He attempted suicide after he raped his daughter

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


Dear Agatha,
I have a challening issue on my hands. It has to do with my stepdaughter and my ex-husband.
The mother of my stepdaughter is alive, but she is the kind that has little or no time for her children, the reason her children and I are very close in the first place.
By the time I met and married my ex, she was long gone so I didn’t get to meet her until about two years into my marriage. The day I met her, she came to fight me over what she described as attempts to steal her children from her.
When I came into the house, I discovered that the children were always left on their own. Their father was never around due to his job.
Being the first of over 18 children, I was used to caring for people. So it wasn’t too difficult winning them over. In no time, all three of them became my friends. The only girl and the first child of the family began to take extra efforts in her studies. With the help of the home teacher I got for her, she made her papers after her third attempt.
I didn’t bother her father about her fees and other money she would need to go to school. But I noticed the father wasn’t happy that she was leaving home for school. For days, he was moody, didn’t talk to me at all.
Unfortunately, I left him in our third year together because of his cruel nature. He would beat me at any given opportunity; made me miscarriage of our first baby. By the time I was pregnant the second time, I had no choice but to leave him when he began to beat me again.
Now the issue is, my stepdaughter whose fees I still pay, in addition to her brothers’, came to report that her father raped her when she came home for holidays.
According to her, it happened when he came back drunk and she was in her room. She said, she was too frightened to say anything, as he appeared capable of killing her. She said he kept calling out my name while raping her.
She said, he realised what he had done only after he finished and begged her to forgive him; that it will never happen again. The poor girl is threatening to go to the Police with the story while her father the morning after tried to poison himself. He is still on admission.
What do I do, Agatha? If I allow her to go to the Police, her father would be destroyed completely.
Grace.

Dear Grace,
Doubtless, this is knotty. The first thing to do is evacuate the children from that house. Whatever it will cost you, locate their mother and see if you can get her to see reasons with you. Don’t, for now tell her about the rape issue; allow her daughter make that decision of telling her mother or not.
Peg your argument on the welfare of the children and the need for her as their mother to show more interest in their welfare. Plead with her not to be too far from them even if it won’t be easy for her, to have them stay with her.
Thereafter, go and visit your ex husband in the hospital. Find out what is wrong with him; he obviously needs help. Even if there is no way both of you can come together again as a couple, the fact that you were once married and have a child between the two of you makes it imperative for you to do your best for the family.
Don’t forget that if anything happens to him, you will be left with the responsibility of caring for all the children. As it is, those children regard you more as their mother and father. For this reason, you must bury your own disappointments and pains to help these children have a sense of responsibility to their father.
To achieve this, call your stepdaughter to plead with her to allow the matter be. Tell her why you think the matter should be resolved internally. The fact that the father tried to kill himself after discovering what he did is in itself enough punishment. There is no judgment that would be as great as that.
Without him saying anything, he has already condemned himself; she would only be nailing the final nail on his coffin if she goes to the Police. In the interim, don’t allow her go to her father’s house alone. If she has to see him, find time to go with her.
But, your major work here is prayer. It seems there is a spiritual problem somewhere. You need to pray to be sure but your narration points to the presence of some strange powers determined to destroy this man forever. That power doesn’t want him to ever have a woman in his life or enjoy his children.
The fact that he was calling out your name while raping his daughter shows that he wasn’t in control of his senses. By the time he did, all he wanted to do was die of shame at what he had done.
You won’t be doing yourself and this man any good if you totally blank him out of your mind. He needs you in the same way his children do. there is hope that he can still change. The fact the he was calling out your name shows that he still cares.
After all, he is the father of your child which is perhaps the strongest reason for you to help him. go into prayers and fasting on his behalf. Once God takes charge, whatever power is involved in the destruction of your home will vacate it. Until then, do all you have to do to protect everyone.
Good luck.