Dear Pastor,

I am 19 years old and the mother of one child. The father of this child and I are together from I was 16 years old. I had sex with him for the first time when I was 17. Before that, every time he asked me for sex I told him that I was either seeing my menses or I was having pains in my belly, but it wasn't true.

He used to give me money, and one day I asked him to buy me a pair of shoes to attend a friend's graduation. He told me I could get that but I had to stop seeing my period first. It was that time I came to realise that he knew I was fooling him. I wanted the shoes, so two weeks passed and I asked him again for the money to buy the shoes and he said, "No problem, if the period stop I can get what I want from you and you can get what you want from me." So I told him it stopped but will soon come again and he said to me, "You see how you blasted lie."

We had sex and I didn't even remember that he should use a condom and he didn't think of using it either so I got pregnant by him. I told him I was not going to keep the belly. He told one of his relatives what happened and she spoke to me and to my aunt with whom I was living. I had the baby and I love my baby.

Pregnant now

Now another girl is trying to take him away from me. She doesn't know half of what I have gone through. She said she is pregnant now for him, but he told me it is not true, but he admitted that he had sex with her. I asked him why he had to do that to me and he couldn't answer. He said when he had sex with her he used the condom and he knows that she has her man so the child is not his. She has a habit of calling my number and hanging up.

Some girls just like to catch other girls' men. I cannot give up my babyfather just like that. I love him and he loves me; he treats me well and it is the first girl that I know of that he cheated on me with. I am going back to school because I want to get a profession. Love you, Pastor.

T.S

Dear T.S.,

You tried to be a 'ginnal'. You were getting money from this man and telling him that you loved him but you didn't believe that you should have sex with him, so you lied and lied and lied. No woman is going to see her period every day unless something is wrong with her. So this guy knew that you were trying to ginnal him. You should have told him the truth from the very beginning of the relationship. You could have said, "I love you, but I will not have sex with you." He would have known where you stood, so to speak.

Evidently you gave in because you wanted a pair of shoes and he was trying to tell you, "nothing for nothing". He seems to be a good father. You are not complaining about that. What you are complaining about now is that another woman has come into the mix. And according to how she is behaving it is either you are going to share him with her or allow her to take him away.

Well, you are not going to allow her to take him away, so I don't blame you for putting up a fight. But you have to bear in mind that if this man does not care about you, there is nothing that you will be able to do to prevent him from going with the other woman.

Your child's father said he had sex with the woman but he used the condom so you need not be worried. Time will tell if he is lying. However, in the meantime, you have to warn him not to continue the relationship that he is having. Pay a little more attention to him but I do not mean that you should watch him because you can't watch a man 24/7, and if he wants to be bad, nothing can stop him. I hope that he will do his best to help you and you will not waste your time in school.

Whenever this girl calls you, try to ignore her.

Pastor