Dear Agatha,
My mother is a very hard working woman. As a matter of fact, she is the one taking care of the family-from paying our school fees and providing us with accommodation. My father on the other hand is always between jobs. He finds it almost impossible to keep a job down because of his character. If he is not fighting mum at home, he is drunk and misbehaving. Severally, mum has set him up in one business or the other, but it is always the same story. He would run the business aground and be back to fomenting trouble in the house and neighborhood
If being irresponsible was the only cross we had to carry on his behalf, my siblings and I would not have been affected. But he also has the penchant of engaging in extra marital affairs with any woman in skirts. If he isn’t sleeping with our paid helps, it would be the neighbor’s wife or daughter.
We lost count of the many times we were chased away from our accommodations because of our father’s many indiscretions. Mum had to make a decision to develop the land she bought several years back to protect us from the constant embarrassments brought on us by our father.
Agatha, my new worry is the reason I want your help. There is this woman who is my father’s cousin. They have the same maternal grandmother. Three months ago, her marriage crashed and she came to live with us. Ordinarily, she is a nice woman but the rumor mill has it that her marriage crashed because of her constant affairs. As a matter of fact, another of my father’s cousin warned my mother not to allow her stay with us. She told my mother that she might end up regretting her decision to accommodate her. Since she refused to be categorical in her statement, my mother dismissed her warnings and allowed her in-law stay.
None of us would have found out anything if I didn’t come home from work unannounced. I wasn’t feeling fine so came home two hours after I left for work; to walk into my father and his cousin making out in the living room. I won’t disgust you with the whole details but they have been begging me not to reveal what I know about them to my mum. I later discovered from my father’s other cousin, that they have been sleeping with each other since they were kids and that dad was the main reason her marriage failed and she, the reason my father isn’t doing well in his marriage and life too.
Now this is the reason I need your help. I don’t want to carry the burden of keeping this from my mother but I also don’t want to be the one to give her this news that would break her completely. Although they both promised to discontinue but knowing what I now know, there is no way both of them can stay away from each other.
Please help me make a decision before my mum finds out in a circumstance that might completely destroy her.
Adebola.
See reply below;
Dear Adebola,
Given the background to your parents’ marriage, there is no reason why you shouldn’t tell your mother about the relationship between your father and his cousin. Ordinarily, if the relationship wasn’t fraught with such massive insincerity and irresponsibility, it would have been wrong for you to interfere in your parents’ marriage. The fact too that your father disrespected the sanctuary of his home by bringing in his mistress and sleeping with her under his matrimonial roof, erases your responsibilities towards him.
In addition, keeping quiet could be inimical to your mother’s life because out of desperation to be completely free, your father and his lover, can come with a plan that would erase your mother permanently.
This is a possibility you must not sweep under the carpet. Being the one who caught both of them pants down, you have enough evidence, to back your accusation against your father and his mistress. It would also be best if you can get some of your father’s relatives who are in the know to speak out on the matter. The conspiracy of silence to which they appear to have been sworn to must give way to the truth if a permanent solution to this shame is to be found. Already the lady’s marriage has suffered from this silence just as your family is also suffering.
Your mother may not be totally ignorant of what is happening in and around her but maybe staying on because of her children. Not many women want to expose the deficiencies in their marriages to their children and the world. Your telling her, maybe the clarion call she needs to face certain truths about her marriage. Telling her, doesn’t mean you are encouraging her to quit but it is extremely important she is given the opportunity to make a choice in her life that is already complicated with falsehood and wrong decisions.
What your mother needs the most now is your support and understanding. The best way to support your mother is not to question her decision. Don’t forget she is the one wearing the shoes and knows where they hurt the most. Whatever decision she makes, ensure you are by her side all the way. Explain everything to your siblings so they also understand whatever would happen to your mother and father.
Your family has gotten to that important junction in life when the nakedness and brutality of the truth is given the free rein to do its work of healing. It is only then that your family can move forward from this point of stagnation.
May God give you the strength to do the right thing and heal your home.
Good luck.
