Dear Pastor,

I hope this meets you in good health. I am 29 and married with two children. I am going through something that I really do need your help with. I have been married for almost five years now, but my marriage has gone bad for about three years now. I have put my husband out of our home. There are so many things wrong with our relationship. I don't know where to begin.

During our dating, he asked for a child and I told him I have one child already out of wedlock and I was not about to make that mistake twice. He would beg for a child morning, noon and night. Months after we got married, he started the begging and pleading and to be honest with you, pastor, I just didn't want another child but because marriage is about compromise, I gave in and we decided to try.

Towards the end of my pregnancy, we weren't making love due to the fact that I was having a lot of complications and I was in and out of the hospital.

After I gave birth, I saw some changes in my husband. He is a police officer and occasionally he does sideline jobs at different night clubs. When I saw the changes in him, I kept asking him if he was cheating. I won't put my head on the block for no one but this man grew up with a lot of morals. I was the third woman for him so I had more experience than him. So, when he started to play his little games, I picked on him. I asked him about it and he said he wasn't doing anything. But, pastor, I am a woman that would take her man's words for it but that doesn't necessarily mean I believe him. I said to myself that I was just going to sit back and watch his behaviour.

When my baby was about six months old, I went by my sister for Sunday dinner. And after we were finished eating, my mother took us home. And when I got home, my husband was there and he realised that my mother took me home. He came outside, jump in her car and went away.

privacy

Pastor, I am the kind of woman that thinks everyone needs a little privacy so I don't search men's phones, but I took up his phone and went to the message box where his inbox said zero message. I went to the sent box, it too said zero. Something told me to still click on it, which I did. Some messages pop up like texts that he would send to me, such as "hi baby, I love you," and so on.

I would be mad because he cheated, but, pastor, I was hurt because the woman that he chose to have a relationship with was someone who worked at one of the strip clubs where he would do the sideline work. That night I just laughed, called my mother in the bedroom and showed her the texts.

When my husband got back home, I showed him the texts and if he could melt and disappear in the ground, he would. The hit I gave him the light went out. My mother held me and told me that it is better for him to leave. From then our relationship has been nothing but downhill. His parents were in disbelief. His grandmother became ill and his parents came and they beg for him and said that I should remember that we just got married and we just had a baby. I thought about it and took him back.

problems

We started having all kinds of problems. He can't save his money to save his life. He didn't show me any affection unless he wanted sex. No matter what, we sat and talked about as husband and wife, he made decisions behind my back. He is a person who loves to be in debt so he kept taking things that his salary can hardly pay for. Every time I turned around, the light and the water got disconnected and we owed on the rent. I would cry for days.

I remembered a time when my oldest child came to me and said that he was hungry and had to go to bed hungry. I fell in a depression. I was taking all kinds of pressure tablets that doctor prescribed. I put on a ton of weight. I told him that our relationship wasn't working and we needed counselling. For about six months I had to be telling him. I had to put him out the house for him to go.

When we went to see the counsellor, I was the only one talking. He sat there and I stopped talking because I didn't want the counsellor to think that I was making up things. The counsellor turned to him and asked him if anything that I was saying was not true and he said no. He claimed that he wanted the relationship to work but still he was not doing anything to make it work. I became depressed because the church in which I grew up doesn't believe in divorce.

I met a man who has pulled me out of my depression and has helped me to lose the excess weight that I had gained. Pastor, I think this is the man that God had made for me. We have been together for over a year now. I have come to terms that my marriage is over. I have been unhappy for too long and now I can't be happier.

If I don't want to be alone, do I have to stay in a bad marriage, stay single or can I move on with my life and remarry without thinking that I have lost my soul?

K.N

Dear K.N.,

At least you have tried to save your marriage. Your husband has not cooperated. It appears as if he has lost interest in the marriage. You have got involved with another man and you want to bring an end to your marriage legally. You have enough grounds for divorce. Your husband has been unfaithful to you. And now you have a new man in your life. You believe that this new man is God's gift to you. Therefore, I suggest that you see a lawyer as early as possible and discuss divorce proceedings with him/her.

Pastor