Dear Christine,
I need your advice. I beg you not to judge me like my mother and sisters have, but I just find it difficult to walk away from my children’s father as I have always said that I would live with the man who I got children for.
This man and I have been friends for nine years and we have two children. I really love him, but, Christine, he keeps having women on me. Right now he is involved with a girl who lives near me.
She has two children and it seems he is spending his money on the three of them because all of a sudden he is always complaining every Friday that he has nothing to give me.
Christine, I am a good woman. I never had another man in my life but him. Since we started living together three years ago after our last son was born, I have been cooking, washing and ironing for him and giving him all the sex he could want. Yet he still finds time to run around.
I have become so angry at what he is doing that we quarrel all the time now. I feel so bad to see that no matter what I do just doesn’t seem good enough.
My mum and sisters think that I am a fool to remain with him.
They warn me that the women he fools around with are not clean and if he makes me sick they will have nothing to do with me.
But Christine, I always said that when I get pregnant for somebody I would try to make that relationship work no matter what. I really don’t want to be like my mother and my sisters who have children from different men.
Christine, right now I am trying to decide if I should stay in the house but sleep in my sons’ room until he comes to his senses and realises what he has in me, or if I should just give up.
I am torn between what I should do, my feelings for him and my commitment to myself.
– Please Help Me
Dear Please Help Me,
You are indeed caught up in a delicate situation but one which you need to deal with satisfactorily for your happiness and the well-being of your sons.
I do understand your commitment to wanting to be with only the man you have children with. But you need to honestly ask yourself if you have given this relationship your all, and yet that is still not good enough for him, what more can you do?
You cannot make a man do anything he does not want to do. If your man is a womaniser and a cheat, you have to face up to that fact and decide if you are willing to put up with that and all the possible health risks.
You must realise too that when a man behaves like that he often has no respect for a woman and in spite of any promise to change, he is unlikely to.
Your future in this relationship is solely up to you as no one can decide for you what to do. You need to take a long, hard look at your life and ask yourself if you want to remain being treated like a doormat; or if you want a partner who will treat you with respect.
You don’t say how old you are, but I get the impression you are a relatively young woman with a long productive life ahead.
Do you really want to spend the rest of your days quarrelling, unhappy and being ignored? Don’t you deserve more than this?
And don’t you think that sort of home environment can be detrimental to the development of your two youngsters to grow up in?
After you honestly look at your life and answer those questions you will be able to make your decision on this man, and live with it too. I hope this helps.
– Christine
