’t have lasted this long without sacrifices from both of you. Indisputably, she has done the unthinkable in the minds of everybody; betrayed the trust you have for her, rubbished the essence of marriage but what about the other side of her? That side of her that has given the kind of joy and fulfillment these 19 years?
If the consensus is for you to leave her, are these people going to share in your loneliness, fill the void she would be leaving in your life or give you a woman who is without blemish? Even if she comes into your home a virgin, what about her temperament, attitude and response to things concerning you?
I would be the first person to agree with you that there are missing gaps in her story. For instance, it is curious that no member of the man’s family came to see her in the hospital to ask for her and the children. If they came for the corpse of their son, how come they didn’t ask for her or the children at all, knowing they were the only family she had then? And why didn’t the woman make efforts to go with her to plead with the father or other members of the family?
So many questions are really begging for answers but so also are many puzzles especially concerning the children, are begging to be solved.
To lose three children or not know their whereabouts cannot be a tea party for her. As a mother, she will never stop wondering what happened to those children.
Her mistake was not to have shared this dark side of her past. No matter how unpleasant, she should have told you. But, I think it has to do with fear of losing you as well as lack of enough trust in the power of your love for her at that time. Face it, would you have married her if you knew she has had not just one but four children?
Now you maybe able to handle such a situation but then, I am sure you wouldn’t have. Althoughthis is not an excuse at all, this perhaps informed her reason for keeping it from you all these years.
She decided to open up when she could not deal with all the worries anymore. Some women would still have kept quiet and decide to take the story of their lives to the grave with them.
This is the moment you look at her value to you and the importance of your marriage. If you focus only on this issue, you will end up making a mistake you will forever regret. This is because 19 years of marriage has given you the opportunity of knowing the nature of the woman you married; answered the question of credibility you would have been worried about 19 years earlier.
Youryears together have also afforded you the opportunity of knowing how much progress she has made from getting pregnant at 15 to now. A lot of us have done one or two things in our youths we are not proud of. What makes the difference is the efforts we put into correcting those mistakes.
Since marrying her, have you had any reason until now to regret marrying her? The answer to this question will point you to the right direction.
Go to God in prayers because He is the only one that can help you get over your pains as well as give you the wisdom to view the matter wholly.
Good luck.