Re: Caught my hubby pants down with his best friend

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Readers, This is one story I want to share with you all. It brought tears to my eyes, but at the end of the day it has added to my experience and my hope that the marriage institution will survive the numerous problems it is facing in our contemporary world. Dear Idowu, First I want to appreciate the wisdom Agatha used in handling your issue. Having been married for over 40 years, I find her reasoning well grounded and matured. It is just your best option, and one that would pay you well at the end of the day. I can imagine some of your friends telling you to ignore whatever our dear Aunty Agatha has told you to do, but as you grow in age and experience, you will come to discover that there is nothing new under the sun. Someone has gone through your kind of experience before. What you are going through is some one’s repackaged problem. Although I am not supposed to say this, but I have with the permission of my wife to share my story with readers of this column with the hope that it will help teach young couples one or two things about the strangeness of the marriage institution. I tell this story not to demean my wife, but to give hope to any couple having one or two challenges in their marriages. By November this year, I will be 70 years of age, while my wife was 66 in March. We are blessed with four children out of who two are not mine. She was a nurse when we got married. I studied Civil Engineering. In those days, I was always away at different construction sites. I actually met her a virgin, so didn’t ever considered the fact that she might have any reason to stray. Unfortunately, while I was busy working to ensure a future for the family, she had other thoughts. After the birth of our first child, I was missing her and the baby so I told her to move down to Kaduna so we could be together. She declined insisting she preferred to stay in Lagos. Unknown to me she was having an affair with one of the doctors. This man actually fathered our set of twins. People noticed, told me, and when I came back unexpectedly, caught them on my bed. It was devastating, but when I considered the little tricks I have also been up to in my base, I decided to ignore her mistake. It was painful and humiliating for me, but I didn’t want to expose her to the wrath and mockery of family members and friends. As if that wasn’t enough, I discovered that she was to abort a pregnancy. Since it went against everything I believed in, I stopped her from doing anything to the pregnancy even though I knew it wasn’t mine. Where I got the emotional strength from, I don’t know, but somehow I managed to bury my pains to help her cope with the predicament of being pregnant for another man while still married to me. One or two persons within my family who suspected the pregnancy wasn’t mine tried, in several ways, to alert me to the possibility of my not being responsible for her pregnancy. I shut all of them up, telling them that I trusted the woman I married. Out of fear, my wife told her mother who in turn came to see me over the matter. It was at that point I became very angry with her. I told my wife she should never disclose to anyone whatever was happening in our home. I assured her mother that the pregnancy was mine. As a wise woman, she prayed and blessed me. Years later, I learnt she called her daughter aside for some serious talks. From that point, a lot of things changed in my home. My wife who until that incident was very stubborn became submissive. She became the ideal wife overnight, my interest overriding hers. Without anymore prompting from me, she packed her things and went with me to Kaduna. And was ready to go anywhere with me if I didn’t insist she stayed back when work took me to the East. Today, the twins are my joy: very intelligent and friendly. My wife dots on me like a baby. There is nothing she won’t give me, so much so the children joke about her devotion to me. I have lived to be this age because of her. Once I suffered from stroke, which left me incapable of movement. She was there full time by my side. I recovered because she didn’t leave me or made me feel like a burden. One friend of mine who had similar problem died, because the wife couldn’t withstand the burden of changing him or cleaning him when he slips on the bed. The decision I made then to forgive her mistake is today my joy. Therefore, Idowu, the sacrifices we make today are like our collaterals for tomorrow. If I had disgraced my wife, disowned the pregnancy, who would have cared for me when I needed attention the most? My first son is today a medical doctor based in the United States. He is doing very well, the twins too are there doing better. If I sneeze they catch the cold and are closer to me than their mother. Being girls, I am their idol. I get three times what they give their mother. They and their husbands don’t allow me to spend my money on anything. Doubtless decisions, as Agatha has asked you to consider, are usually painful. Then I often wondered at my sanity, especially when I have to bring out money to pay their fees or when they call me daddy when I am in my very bad moods. Looking back now, no woman would have been able to give me the kind of happiness my wife is giving me. It appears as if God used that incident to guarantee me a life of surplus happiness. Not only I have recovered fully from the stroke, I have a clean bill of health. Give your husband the chance to change his way. The fact that you caught him didn’t expose him, and still willing to continue with him in the marriage will make change. Idowu, the God we serve sometimes puts our solutions in our pains. Listen to the good counsel of Agatha. There is no limit to forgiveness because life is a broken piece of furniture. We will always get bruised by its sharp ends. The idea about life is looking for happiness and peace where thorns abound. Wipe away your tears and give your husband the strength to recover from this shame. Alfred.