#DearBuki: She Cheated With Her Married Choir Member

Hello dear blog readers, how has your day been? I have started a column tagged #DearBuki where you can send whatever issues weighing on your minds and I would do my best to proffer solutions to them by giving my opinion and showing other perspectives to them. I do a lot of these guidance and counselling offline so I felt the need to bring it on my blog. Do send me an email on bukiotuyemi@gmail.com and we will put heads together. Check out the other posts here.

As they say, a problem shared, is a problem half solved................ :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Buki,

I have some issues in my relationship on which I need your counsel.

I have this girl I am in love with. We met during our NYSC. I was already working for the company I was serving as a trainee Engineer. She just finished serving and was employed as a surveyor. We fell in Love after two months of working together. We have been together for a couple of years now. I now realize that everything I have done in the past few years, I have planned around her.

The problem is, she is emotionally fragile.

There is this married man in her church she started getting close to. Apparently they are in the choir together. I warned her about how close they they were getting, but she promises the man is like a mentor. Then I started noticing the hushed tones when she is on the phone with him. I saw the new found intimacy, confronted her and everything. She denied, but I was not the type that raises issues if I wasn't sure of what I was saying. Then she started going to sleep in this man's house. When I discovered, she cried and told me she had a thing for the man and was looking for a way to discharge him. I decided to oblige her. She told me the man was moving his family to the States and that that was the opportunity she was looking for as she planned to cut off all communications. When he left, I noticed they were still in constant communication. I confronted her, she told me the man wouldn't let her be.

Now the man is back from the States and will be going back soon to join the family. My woman doesn't sleep in her house or mine again. She has been sleeping at this man's and lying to me she wants to stay alone in her house for a few weeks. I just figured this out two days ago.

wow.

When she noticed she had been found out, she called to come home and see me. I decided to pull a stunt. I place a condom beside my bed where I knew she would see it. When she saw it she cried for 2 hours, begging that she has lost me .

She was crying because she knew that I had never cheated on her since we met. She then told me that she is helplessly in love with this man and doesn't know what to do. I was like ’he is married and will be leaving for the states finally, why would u throw away ur own relationship for that?’

She wants to keep me around. But how can a girl tell me she is in love with a married man and still want me around?

We have been through things I cannot even describe. I am sorry, I don't know how to shorten my words.

I want to help this girl. She is fragile, falls for cheap affections. She might hurt herself. What do you think?

Thank you.

Ikechukwu

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Ikechukwu,

Hmmmmn. I will call this situation as i see it. She clearly wants to eat her cake and have it back. Well, she IS already eating the cake (aka married man) and wants it back (you). It appears to me like you are being used by this girl. She is blackmailing you emotionally. She has told you she is shagging a married man and is in love with him, YET she wants you in her life. As what, if I may ask? As an assistant boyfriend or as a male bestie? How was she even sleeping in his house while his family was there, as she claimed? I'll bet he was lodging her in hotels. 

Look, I would say you should leave her be for now until she knows what exactly it is she wants. Let her choose between yourself and the man. She can't have both of you. She knows you have been faithful to her for years, yet she has been cheating and lying YET she still wants you. She's messing with your head. Ask her to choose and/or give you some space. You also need to reflect on all that has happened but you will not make a clear decision if she's around you shedding tears and all that.

The only reason I am asking you to give her a choice is because you say you love her, otherwise i would have advised you outrightly to walk away .

Ask yourself these questions: is she genuinely sober and apologetic for cheating on you? Is she repentant for shagging a married chorister and for hurting you? Is she willing to wholeheartedly forget the past and move on to a better and 100% faithful future with you? Are you willing to overlook her indiscretions and never use her mistake to taunt her and hurt her when you argue? Can you get past it?

I wish you all the best.

Thank you.

Buki O.