Dear Pastor,

I am a regular reader of your column. It does not miss me. When I don't get to read the Star, I become depressed. Keep up the good work. You are doing a fine job.

I am having some problems and I hope you can help me. I am living with a man for the past two years. We have a child together and I had one before I met him. When I met him I did not know that he was married. He lied to me. He told me he was living with a woman, but they were not married and he had started to move out of the house because he caught her with a man. I believed him because when he was talking to me, he started to cry and I felt very sorry for him.

I was working and living with my child. So, he kept coming to the house, and eventually we got together until we started to live together. It was when I got pregnant and introduced him to one of my relatives and told him that he was my fiancé then I noticed my relative's countenance changed. After my relative left, my boyfriend was very silent.

shocked

I called my relative and asked him why he reacted that way when I introduced my boyfriend to him. He told me that he knows him very well and I should be careful because he got 'involved' and he was sentenced to prison. I was so shocked, but I was already pregnant. My relative also told me that he is married and he also knows his wife.

One day after work, my relative and I met and he drove by where he was living and told me that the man has children with his wife. And while he was in prison, his wife got involved with another man, and when he got out of prison she told him he could not stay there anymore.

I confronted him about what I heard and he said that he loves me; but he was afraid to tell me the truth. He is not working and I have to be supporting him and my children. I would have been better off not having him.

I want to go back into my church. He asked me to marry him after his divorce comes through, but I don't want him in my life. I wish that all that has happened would just vanish away. Since he knows that I know that he has tricked me, he is behaving as a baby. But I don't trust him.

At times I feel depressed. Please tell me what to do.

T.T.

Dear T.T.,

I suggest that you try and help this man to get a job. He has deceived you, but you have a child by him. And what he should try and do is to find employment and support his child. I cannot encourage you to continue in this relationship because you will never trust him again and you will not feel comfortable having him around.

So many men used the excuse that they were afraid to tell the women the truth about themselves because the women would not have wanted to have a relationship with them. But they should speak the truth and allow the women to make the decision whether or not they should go into a relationship with them. Some married men never say that they are married, while on the other hand, some do.

This man went to prison and was married. Yet he lied his way into your life and has a child with you. No one should blame you for wanting him out of your life. I cannot encourage you to marry him after he has got his divorce. I repeat, try and help him to get a job and let him know that you do not wish to have him as your life partner so he should move on.

Pastor