Dear Pastor,
I have been reading your advice for many years. I must tell you that you have been doing a good job. I am 21 years old and I got married to my husband when I was 16. He was living in Jamaica and I was living in the United States of America. A couple months after I got back to the States I started working. I wanted so badly for him to join me here. I was going to high school and studying to take the SAT.
He called me sometime after that and told me that he was seeing someone else and that she was pregnant for him. My heart was broken. I asked him how he could do that to me. He was my first love and the first man I was with. He said it just happened. After that I never called him again and he never called back.
In the summer of 2003 I went to Jamaica to visit my relatives and I saw him and all the old feelings came back. We never got divorced. We talked and he said we should give our marriage a second chance now that we are older. He is 25.
We had sex once and when I came home I found out that I am pregnant. He is living with his baby mother and he said he wants to leave her for his wife. I don't trust him. I am scared he might come here and use me.
What should I do? My child needs a father. I didn't know he was living with his baby mother. He lies about everything, but I am still in love with him. I am in my last year at college.
I want to be a teacher. My baby is due in April. I am planning to take classes over the summer to catch up on my school work. I am also working. I live with my parents. Please give me your fatherly advice.
K.P., Hartford, Connecticut
Dear K.P.,
I wonder why you got married so young. You were living in the United States of America and you were not in a position to apply for your husband to join you in the United States. It is no wonder that both of you grew apart and that he got involved with another woman.
It seems to me that both of you still love each other. And both of you need help in sorting out your problems. You are now carrying his child and he is still your husband. He is living with a woman with whom he has fathered a child.
If he is serious about the marriage, he will have to end the intimate relationship with the mother of his child. He ought to tell his child's mother the truth and both of you should try to rebuild your marriage. His child's mother is not going to let him go easily. And he might continue to lie to you about her.
So whenever he speaks to you, you have to take whatever he says with a grain of salt. Would he be honest with you is a big question.
In spite of the doubt you may have in mind, I believe you should forgive him if he is willing to end the relationship with his child's mother. I warn you, it is going to be tough for him to make that break. He must tell you every step he is taking and he must be honest about it. At least give it a try.
Please do not attack the mother of his child. Work with your husband. I will be praying for you.
Pastor
