Dear Pastor,

Warm greetings. I am 21 and I am attending university. I have a boyfriend and he was studying in America. When he was a second-year student, he came to Jamaica just for a week and we spent a night together at a hotel. When I went to see him, he told me that he didn't have any condom but he will do his best not to discharge in me. We made love and then I fell asleep. I woke up and we made love again. And early in the morning before we had breakfast, we did it again. I knew that he did not pull out when we had sex the second time, but I was hoping that nothing would have happened.

A few weeks later, I missed my period. And before I went to the doctor, I called him and told him that my period did not come. Both of us hoped that I would be all right, but that was not the case. I was pregnant, so I had an abortion. I could not carry the baby, because I would have had to give up university and my parents and everybody would have been disappointed in me.

My boyfriend has graduated and is back in Jamaica, but things are not going well between us because he is having a relationship now with an American woman. He met her at the school he was attending and he is planning to marry her. I pressed him to tell me the truth and he finally admitted that they were more than just social friends while he and I were having a relationship. He said that I should not give up on him, because I do not know what will happen in the future.

I have taken off so much weight. I am very angry with him and I could never trust him again.

R.F., St Andrew

Dear R.F.,

You were naive. You were going to spend a night with this man and you knew that both of you would have sex; therefore, you should have been prepared. He too should have been prepared. I am not here sanctioning sex out of marriage. I am just saying that every couple should know that if they engage in unprotected sex, it is likely that it may result in pregnancy. This man did not have condoms, neither did you, but it did not prevent both of you from having sex. And after you got pregnant, you did an abortion.

Now he has disappointed you by having another woman. He doesn't care how you feel. He was never loyal to you. He is probably an opportunist. There is nothing you can do to change his mind. This experience should teach you to be much more careful in the future. Do not always believe everything a man tells you.

Pastor