How do I tell my wife her friend has a son for me

With Agatha Edo, Email: womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com Dear Agatha, My wife and I haven’t been able to conceive since we got married seven years ago. There is no kind of treatment we haven’t done or place for solutions we have not visited to solve our problems. Just mention it and we will be there or taking the treatment. All the results point at her as the one with the 50-50 chance; I have no fault but having made a vow to her, I can’t abandon her. Besides, she is not completely without hope of conceiving which is why I haven’t discussed the option of adopting a child. Sometimes, she gets very depressed about it and expresses the fear that I would one day look for children from another woman like my mother has been suggesting. Her fear is entrenched in the knowledge that I am the only son of my mother. Despite these pressures from my family, I have however stood behind my wife because she is a good wife and I love her very much. I have also tried to behave but I sometimes fail especially when I am outside Lagos. Apart from respect for my wife, she has a very bad temper and is generally insecure as a result of her condition. In all my strays, I have often cautioned myself, putting the safety of my wife above every other consideration. I go armed with my own packets of condoms if I have to. However, I have a situation on my hands now that I don’t know how to handle. While my wife and I were still dating, almost close to the time we got married, I had a brief affair with one of her friends. This lady was compellingly attractive. I couldn’t resist her. It was very brief but intense. At the end, she actually broke up the affair and disappeared to the North. Nobody had any inkling to where she went to in the North. We all actually thought she was dead as nobody heard from her all these years. You can therefore imagine my surprise when she surfaced at my office with a young boy. Even if I try to deny the obvious, this child looks like me. From the moment she walked into my office, I didn’t need her to tell me the motive of her visit; the young man’s features told its own story. But I allowed her to tell me what she came to do. She said, she didn’t know about the pregnancy until it was too late. That the pregnancy wasn’t even supposed to happen because a previous abortion attempt damaged her womb as doctors told her. By the time she knew, aborting the baby was out of it. She said she didn’t contact me because she wanted the baby all to herself but the child is daily making life difficult for her over his demands to see his father. Besides, the man she eventually got married to has asked her to return the child to his father. She has another son for the man. After introducing me to my son, she announced she was going back without him. I immediately contacted my mother who came to pick the child from the office. That was three months ago. The child stays with my mother. I want to know and live with my son but don’t how to tell my wife about the child. My sisters, mother and a few of my friends in the know insist I tell her before she finds out from elsewhere. The issue is, I don’t know how to present the matter. I know my wife; she is capable of anything when angry. This is what I fear the most. She could harm me and herself. The fact too that the woman involved is her one time friend will make her more deadly to handle. In the last couple of years, her insecurity has given rise to her bouts of temper. How do I get around this problem? When is the right time to tell her? I am so confused. Do I allow her to find out on her own or hide the existence of this child from her until in later years? Tade. Dear Tade, When will she not find out about the child? Whether she finds out now or later in life, the fact remains that she will one day discover you have a love child outside your marriage. The outcome will still be the same; she will feel bad at the knowledge that another woman succeeded where she couldn’t. By then, the issue will shift from you having a child to you deliberately hoarding information about the child to mock her situation. As it is now, the child isn’t a result of an affair you had after marriage but the one you had before marrying her. Even though you had it with her friend, at least, the conception of this child wasn’t as a result of the situation you are having with her. The presence of this child is an accident that happened long before the challenge in your marriage reared its head. Though in a way, you wronged her by sleeping with her friend, it is imperative she understands that you had nothing to do with the decision to keep the child or his existence for that matter until his mother brought him to your office. Even if you wanted to, there is no way you can turn your back on the child; it is too late in the day since the issue has gone beyond what you want to what is practicable. The existence of the child can no longer be wished away. Faith has sealed that and only a man headed for destruction wrestles with his destiny. However, for the reasons you have explained, don’t be alone when you break the news to her. There is the need for you to involve her family members in this whole thing. Exclude your family members from it all because with them in the audience, she will never have the presence of mind to hear you out. Rather than make things better, it will only complicate things for you due to the huge misunderstanding between them and her over the issue of her inability to give you a child. Besides, the idea that your people would silently, be celebrating the vindication of their opposition to her; would make her support difficult to obtain on this matter. No woman enjoys being shown the failure of her womanhood in the presence of her perceived enemies. So preclude your family members from this initial discussion. The presence of her family members will no doubt water down the intensity of her reactions. They are in the best position to explain to her that you didn’t go outside your marriage, had no knowledge of the kind of challenges that awaited you in the marriage when you dated the mother of this child. Besides, hearing it from you will make it easier for her to tolerate. If she hears it first from other sources, she may not be ready to hear anything from you or she could go to the extreme of hurting herself terribly. After explaining the sequence of how the thing happened, beg her for forgiveness as well as an assurance that you will never leave her. For now, don’t bring the child home. Give her time to heal and adjust to this new knowledge of a step-son. But if after a year, she still refuses to allow you bring the child home, go ahead and bring him in, even if it is only during weekends initially. Don’t worry, your marriage will survive and become stronger after this. Every marriage has a storm to contend with from time to time. Good luck.