as told to SANKA PRICE

THE EVIL THINGS that some men do is

what leads women to stop trusting them and eventually walk away from them in disgust.

Such wickedness by men is why many women also get so fed up with relationships that they push men away altogether, and why some become mercenaries taking everything they can get.

Though I still believe in love and would welcome a sound relationship with a caring, thoughtful, honest man, I want to share with you some of the crap I went through with my former husband. He hurt me so much that I had no choice but to leave him. These are the three worst things he did to me.

First, I was involved with my ex-husband for over 20 years and we never had sex for more than ten minutes. After four years of marriage, I went to have a pap smear and was advised to get further testing as I was diagnosed with HPV (human papilloma virus).

Sexually transmitted disease

At first I thought HPV was a pre-cancerous condition as I was not told it was a sexually transmitted disease (STD).

For 13 years I slept with my husband and although I had bellyache and different pains after having sex with him, I discarded my suspicions, as I thought he had an erectile dysfunction problem and would have been ashamed to go with anyone else.

It ended up that the reason why sexual intercourse was so short with me was because he was tired after running around with other women.

When I found out HPV was a STD, I divorced him. He walked about and told people that I wanted to have men and didn't want him to have anyone else.

Not only was he dishonest in our sex life, but deceived me about his income. He worked for more than $7 000 a month and did not let me know his salary. Because of this, we lived like paupers on only $600 a month, which included groceries and everything else two children and I needed.

Taken advantage of

I felt he was being taken advantage of at work because I thought that with the hours he was working he was being underpaid. I even wanted him to look for a different job; little did I know.

Back then, he constantly complained and made me feel uncomfortable, although we were living on the basics. He wanted us to eat healthy with fish or chicken, fresh vegetables and fruits every day.

When I started to work I earned less than $2 000 a month, but did a lot for the house. Now we are divorced, the children can eat hot dogs – with me it was Super links. Now they are eating corned beef, a food which they had eaten only once before in about 14 years.

Now he is splurging, the children are eating KFC and Chefette every day – no more home cooked meals. They are wearing $200 shoes, $150 pants and $80 T-shirts. Now there is more complaining.

The third horrible thing my ex-husband did to me was when I became pregnant he brought tablets for me to abort the foetus. I refused to take them, and the child is an adolescent now.

But the gall of the man shows when he listened as that same child cursed me and stood up and laughed. This was the same child he did not want, and the same child he knew almost killed me in childbirth.

Extravagant maintenance

Although he knows I do not work for much money, he went into court and tried to get an extravagant maintenance for himself. Every month, he holds out his hand and collects maintenance for that child with a smile on his face.

But I have forgiven him for his wickedness to me because I was determined not to make myself unhappy for the rest of my life by holding a grudge against him.

You see, I believe there is a God above who looks after those who try to do the right and just things in life, while he punishes those who do bad things.

And as God hears all, sees all and knows all, no matter what my former husband does, as long as he continues to do me wrong in whatever form, everything he does will come to nought.