SHE SE HIM FEEL GUILTY AND SHE DON’T

I am in deep troubled waters and swimming out of it is difficult because I don’t even know where to start from. I have lived up my deceit to a level and it is hunting me now. I have always believed that I was the guilty party but what I saw three weeks ago was too shocking for words and I don’t think I can face my husband again.

The problem on ground however, is that, my children are with him, all the trouble on ground are because of them. Please, I need your counsel and those of your readers fast. I have had to cancel my flight twice, if I do again, suspicion will come up from several quarters and I can’t afford that, even the third player in this saga must not hear for now because he had warned me. I suppose I have to start from the very beginning so that you all can understand me.

My husband and I just like every other young couple got married because we loved each other. Expectations from us and other quarters to start a family immediately were high, especially from my mother-in-law because my husband is an only child.

When years started rolling by and we were yet to be blessed with the fruit of the womb, family, members and relatives started asking questions. And of course as expected too my mother-in-law became impatient.

We sought all available solution, medical, spiritual and all. The results were always that we both were fertile. Initially, it was really difficult for me to convince my husband to take his own fertility test. He was always of the opinion that children would come at God’s appointed time and like every man who loved his wife, my husband would assure me of his love for me and minced no words in letting me know that he married me not because of children and if push came to shove we would adopt a child.

This never went down well with my mother-in-law and as expected, she insinuated that I was responsible for our childlessness and advised that my husband took another wife. He refused and this normally fuelled her anger more. In no time, her accusation took another dimension and that was the fact that I had jazzed my husband and that was why he wouldn’t listen to anyone.

My mother stood solidly behind me, prayerfully and she made sure I took all the tests available to prove my fertility, both here and abroad, the results were the same; I am fertile enough to conceive. When there was much pressure, my husband too presented a result, which showed that he could father children. After these, my mother advised that we should be patient because she was positive that our children would come at God’s time.

My husband’s mother, however, didn’t believe in this and when our marriage was exactly 13 years, she woke us both up on our wedding anniversary with a rude shock, she came to our home with the new wife she married for her son. Her action was too much for me to swallow; I had always kept quiet, despite all her insults and curses. That morning, I told my husband to please take another wife or probably accept the woman his mother brought so that I can have peace.

I should also let you know that along the line, my once loving and peaceful husband changed. He became hostile and would abuse me physically and psychologically. Our home became something else. my mother kept encouraging me to remain in my marriage and that I should realise that he was under pressure too.

So it wasn’t too much of a shock that he had a misplaced aggression that fateful day, because he gave me the beating of my life when I told him to marry the lady his mother brought home. Ordinarily, on days when he had beaten me up, my boss, a woman who had also been through a situation like this before would excuse me from duty.

On this particular day, she had travelled; I had no choice but to go to the office as I was supposed to attend to an important client. I went to the office after I had tried to cover my facial bruises with makeup. I had hardly settled down when the client was ushered into my office, a tall, handsome man in his 50s.

After I had attended to him, he asked me a shocking question, madam, he said, the man who did this to you is not worth the problem. I couldn’t deny that I had been beaten up, coupled with the fact that our discussion was disturbed several times by my husband and mother-in-law and he must have heard almost all our conversation because they were both shouting at me on the phone.

Little did I know that I was keeping a date with destiny, when I broke down right inside my office and told him all I have been going through. He was a good listener; he did not interrupt me once. After I had spoken and I had pulled myself together, he asked what I wanted to do. I told him that despite all, I love my husband and would not want to leave my marriage. He commended my decision and asked if he could take me out to dinner that night to celebrate my wedding anniversary after he had established that my husband wouldn’t be available.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have accepted the date, but the thought of staying home alone and having to face my mother-in-law and the troubles at home made me accept his date. I went out to shop for a good dress to wear after he left. He picked me up promptly after work. We rode in my car, while his driver followed in his own car.

He gave me a gift, a platinum gold wrist watch after dinner and we sat in my car at the parking lot of the restaurant for about two hours talking. He told me about his failed marriage, his wife and two sons. He pleaded with me to remain in my marriage and contact him whenever I needed to talk because he was travelling back to the US that night.

He didn’t even try to kiss me or take advantage of my situation to ask for sex. His kindness touched me so much that I started crying again when he wanted to leave. He hugged me hard and joined his driver. They both drove after my car and sped off as soon as I got to my gate. Of course, I arrived home late, but my husband was yet to return. I did not meet my mother-in-law as expected. My housemaid told me that after I had left for the office, he forcefully threw both of them out of the house before going to his office. No wonder she called again to curse me.

My client, Sly, called as soon as he arrived US and he became a friend and confidant that I could share my worries and problems with.

As a business man who has business interest here in Nigeria and in the US, Sly came home regularly and whenever he did, he would check on me. As I stated earlier, we became close and I shared my worries and problems with him. On one of his trips home, I visited him in his hotel, one thing led to the other, we ended up making love. It wasn’t something I wanted, but through our interaction, I had become emotionally dependent and attached to him, so there was little or no resistance from me when we started smooching and touching each other.

I must confess that I enjoyed every bit of our love making. I didn’t give it a thought when I was at it. I really couldn’t remember the last time my husband made love to me, he had married his drinks.

When we were through, I felt guilty and started crying. Sly was sorry and he said we had done something that couldn’t be undone, he said he was not sorry it happened because he loved and cared about me but it won’t happen again if I didn’t want it.

I shared a special relationship with him, I confessed that I enjoyed every bit of it, but I felt bad because it was the first time I cheated on my husband in our 13 years of marriage. He advised that I learn to live with it because it could happen again.

I went home and tried to forget what happened between Sly and I. my husband did not make it easy for me, it was one of the days he came home early with his troubles. I kept my cool and did not allow the situation to degenerate to a fight as usual. I kept going over the wonderful time I had with Sly and it gave me some peace. It soon became my opium whenever my husband started his trouble.

Sly, had to attend to other pressing business issues, so he didn’t return to Nigeria for over two months, we communicated on phone regularly and I went about my business without any problem. I had my regular monthly flow that month and had no cause to suspect anything. However, few days after I finished my period, my husband was promoted in the office. His promotion had been long overdue, because of this, his friends organised a surprised get together party for him.

We both received calls from his friends asking us to meet because of an emergency, and we were driven separately to the venue of the party. We were really surprised but we had a good time. When we got home after the party, he was sober enough to apologise for some of his misdeeds and made love to me. At the end of that month, I had my period, but it was not my normal five days. I had no cause to think otherwise, because, I thought nothing of it. Sly came home after but we did not have sex, I was ill. I was so ill that I didn’t remember that I didn’t have my monthly period.

I ran almost all the medical tests available and when my doctor suggested that I took a pregnancy test, I did to fulfill all righteousness. The result showed that I was pregnant. I was elated, but my joy had a coma when the ultrasound result showed that I was 12 weeks pregnant. Of course, my husband and other family members were happy for me but I couldn’t confide my suspicion in anybody.

I called Sly as soon as I could. He left all he had to do and came to Nigeria. he said he knew the pregnancy was his but said I should handle it my way. He was considerate. Of course, I couldn’t think of an abortion. My husband and his mother became changed people. I enjoyed the best of all worlds and people surrounding me were happy for me. Sly shopped for the baby and I from the Us and did not allow me to lack anything. My concern was for my Expected Delivery Date (EDD), but as God would have it, I was late and had a Cesarean Section (CS). My baby; a boy came to the delight of everyone; a healthy cute boy, who was my carbon copy. I must be sincere, that had been one of my fears, but I was like the Lord was involved. Sly also gave the baby his own name, incidentally, it was the same name I wanted to give him and that was what I called him although my husband gave his own name too.

I resumed work as expected; my mother-in-law was around to help take care of my son, I was weary leaving him with her, but sincerely, the poor woman was too happy taking care of her grandson to think otherwise. Peace returned into my home but as at that time, I was too much into my affair with Sly to stop seeing him. I became pregnant again exactly nine months after my first delivery. I was afraid, because I had a CS; my doctor assured me there was nothing to be afraid of. He assured me of the best care which he gave me, being an gynaecology. I wasn’t also able to say who the pregnancy belonged to because I had sex several times with both men but I prayed silently always that it should be my husband.

My second baby was also through CS, Sly was in the country when he was born. He took a look at him and told me; this is my son, his resemblance to my late mother is uncanny. However, because of his complexion, everyone who saw him thought he took after my mother-in-law. I was really becoming uncomfortable but Sly and I kept these between us. He said he would help keep my family since that was my wish. I had no reason to refuse marrying Sly, he wasn’t married even when I met him, but I couldn’t leave my husband. The boy’s birth further changed him and I had peace in my home, the turmoil I had was in my heart, created by no one but me.

In as much as Sly wanted me to have my home, he minced no words in telling me that he would not hesitate to take the boys if he sensed that they could be in danger. Sly, did not spear expenses with the boys upkeep and my husband too took care of them the way a father should. My husband lost his job few weeks before my second sons first birthday. That, however, did not stop the boy’ s birthday celebration. He tried getting another job, but it wasn’t coming easy.

He started becoming tensed again. I became afraid that he would become violent and abusive again. I raised my fears with Sly, he suggested that we all moved to the US. He said it would have been easy if he took the boys and I, but he knew I wouldn’t subscribe to it, so he offered to help all of us. I told my husband and he bought the idea. I explained that our benefactor is a client I had helped. If he suspected anything, he didn’t say. That was how we all relocated to the US.

Between Sly and I, we knew it would be too dangerous for us to live in the same place, so we moved to a different state. He really helped us both to settle down and we had good jobs. We couldn’t forget home, so we came almost every year. My husband’s mother and mine had visited us several times. My husband was home in Nigeria almost every year because of his mother who refused to stay permanently in the US.

His mother died January this year; we came home for the burial and moved into our new house here in Nigeria. I came home early in September. I was getting ready to leave when he called that I should give the documents of the land on which the property was built to his cousin who needed it for verification. He told me where to get it from. It was in the process of looking for the document that I came across his medical test result where my husband was certified unable to father children as his sperm count was nil.

I was too shocked for words. I saw the results of the tests he took before the birth of the boys and the ones he took after the birth of each one of the boys. Does he know the boys are not his? Who else knows? Then why is he not saying anything? I became very scared. I didn’t confide in anyone, so there was nobody I could turn to, not even my mother.

I didn’t want to share this with Sly who had always been my confidant because he would not hesitate to take the boys if he felt they are in danger. I made photocopies of these documents and returned the originals. I don’t know what to do. Please, Taiwo, I need your counsel before I go back. I don’t want to do anything suspicious, I love my boys and will do anything to keep them safe. Help me. Anonymous.

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