How do I tell my wife I impregnated our neighbour

With Agatha EdoEmail: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, Before I make this confession, let me say this; I love my wife and wouldn’t deliberately do anything to hurt her or our marriage. It is just that I couldn’t control what I am about to share with you. I honestly really didn’t plan for things to happen this way. Downstairs in our block of flat lives this extremely beautiful lady. She is a single mother of a young teenager. I am a full-fledged male. Not that she did anything to encourage me or the other men in our compound but from their looks, anytime she steps out of her flat, I know they all want her as much as I do. She was too put together for me; not the kind of woman, you could easily walk up to but there was this day I was passing and noticed that her meter was emitting smoke. She wasn’t at home, only her young child and the house-help. I had to use the fire extinguisher in my car to control the fire. Since my younger brother also worked with Power Holding Corporation of Nigeria (PHCN), I called him to help rectify the fault. I honestly didn’t have any ulterior motive for doing what I did after all, if I didn’t, the fire would have spread to the whole house. For the first time since she moved into the house, that night she came upstairs to thank me. She didn’t meet me but she left a message with my wife who passed on the message. Since then, she became more friendly towards me. The next time, it was her turn to assist me. My car developed a very sudden fault on the day I had a very important meeting at work. She was also going out at about the same time. Seeing my agitations, she offered to drive me to work. Not only did she drop me at my work in time for the meeting, she also offered to pick me as her office was just a street away from mine. That was how we became close. One thing led to the other and we became an item. Subconsciously I began to compare my wife’s way of dressing to hers. Like I told you, I love my wife but she is always careless with her dressing; not mindful of how a good dress sense can spur a man to action. Although I have always done my best to draw her attention to this obvious flaw in her, she is forever looking for excuses to justify her sudden poor dress sense shortly after she had our two children. I have always liked her cute and fashionable. I guess her decision to attend a different church, Mountain of Fire, made her change from who she was to who she is now, but deep down, I have never failed to mourn the death of her once vibrant dress sense. So, having a woman who knows how to dress with a good sense of fun was refreshingly different from what goes on now in my marriage. I didn’t know how we both got careless. But she is currently four months pregnant. It must have escaped her because she fainted while we were out on a lunch date with some friends. It was in the hospital that she discovered she was four months gone. Without even giving me time to digest the information or ponder over it, she told the doctor, she wanted an abortion. But he declined saying the position of the fetus makes it dangerous for any doctor to attempt an abortion. He also mentioned something about her delicate womb. Two other doctors said the same things. She has decided to relocate to London to have this baby. According to her, she doesn’t want the scandal that will follow if my wife gets to find out. She is also worried about the implication on her own life since her first child’s father is also a married man. I don’t know how to handle this woman as well as my wife. I am not irresponsible to deny my own child as she wants me to. She wants me to forget everything about the child and face my marriage. How can I do that? I may not be the perfect husband but it is simply against anything I believe in to deny a child I contributed to bringing into this world. How do I make a balance between my home and this situation? Albert. Dear Albert, You are the one at the centre of it all. You know your wife more than anybody just as you know what your marriage can and cannot endure. But one thing is for sure; your wife has to be told about this child to prevent your marriage from collapsing when someone else tells her about this child. She deserves to know the truth. Bitter as the truth maybe to her, still she has the right to know because that child will one day come back to look for his or her father. The story won’t be so easy to tell by then and it would cause a lot of problems between you and your wife. This is because the veil of trust between you and your wife would have been seriously damaged beyond repairs. Although, your marriage would be affected significantly by what you have done but, it can still be managed now than when a grown up child walks in to proclaim you as the father. You both still have time now on your side to control whatever injury your indiscretion would cause your wife and family. The fact that you didn’t allow her to hear the story from a third party; would make her listen to whatever explanations you have to offer. When issues become this complex in marriage, the best thing is for the man to tell the truth. Don’t hide behind any excuse; sincerely, such excuses as you gave are for now baseless. This is because you could have insisted on how you wanted your wife to look; going as far as meeting with her pastor and explaining your displeasure at the way your wife is dressing to him. No reasonable pastor would tell a married woman to ignore the desires of her husband because he would be blamed when the consequences come. The truth is that you were afraid to challenge the decision of your wife because you didn’t want to be labeled by the church as a worldly-wise husband. The lesson here is that you reserve the right to dictate what you want in your home. You were clearly not at peace with the decision of your wife to scale down her sense of fashion but you failed to make her see reasons with you. Rather than complain lamely about it, knowing how much you desired that aspect of her, you should have done everything, including telling her the implications on the marriage if she doesn’t at least consider your feelings. Had you done that, she would have had nobody to blame now for this accident but herself because it would be on record that you warned her of your weakness to well dressed women. However, hold on until the other woman has left for the sake of peace. There is no way your wife can endure seeing her without erupting. It will save all concerned the embarrassment of everybody getting involved in your marital problems as well as protect your wife from the knowing looks of some mischievous neighbours and friends. When you are telling her about this situation, tell her what you and the other woman agreed on. Don’t hold back anything from her. Fine tune discussions with the other woman on how you can contribute to the welfare of your child. And let your wife know what your financial contribution to the welfare of the child is. This is to protect you against any antics the other woman may want to display later in life. Above all, this is the time for you and your wife to resolve every outstanding issue in your marriage. It is important to the growth and survival of your union. This is the time to talk frankly about all the matters threatening to pull your marriage apart. To pretend all is well is to destroy this union beyond measure. Good luck.