The ManicaPost
Dear Tete Joyie:
I’ve been married for seven years and we have two young sons.
The other night my husband came home, sat me down and told me that he’s got a 19-year-old girl pregnant.
I can’t believe I’m even writing these words.
My husband works and I’m a stay-at-home mum.
I thought we were happy.
We hardly ever rowed and I just always felt so secure and now he’s torn that apart.
He told me that she’s the younger sister of a bloke on his football team.
Apparently she’s been going to a few of the football nights out and several months ago they ended up in bed together.
They slept together five times in total and never used any protection and now she’s pregnant.
My husband is absolutely distraught and says he’ll do anything to keep our family together but I just don’t know how that’s going to be possible.
We’ve been together since we were 16 and I just can’t imagine not having him there in my life.
But I can’t imagine being able to forgive him and putting this behind us either.
There’s going to be a constant reminder about what he’s done. What should I do?
Tete Joyie says:
What a mess.
I’m going to be really honest with you here, he told you because he had to.
She became pregnant, which forced his hand.
Ask yourself this, why didn’t he tell you after the first time they had sex?
Would he have continued to sleep with her if she hadn’t gotten pregnant?
Secondly, he also put your health at risk by having unprotected sex with this woman.
He didn’t even have the grace to use a condom.
And he didn’t do it just once, he did it five times.
It wasn’t a one-off drunken mistake.
It happened again and again.
And it’s this that would cause me the most pain.
It’s all very recent and raw right now and you can make rash decisions based on anger, pride and hurt.
Sometimes that’s okay, anger fires us up and helps us make strong decisions.
But then we calm down and the sadness hits. So wait for that calm until you make a decision.
I think to begin with, you should have counselling to help you work through what’s happening.
Ultimately only you can decide what to do.
One major factor to consider in all of this is that from now on, your husband and this woman will be in regular contact, both through the pregnancy and afterwards.
She’ll be calling him for support and at the very least he’ll have to make regular payments to her.
After all, having gotten this woman pregnant, the least he can do is support the child who isn’t to blame for any of this.
Then there will be the question of access during childhood, he may want the child in his life.
If you do decide to stay, then you need to ask yourself whether you can really forgive him when you have this constant reminder of his betrayal.
The very foundations of a good relationship, trust and contentment, have gone from your marriage so it’s going to take a hell of a lot of work to get over that.
I’m a bit horrified by what he’s done to be honest but ultimately only you know what to do next.
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Will family accept my ex?
Dear Tete Joyie:
My ex-boyfriend is nine years older than me and of a different religious and cultural background.
I kept our relationship a secret when we were together, but when we broke up I came clean to friends and family.
No one was happy.
I really miss him and think I might love him, but I know if I go back to him I will have no support from my family.
He also has a child with his ex-partner, which complicates things.
Do I follow my head and steer clear in line with family wishes or follow my heart and maybe be happy long term?
Tete Joyie says:
You haven’t said why you split up or whether he would want to get back together with you.
I think you have to ask yourself if anything that made you split up has changed or are you just missing him, which is natural.
If nothing has changed, then all the things that bugged you before will still bug you.
So you have to look at why he’s your ex.
As far as your family not approving goes, we all want our family to like who we choose as a life partner, but that’s not always the case.
Only you can decide whether love is enough and if you’re happy to accept that your family isn’t supportive.
Hopefully, in time that would change.
If you did get back together with your ex, though, you can’t use your family as a weapon every time you argue and make him feel bad for your family disowning you, for example.
I’m not saying it can’t work, but if you’re going to do it, do it slowly and talk about how you could navigate the whole situation.
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