Dear Pastor,

I am a young girl who is pregnant and will give birth soon. My boyfriend has been abusing me. He pushes me around and chokes me. He does not do it regularly, but he did it to me today.

Please, help me, because I love this man and we have been together for four years.

S.J.

Dear S.J.,

Your boyfriend should be taking care of you, especially now that you are in a state of advance pregnancy. even if you were not pregnant, he should treat you well. He is not behaving as a gentleman. I wonder whether he wanted you to become pregnant. He is not behaving as someone who is looking forward to fatherhood.

I do not doubt, at all, that you love him. May I suggest that if you believe that your life is in danger that you contact relatives or good friends and ask them to take you in temporarily, and that you tell this man that both of you should go see a family counsellor. Do not stay with him if he continues to physically abuse you, because you do not know whether he will end your life by choking you to death.

Pastor