Sunday, January 8, 2017

MARRIAGE CLINIC: My wife is exchanging sex videos with another man


MARRIAGE CLINIC:  My wife is exchanging sex videos with another man
Dear Agatha,
May the Good Lord continue to enrich your wealth of wisdom and knowledge.
My marriage of about seven years is at the brink of break-up. I recently discovered my wife could be having an affair with a friend of hers who stays in Kano while his family is in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.
I actually made the discovery when I needed to urgently check something in my email box. Since I didn’t have a subscription, I decided to use her phone. After I finished with my mail, I decided to check her WhatsApp chats and that is where I got this shocker of my life. From the chats she and this friend of hers have exchanged, I discovered they use endearments like ‘my love’ and ‘dear’. Some of their chats were not only romantic; they also exchange porn movies. Most painful is the knowledge she chats with this man till midnight but hardly chats with me up to 10p.m.
In fairness to my wife, she has been a very virtuous and supportive woman right from our courtship days. We courted for five years before we got married.
Back then things were very rough for me but she didn’t mind and gave me all the support I needed to succeed. She is not only beautiful but has the kind of heart that cares, which makes her the favorite wife in my family.
She and our two children live in Lagos while I work outside the State. I however make it a point of duty to visit them every two to three weeks.
It hurts because I have come to trust her so much. Not even on occasions when my colleagues do a generalisation about women being untrustworthy, have I ever doubted her.
What surprises me the most is that I deflowered her and she is very conservative. I also introduced her to her trendy fashion sense. I can’t imagine her addressing any other man by the endearments I read in her phone.
Since meeting her, I have not dated another woman despite pressures from women I come across in my line of duty as a medical doctor. I also haven’t kept this fact from her.
But with what I saw in her phone, I not only intend to have an affair but to end the marriage and care for only my children.
I’m confused and really don’t know what to do which is why I am appealing to you to help me, given your wealth of experience. Deep down, I still love her very much but cannot help myself after the chats I saw. I can’t think straight and my colleagues are beginning to suspect something is wrong between my wife and I.
I don’t want to tell them anything as I don’t want to discredit my wife in anyway before my friends. Please help me.
Felix.
Dear Felix,
It is obvious, despite everything you think your wife has done; you still love her sufficiently as to shield her from the negative opinions of your friends.
This is a positive sign that you are very much willing to engage in discussion on the matter. As a matter of fact, it is wrong despite all the evidences you think you have to assume her guilty of having an extra marital affair with this friend of hers without first confronting her with the facts you have.
Sometimes things aren’t what they appear to be. Yes, the chat you read is condemnable and damning, but given what you know about your wife, do you think it is enough evidence she is cheating on you?
And why didn’t you call her attention to the chat when you first discovered it? Don’t you think she deserves her day in court even if you think the chat is a conclusive evidence of her infidelity to you? Isn’t this the rationale behind giving even confirmed criminals the opportunity of defending themselves in courts of law?
It is only fair you give your wife the chance to either deny or defend herself against your proof by bringing the issue to her knowledge. It is wrong for you to come to a conclusion without informing her of what you read on her phone. You wouldn’t be fair to her and the children if you refuse to bring the issue to her knowledge. If you must end the marriage, at least give her the reason for your decision. This way you would not look like a fool when you find out the truth behind that exchange between the two of them.
Have you considered that they may just be fooling around as friends without anything to the chat? Do you think if she had anything to hide, she would surrender her phone to you when she knows it contains evidences of her infidelity to you and her marriage? Do you presuppose she would intentionally put her marriage to you in danger by allowing you access to issues that would endanger the union?
Depending on how close they are as friends, inappropriate as the conversation between the two of them maybe, that chat you saw might be very harmless. But you won’t know until you confront her head-on. You need to exercise caution because this issue, if not carefully handled by you could destroy a happy marriage.
In giving her the chance, it is also advisable you have an open mind to enable you come to a clearer picture of what the situation really is. In other words, give her the benefit of the doubt. If the man is in Kano and she is in Lagos, how easy do you think it would be for them to meet and have an affair in spite of what you have read from their chat thread?
In making your decisions, how possible is it for her to leave two young kids behind to be with a man who doesn’t reside in the same town with her?
In addition, If you say she is a woman of virtue, what do you think could have been responsible for her sudden change in behavior? Could it be there is something lacking in your marriage? Why aren’t you two staying together? Why is she in Lagos and you in your current State of assignment? Don’t you think this arrangement is doing more harm than good to your union?
The existence of such a chat is evidence that there is a salient issue with your marriage which you must tackle before anything else. Loneliness is a trap that ensnares and eventually destroys a marriage, no matter how solid the foundation of that marriage is.
There are moments in a woman’s life when she cannot help herself, when she wants the full compliments of her man. It takes the extra grace of God for her not to be tempted by another man who makes an appearance or calls her at her most vulnerable time. If your marriage is just seven years old, she is still too young to manage on her own emotionally. The first seven years are the most challenging of any marriage. No matter how many years you spent having a courtship, the make or mar period of a marriage is the first seven years.
Perhaps this is a clarion call for you to consider having your family with you at your station. If you are around her, she won’t have the time or boldness to share such images and chats with another man. The man too, won’t have such effrontery to engage another man’s wife till late in the night. They are both free to trade chats because you have unwittingly left your farm fallow most of the time.
Your solution should not be to start an affair but to relocate your family to where you are as soon as possible. Distance is like a cancer that eats away the essential parts of a marriage. Once she is close to you, you would have succeeded in solving all extraneous issues. Your staying apart as a couple is brewing trouble in your marriage.
Take it from me, the major issue in your marriage isn’t that of her suspected infidelity, but that of you two staying apart. Once that is resolved, you will discover that you are both happier and much more in love.
Good luck