Dear Agatha
I am an avid reader of your column, a 35-year-old married man and a professional based in Lagos. I have just heard the most shocking news of my life. During a recent argument, my wife had requested me to vouch on the fidelity of my mistress and I was ready to swear that she was absolutely faithful. However, before agreeing to swear to the oath, I called up my mistress for her to confirm that I was the only one she had been with in the four years we had been together. She confirmed I was the only one she has had sex with, but warned that I must not take any oath on her behalf.
You can imagine the shock and surprise I felt when, weeks later, she admitted she has had sex with two other men, save that she had been raped by the men in 2007. I recalled that she had told me in 2007 that her landlord got some thugs to invade her residence. I had demanded from her then if the men assaulted her and she had flatly denied. Of course, hearing the news of the rape broke me and I sympathised with her, but I also wondered what else she must have been hiding from me all these years.
I trusted her so much that I was ready to divorce my wife to marry her. I had even instructed my lawyer to hand over the sole landed property I had to her should I die untimely.
Now I seem to be in a fix. I still love her, but I’m not sure I can trust her again. I’m tempted to give my wife a second chance, but can’t leave my mistress, especially at such a delicate time as this. What do I do?
Cy
Dear Cy,
Precisely, how delicate is this time? And for whom is this time fragile for; you or her? If she was raped three years ago, why didn’t she tell you then? Why did she lie about it when you demanded to know if she was assaulted? What steps did she take to sue the landlord since her assailants were faceless and came into her home on the orders of a known person?
Why did she wait until now to tell you what she couldn’t tell you when the issue was fresh and the doctors could still detect evidences of violent entrance into her body? Was she ever going to tell you the truth about that incident if you didn’t ask her?
If it is true she was raped that day, you being her man should have been the first to know. She should have given you the opportunity of protecting her from the landlord. That she kept quiet is evidence of something else, perhaps a story she doesn’t want to tell you. Who was she protecting back then that made her deny any assault on her person? These are questions begging for answers.
You definitely have your reasons for wanting to do away with your wife; but in doing so, be careful you don’t walk away from frying pan into another. The grass always appears greener on the other side of the fence. Mostly, we don’t appreciate what we have until we lose it.
Ask yourself this question in the silence of the night, when no one or thoughts disturb you. Take out your wife from the cupboard of time where you have banished thoughts of her. Go back the very first moments you both met and how it was between the two of you.
Can you still remember the reason you married her? Deep down, do you think she still has that thing irrespective of the current situation between the two of you?
This is no time to get angry or play up issues that are not important. Doubtless, she must have hurt you in more than one way to come to the conclusion that you want her out of your life, but do you think she alone committed the offence you accuse her of? Are you as just as you want everyone to think? Do you think it is right for you to flaunt this other woman in her face while she still stays in your home as your wife? If this other woman turns out to be more of a disappointment than your current wife, what would you do; divorce her and marry another?
There is no one who comes perfect from God. We all have one defect or another. Often than not, the mistakes we notice in others come from our own impatience as well as inability to open the personal manuals of our friends and loved ones. We want our loved ones to perform from our own manuals, forgetting that each and everyone one of us come with our own private code which gives us a uniqueness from others around us. What you today perceive as her own faults may be as a result of your inability to understand and appreciate who exactly she is.
There is nothing as frustrating as living with someone who doesn’t understand what someone is all about.
If you have decided to give her another chance, it is true that the issue between you isn’t beyond redemption. But, because there is another woman out there, the willingness as well as determination to discuss your differences with a view of coming to an agreement is missing from your end.
Use this opportunity provided by what you described as this delicate period between you and your mistress to talk with your wife. Whatever it is that has gone wrong between the two of you, this is the time for both of you to come out in the open.
Give her the chance too also to talk about her disappointments as well as reasons for her behaviour. There is no way two complete strangers can come together under one roof without disagreements, disappointments and moments of regret. The human nature is such that issues will always come up between two people. If people from same parentage can have very fundamental issues between them, how much more both of you who come from different homes, ideologies, cultures, upbringings and values?
No matter how much one tries to avoid challenges in marriage, they will still come because it is human to disagree and agree. The best marriages are those that survived the penetrating heat of the goldsmith’s fire. Only the best gold comes out of the furnace in premium quality. The same principle applies to marriage. It must go through life’s oven, survive the heat to get to its true character.
Every marriage requires devotion, annoying sacrifices, humiliating choices, tolerances, stupid patience, believe in the union, trust in God as well as honesty to make it work. It can’t work when any of these is missing, won’t bring out the best if one party is unwilling to take the blame of the other.
Marriage is sacred and calls for constant devotion to make it work. To lay the blame of it on the doorsteps of one party only is to write whatever reasons both of you came together off.
With a mistress somewhere in your life, you will never be able to think straight and give your marriage the drive to take it out of the woods.
A mistress has all the time in the world to put her best foot forward because she has a goal to achieve; but there is no hiding place for the wife constantly under scrutiny from her husband.
Frankly, the issue here is not who is right or wrong; but that of helping your marriage to move away from the point it is now.
Without making the efforts, it will not move from the point it is now.
Give you and your wife the opportunity to be happy together.
