I slept with my father’s wife

Dear Agatha, My father died three months ago and was buried that same day according to Muslim rites. His was a polygamist and his last wife was my former girlfriend while we were in the university. I wasn’t in the country when he married her. When I came back to discover my father’s newest wife was my former girlfriend, there was nothing I could do especially as both of them were oblivious of my links with either of them. Seeing her again brought back all my old feelings for her. I wanted her in a way I simply couldn’t explain. Since I want solutions to my problems, I won’t conceal facts from you. Twice when my father was out of town, I slept with her. As a matter of fact, the night before my father passed on, we were together. My father died in the evening of the next day after he came back from his trip. Before he died, he called me aside to demand the truth regarding my relationship with his last wife; I pretended not to understand his question. He told me to go but placed a curse on me that my sons will do what I did to him. I still refused to confess. After his death, I still slept with the woman and now, she is pregnant. We had twice aborted the pregnancy but we keep discovering the attempts didn’t work despite the doctors being experts in this field. The current doctor we went to bluntly refused to do anything insisting that in our interest we should keep the pregnancy or both of us would die in the process. My mother who is the first wife of my father recently called me to confide in her my relationship with my father’s last wife. She said since my father died, she has been having terrible dreams of him vowing to disgrace me for sleeping with his wife. And that nothing I do will be able to terminate the pregnancy and that unless I publicly confess, she will never be able to put to bed. One of the spiritualists my mother consults too said the same thing. The issue now is, I want to get rid of the pregnancy before it becomes obvious. Agatha, I am so confused about the next step of action. I would have told her to pack out of the house but my father left instruction that none of his children who are below 20 should leave his house. She has a set of twins below three years of age for my father. In addition my business since the death of my father has nose-dived. I cannot explain what I did with my inheritance of N10m or how the house he left to me caught fire. Things are not just working well for me. How can you help me resolve this problem? I want my peace back but so helpless on what to do. The pressures on me are getting too much so much so I now talk to myself in public. My friends are all concerned as they think I am going insane but at home I behave normally, the reason I can send you this mail. Please help me. I met her first before she married my father. Ibrahim. Dear Ibrahim, In life, the sleeping part is usually the easiest side of the story but the consequences that follow are often more serious than can be imagined. What started out as fun for you has become such a huge challenge not just for you but for everybody. Whether you admit to having a sexual relationship with the wife of your late father or not, the fact that she is pregnant will unearth the truth so why not admit it now and save yourself the attendant embarrassment of it becoming a public affair? Why resist the truth when it is obvious that it is the only way you can have freedom from the curse you unwittingly placed on yourself through your greed for your father’s wife? The issue on ground goes beyond your meeting her first. Whatever the intimacy you both shared in the past, ceased to matter when she became your stepmother. The fact that she married your father not knowing you were his son was enough reason for you to bury whatever feelings you had for her in the past. Besides, it wasn’t as if you were both together hence felt betrayed or had any justification to continue with her where you both stopped. From your story it was long over between the two of you. Even at that, the moment you discovered that she and your father were married, you should have ran as far as your legs could carry you. Only a bastard behaves the way you did. Sleeping with your father’s wife is enough abomination, sleeping with her under his roof goes beyond any logical thinking. What were you thinking? That you could get away with such outright disrespect for your father? Even if the woman in question weren’t your stepmother, the fact that she belonged to another man should have warned you off her. You defiled your father’s bed and marriage by sleeping with his wife. Granted a woman determined to have a man can go to any length but wisdom should have made you flee the house immediately you discovered the situation. I am sure if you had told your mother, she would have insisted you left home to avoid the temptation your memories of each other would present. And when your father called you aside to question you about your relationship with his last wife, was the opportunity for you to open up to him and beg for his forgiveness. Had you done that, perhaps your father might have forgiven you especially after discovering that both of you were once lovers. Being a matured man, he would have found a way around the problem of both father and son sleeping with the same woman; a taboo in itself. To avoid her dying on you as well as halting your harvest of calamities, go back to your mother and confess what you and your stepmother did. As it stands, your little adventure with her is no longer hidden; your mother like your father is in the know, just giving you the opportunity to admit to it. Why not take the opportunity of the grace being offered you to tell the truth? If within three months of his death, you have lost so much, imagine the kinds of things awaiting you if you continue to play stubborn. Whatever it will take to protect the life of that innocent child inside of her, do it. Besides, it would be an affront to the memories of your father if she continues to stay in his house while pregnant for you. Irrespective of the stipulations of your father, go and get her a place and take on the responsibilities of her twins. There is an adage that when a boy is grown enough to appreciate the backside of a woman, he should be old enough to shoulder the responsibilities that come from such a desire. Since you didn’t consider it an eyesore to sleep with your father’s wife, be bold enough to take on the liability that goes with the package. In this kind of situation, you need the guidance of your spiritual leader. Being a Muslim, this is the time for you to go to your imam to confess what you did and to seek for spiritual direction from him. He definitely is in a very good position to stand in gap for you. True repentance is what will make the difference in this situation. Once you are able to admit to the truth, beg the dead for forgiveness, you might just find a way out of your problem. Good luck.

Who owns my pregnancy?

Dear Agatha, I am 14 years of age. I got deflowered by one of my classmates during an inter-house sports competition in the school. Although it was painful in the beginning but I ended up enjoying it. Since then, it has become a routine between us. Recently, another boy came to our school; from the first day, I set my eyes on him, I felt something deep inside of me for him prompting me to ask him out. I allowed him to sleep with me on that day. It was so much fun and excitement that I decided that I wanted him more than my former boyfriend. This led to the two of them fighting and would have become a scandal if my second boyfriend didn’t walk away. Although my first boyfriend is hell bend on continuing with me, so much so, he forced himself on me two weeks ago; it isn’t as much of a problem a4w s s the one I want you to help me with. I think I am pregnant. I haven’t seen my monthly flow which was supposed to come since last week. The funny thing is, I don’t know who among them has it. I am wondering if you can help me since I had my last period, on June 1st. as at that time, I was having sex intermittently with the two of them since my first boyfriend was still adamant. I only stopped about two weeks ago after which he forced me to having sex with me. I don’t know what to do or the money to terminate the pregnancy. We are starting our promotional examinations to SSS 3, this month. My father is a pastor while my mother is the head of the women in our church. Please can you help suggest where I can go? My friend has already given me some herbal solutions to take but I haven’t since I am afraid of the look of the thing she brought. Telling my parents is also out of it. They are too strict and uncompromising. My father really doesn’t have any time for us as his children while my mother is always busy trying to please her husband. The truth is, I am desperate enough to do anything including dying if possible. Desperate Student. Dear Desperate Student, Unfortunately, when you dropped the letter with a member of our staff, you elected not to give us your address or telephone number. Had you done that, it would have been easy for me to contact you. However, the first thing is for you not to drink that herbal mixture your friend gave you. If you drink it, you may not live to tell the story or achieve your dream in life despite your wish to die. Taking your own life will not end your sorrows; as a matter fact, it will only increase it because right now, it isn’t just your life alone. There is a child inside of you who has the right to life irrespective of how you feel about it. If you don’t want to live for yourself; what about that child who has nothing to do with your decision to have sex with its father without protection? Although you may think the child has no feelings yet, but try to remember your feelings at being neglected by your parents to appreciate the rights of that child growing inside you. You have made one costly mistake don’t make another one by thinking of dying. If you have this child, you won’t be the first person to have a child at your age. If at the age of 14, you are already in SS 2, it means you are intelligent with a very promising future. It would be such a sad story to see you waste your life or dreams in your attempt to procure an abortion at all cost. Condemnable as your conduct is, the harm has been done. It is pointless punishing you over what you could have done or not. I am sure your parents would rather battle with the shame of it all than have you dead in the course of you finding a solution on your own. No matter how unattractive this option is, they remain your best solution to this mess. They have the experience and knowledge on how to proceed from where you stopped. Let them know the mess you are in. Their years of counseling as a pastor and head of women have prepared them for issues like this. Yes, doubtless they would be disappointed, pained and embarrassed at how far you have gone, but the truth remains that you need them now more than ever before. Whatever the attitudes of your parents are, especially that of your father, you are their daughter hence owe you some sorts of protection. They don’t have to like what you have done; no parent of a teenage child will ever be happy at the risk you have put your entire future as well as the mess to their reputation, but they are the only ones you can turn to now. In the first instance, you are still a minor so cannot afford to take this important decision on your own. Unless you go to a quack or patronize peddlers of local herbs, no registered doctor will risk his certificate to perform an evacuation on you without the express permission of your parents. And if you are going to keep the child, let them help you manage the crisis. What it will only cost you, is a year of your academic life. For instance, they can withdraw you from the school to a location where you can have your baby before your condition becomes obvious and all attendant talks shadowing your moral values begins. Because you lack the quantum of experience and knowledge, get someone to urgently tell your mother about your situation; someone she respects and has the wisdom of approach. How they react to the issue would depend on how who is informing them, presents the matter and how they get to know. The danger of allowing them to find out your condition is the foreclosure of any logical decision. Anger and disappointment may make your father disown you forever; making your going back to school in the immediate future difficult. For your kind of father, beyond the issue of your getting pregnant is the important issue of his ministry. Sad as this may sound but given the picture you have painted it is true. So if they get to find out early enough; they would be forced to consider all available options before the shame becomes too late to manage. Besides, your wish to die is easier said than done. You are saying this because you are agitated and afraid of the consequences of your actions. Once your parents come with a rescue plan, you will suddenly have the urgent need to want to live again. As for knowing who the father of the child is, I cannot say because you were concurrently having sex with them. This is what would hurt your parents more than even your being pregnant. One thing is to assume that this pregnancy was a mistake another thing is to be confronted with the evidence of your carelessness and waywardness. In their shoes, try to imagine how you would feel if your daughter of 14 comes home pregnant and unable to point to the father of the child. To protect yourself from public ridicule, don’t even attempt to pin it on any of the boys. By the time you put to bed and a DNA is done, the paternity of the child would be revealed; making it difficult for the man responsible to deny or mock you. I am also sure that like most young girls, you plan to get married some day. For this simple reason don’t do anything that will affect your productivity as a woman in future. The woman’s womb is the tenderest part of her body. Once damaged, it cannot be replaced despite advancement in technology. So be careful the kinds of risks you take at this delicate stage of your life. Sometimes it is best to become an early mother than to be childless for life. At least, you have learnt the importance of self discipline and wisdom of protecting yourself. None of the boys you slept with is having your kind of challenge. They can afford to walk away and keep their distance from you. But you can’t. You must face the shame of what you did with them all alone. It is a big lesson you must always remember. The woman is the one who bears all the shame in your kind of situation. Good luck.

She pushed me out and took over my home

Dear Agatha, Please help me deliver my marriage from the claws of this desperate woman that has taken over my husband and marriage. The woman happens to be my former friend. She was the one I turned to when I was having challenges in my marriage. She was the one who told me how to put my husband in check by taking me to see her pastor who gave me a substance to put in my husband’s food. She was also the one who told me to deny my husband sex, refuse to accept the amount he was giving me as house-keeping money with the argument that it was too small for me to do anything tangible with; who taught me how to wear clothes my husband didn’t like. She was the one who also taught me how to lie to my husband to enable me attend parties organized by her and friends. There was nothing I didn’t tell her about my marriage. Since she claimed her husband and children were abroad, I believed everything she told me to do. The last straw that sent me packing out of the house was when my husband in livid annoyance slapped me for lying to him about my whereabouts. I had accompanied this friend of mine to a party and we stayed so late. I didn’t know my husband was back from his trip. When I got home, rather than apologise to him, I instead told him off; with the argument that if he can afford to keep late nights so can I. Anger made him to slap me and I didn’t hesitate to reply with a slap of my own. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep inside the house that night. He threw me out. I called my friend to inform her of the development and told her I was coming over to her house. She told me she wasn’t at home; that I should go over to my parents whose house was at Ibafo. I didn’t understand what was happening until some few months later after she kept rejecting my calls that I heard she has packed into my home. According to my house-help who traced my parents house, my friend came to see my husband the next morning with the story that I went to see one of my numerous boyfriends and that she was fed up with advising me against my kinds of friends and lifestyle. I learnt she also told my husband that she didn’t allow me come to her house because I am not the kind of friend she wanted to be known with. I was told she never went back to her house after that night which explained why she kept rejecting my calls and the reason my husband never bothered to come to see me and our two children despite my father and his people pleas. I am perplexed because I need my husband more than ever before. I know she used charms to trap my husband but how can I make him believe me? I tried going to his office but he has left instruction that I never be allowed in. His friends, I contacted, he fought them all. Please, Agatha, help me get my husband back, I beg you. I love him very much. Desperate Wife. Dear Desperate Wife, Isn’t this realization coming too late? You don’t treat a man you love the way you treated your husband. Love and respect go hand in hand. You cannot be in love with a man you obviously lack respect for. Earnestly, you asked for it. How could you be so foolish as to entrust your life and home to somebody whose history you don’t know? If you were that familiar with her, you would have known if she was telling the truth about her marital status. Even if it’s true her husband and children are abroad, didn’t it occur to you to pause to think what she was doing in Nigeria when her family was abroad? Her story should have warned you that something was definitely wrong somewhere for her to be living apart from her family. Children usually stay with their mother and not their father. What were you looking for; a married woman in parties at night? Did it ever occur to you that you were setting yourself and marriage up for failure? What responsible woman leaves her children to party with single women till late in the night and stands up to slap her husband? Does it mean you couldn’t think for yourself or resist the overbearing influence of a friend you met in your mid-life? How can you explain a mother and wife coming home at the time you said you came in? Even if something happened that made you stay back that late in the party, shouldn’t you have gone on your knees immediately to beg your angry husband? In the first place, why would you attend a party without your husband’s permission and when he travelled? You didn’t stop at that: you slapped him in return for a situation you created? If this man never comes back to you, you asked for it. Your smart so called friend doesn’t have to use juju to keep him. You foolishly gave her every weapon to fight you. From everything you told her, she knows your husband like the palm of her hand. She knows what he likes, how he wants certain things done; what he expects from his woman and with the knowledge she has of you, would do everything possible to avoid your mistakes. A determined and smart woman knows the right words, buttons and attitude to employ to get a man she wants. Your foolishness has become her gain. Even if she deployed other means to trap him, you offered your home to her on a platter of gold. Frankly, it would be a while for your husband to get out of this woman’s clutches. She is a fool and would have put in place structures to ensure he doesn’t wake up from whatever spell she might have cast on him. For her to befriend and send you out of his life without you knowing her real motive, you can bet, she is several steps ahead of you. The sad thing is that you unwittingly destroyed whatever happy memory your husband has of you through the kind of attitudes you put up. Is it your rudeness, the guts of replying his slap, your suspicious lifestyle and neglect of your family, you want him to remember and come back to? Through the help of this woman, you thoughtlessly erased whatever fond memories your husband had of you. Unwisely, you also created suspicions in his mind regarding the paternity of those children. Unfortunately, when a woman adopts a careless and suspicious lifestyle, her children are usually the first to be rubbished. Your husband is most likely to believe what your friend said because of the evidences your recklessness have presented him. If he isn’t bothered about your children, it is because he thinks; you may have foisted their pregnancies on him. In his shoes, given the kind of things you have done through the active support of your so called friend, would you blame him for not wanting to see you and your children? Granted they are his, but in his current frame of mind, he is clearly not ready to listen or reason along that line. Even if he wants to come back, there is nothing so compelling about your person he wants again in his life. In addition, your friend might also have told him that you are a frequent visitors to the homes of herbalists and spiritualists, an accusation you cannot deny since you through her support have actually visited one of them and laced your husband’s food with a substance given you. For now, let him be to avoid causing more harm to your marriage. This isn’t the time you strike when the iron is at its hottest. The wisdom here is to allow this very iron cool; give your friend the false security in her new position as the woman of the house before appearing again. Only a woman who is alive fights over a man. Your friend is desperate enough to kill so, be careful. If you have a job, re-order your life by learning from your past mistakes. Save to get a place of your own so that you and your children can begin life anew. That done, pray to God for His help in freeing your husband from the claws of this woman. If you trust in God; have the confidence that there is no situation above Him, you will get your husband back but you must be prepared to make the sacrifice by being patient as well as learning the supreme lesson of humility. As long as you are willing to learn from all these, you will smile again. Good luck.

My ordeal

Dear Agatha, Ten years ago, I was poor, homeless and certainly not in a position to care for a child. Besides, the man responsible denied the pregnancy and I. There was nowhere for me to stay let alone the baby. I was living under the Ojuelegba bridge. When I fell into labour, I was rushed to General Hospital at Randle. There I heard about a woman who through gossips from the nurses, doesn’t have a child and may not due to complications of an abortion that went bad. As a result, I heard her husband drove her out to marry another woman. It was not difficult getting her address from the nurses so, after I was discharged, I took my baby to her doorsteps very early in the morning before day break and ran away but not without explaining my reasons. I didn’t bother to return to my previous post at Oluelegba. With the little money I made, I ran to Ibadan to begin a new life. As God would have it, things changed for me the moment I got to Ibadan. I not only found love but tremendous success in my business. I am blessed with three other children, two boys and a girl but my mind keeps going back to my baby, I left on the doorsteps of that childless woman. Although I haven’t told my husband about my son, I intend to just as I want that child back in my life. There is no day I don’t think about the child. A friend of mine I confided in said I should forget the child. According to her, it would cause problems in my home but sincerely, I don’t care. I want my child back. I love my other three children but not enough to make me forget my first fruit in life. Since January this year, I have been having this strong feeling that I should go and take the child. I actually planned to visit the woman. From my findings she is still in that house with my son who is now in a private secondary school. What do you think? I have never forgiven myself for what I did. Tutu. Dear Tutu, Fate has a way of dealing with us, bringing us on our knees to face a past we so much wish to forget. It also has the knack of planning our lives in such a way that it weaves the past into our present and future. You are who you are today because of that past. There is no running away from it. For the future you plan for yourself to be peaceful, you must settle the past in such a way it doesn’t destroy all your present efforts. This is why you must discuss with your husband first. He represents your present. The issues of your son and husband must be handled with maturity by you for the future to be well placed. You are no longer in a position to take unilateral decisions. You are answerable to this man, so confide everything in him. Even though you were very wrong not to have told him that part of your life, inform him about the child you had and abandoned, don’t make another costly mistake of going to the woman without informing him. Besides, the child now has another mother. You owe your husband that much. You also have a duty to inform your three other children about the boy irrespective of whether he comes home or not. It is to guard against the nasty incident of two siblings going into a relationship later in life. They must know that somewhere in your past, they have a brother one you gave up for adoption when things were difficult for you. I appreciate every concern you have for this child as a mother but first give this concern a solid base. This is the point you tell him everything about your past. Your family, what led you as a young girl to take up residence under the bridge, why you didn’t leave the child with your mother or any family member instead of abandoning the baby with a complete stranger. There are too many missing pieces in your life of which, the neglect of your child is only a part of it. Sit your husband down and relay the entire story of your life. Being truthful is the only way he can understand or appreciate why you can afford to dump your new born baby at the doorstep of a total stranger. Doubtless, your actions are condemnable, the fact that you didn’t ditch the baby inside the dustbin lessens the gravity of what you had done. Stand on this platform to plead your case with your husband who may be taken aback by the obvious callousness in your actions. The need to safeguard your home before setting out to find your son cannot be over-emphasised. This boy needs peace if he is to come to you. It would be pointless bringing him to a home where he would never find love or be completely part of. Don’t forget that you have acted irresponsibly once; not getting the consent of your husband fully before setting out will pit your children against each other. The ones at home will feel that you are neglecting them for a child you left a decade ago. In a way, you will be enacting what you did to your first son with your other children. It will be like making the same mistake twice. Go, only if your husband gives his permission. Despite being the biological mother of that child, you gave up your right to him the very moment you left him at the doorstep of the other woman. If the other woman has acted like you, what child will you be contemplating going back to? She was the one who did all the hard-work; the sleepless nights, changing the dirty diapers, crying with the baby when ill; singing and dancing to imaginary music when the baby is restless. The baby is more of hers now than yours. There is no way she would willingly hand over her son to you simply because you brought that child to life. Besides, you don’t have any legal right to want the child back. Don’t forget you committed a crime against the state by dumping that child the way you did. What if a ritualist got to the child before she did? Unless you plan to kill this other woman before her time, don’t consider taking the child away from her. The best you can do, if you must go, is to see her first. Introduce yourself to her and let her know that you appreciate her care of the boy. Let the decision to introduce you to the child come from her. If she insists on you not meeting the child, go but plead with her to give you a picture of the child as well as the name he now bears. Explain your reasons to her; you don’t want your children sleeping with each other out of ignorance. Make her understand this fact; that you don’t want to take the child away from her but to ensure you keep the link between the children alive. It is one of the sacrifices you must make for that decision to desert the child then. To do otherwise would make you appear as a very selfish woman, who at every point in her life puts her interest first and foremost. Feelings are not what you turn on and off like taps. This child you seek for now has a root and a sense of allegiance to the woman he has grown to love as a mother whereas, you are a complete stranger to him. Had you come back almost immediately after you made it in Ibadan, it would have been a different case but waiting for a decade? There are certain things in life that are best left in the cupboard of time. Whether you forgive yourself or not, the fact remains that your interest in this drama involving your first son must be played down because there are now more people involved in the matter. It was your decision to leave him but if he is to come back to you, the opinion, feelings and consent of others involved must be considered. Above all, you also need to pray to know the plans of God for you and this child. Good luck.