I am a regular reader of your column in THE STAR and I appreciate all the advice you give to people of all ages all around the world. I never thought that I would write to you about a problem that I am facing. I am a young girl who feels she has no one else to talk to, so I want to share a story with you.

For about a year and a half now, I have had this amazing guy in my life who makes me happy almost every time I speak with him or see him. When we started our relationship, he had another girlfriend that I did not know about. When I found out, our relationship wasn't very serious, so I decided to stay with him. As time went on, we fell for each other more and more and became very serious. I even lost my virginity to him.

I come to Jamaica a lot on vacation. Even though I had met this guy a year earlier, I didn't live in Jamaica so I had to go back to the United States. We decided to try and make the relationship work long distance, and I was always worried about him and this other girl when I was gone. About a week before I came back to Jamaica to stay permanently, I had got into a little incident with his friend and showed him my private parts. That should not have happened, so after he found out, the trust he had for me was gone. A little after that, I had found out that although he had promised not to have sexual contact with the other girl, the reason why he never did was because she was too hairy. That hurt me a lot.

Whenever I do something wrong, he always compares me to her and makes me feel bad. He lies to this girl about me, saying we are just friends and nothing more, but everyone else in the community knows about me and him, including his parents and mine. My friends always tell me to leave him, but somehow I still feel guilty over what I did with his friend and I find it impossible to leave.

I confronted him

I confronted him about it and he said that he will leave this girl for me once summer came. Well, he still hasn't left this girl. She found out about us and she knows the truth now. He only told her that he loves me more and he doesn't feel the same about her. But technically, they are still together because neither of them said it is over as yet.

What should I do? Should I stay or leave?

Seriously in love

Dear Seriously in love,

You have caused your own dilemma. You knew that this man had a girlfriend and both of them have a child together. You encouraged him to have a relationship with you. You thought that you would just take him away from his girlfriend, so you did nothing to discourage him from going with you. You must have been very naïve to believe that this man would just dump his child's mother because of you.

I would like to find out what caused you to expose your private parts to this man's friend? What was the occasion? And if you respected yourself, why would you show your private parts to this man's friend? That looks like vulgarity to me. Were you hoping that this man would have had sex with you, so you were prepared to show him what you planned to give him?

This incident with the gentleman and you took place while both of you were in America. How then did your boyfriend find out about it? And do you believe that now that he knows what you are capable of doing, he would want you to be his wife? If you do, you are fooling yourself. Say what you want about his child's mother. She stands a better chance of getting his ring. You may try to belittle her and say bad things about her, but this man is likely to take the risk in marrying her than getting himself permanently entangled with you. He can trust his child's mother but cannot trust you.

Pastor