MY GIRLFRIEND WHO CHEATED on me nearly seven years ago is now begging for forgiveness and asking me to give her another chance. She told me she realized she was wrong, but was young and did not understand what real love was.
That was about a month ago. I kept putting her off but she came to my house a few days ago and cried her heart out. She told me I had every reason to hate her, but if I gave her a chance she would love me the way a good person like me deserved.
I listened to her but told her to leave my house after she was finished talking. The truth is that I do love her, but what she did to me was cruel and I have not got past that memory.
Back then she was sharing a house with a girlfriend of hers and the woman’s cousin. She and the woman were friends from school days and got on really well. They had initially rented the house together and the cousin only came into the picture about five months afterwards when his woman threw him out for cheating on her.
I used to visit the house and would sometimes sleep over. My girlfriend, her friend, the friend’s boyfriend and I got on okay. We used to watch movies together, played cards, dominoes, Scrabble and do other things. We used to have a lot of fun.
However, from the time her friend’s cousin moved in, that friendly environment changed. The main reason was because he saw my girlfriend as a possible love interest and started hitting on her. One night in front of me he actually told her how sexy she was dressed. That demonstrated he had no respect for me at all and cared nothing about our relationship.
I told him how out of place he was and we came to high words. The situation became so heated that my girlfriend and her friend asked me to leave that night. Reluctantly, I left and said I wouldn’t return as long as he was there.
For nearly two weeks I stayed away though my girlfriend kept calling me to come over. She did not like coming to my house because I lived there with my sister and her children so we did not have any privacy.
Given my sister’s dependence on me, I could not afford to move or for my girlfriend and I to live together on our own, while still helping my sister. So it was a difficult situation for me to be in.
Anyway, during this time my girlfriend and this man got closer and when I finally decided to go to that house unannounced one night to see her, I got the shock of my life.
Her cousin let me in, welcomed me back and apologized for her cousin’s bad behaviour. From her manner I could see she was genuinely happy to see me. After a brief chat catching up on what each of us had been doing since we last spoke, she told me my girlfriend was in her room. She said my girlfriend had told her she was tired and as she had not heard her for a while, she figured she was most likely asleep.
With that I tried her door knob and it turned, so I walked into the bedroom only to find her lying naked on the bed sleeping, and next to her was her friend’s cousin.
I will not lie; I coughed that man in his privates so hard that he instantly bound up and began bawling in pain. Then I began hitting him. I was angry and I intended to hurt him.
With all the commotion my girlfriend jumped up too and tried to come to his rescue by trying to hold my hands; so I gave her a few lashes too.
By then her friend had rushed into the room and she too was trying to pull me off her cousin, whose face was bleeding from the blows I gave him. I pushed her away too as I intended to deal with him once and for all.
It seems because of all the hollering and screaming going on, a neighbour called the police and in no time they were on the scene and I was arrested. I was later charged with beating him and my girlfriend.
That night in the cells I cried like a child. I could not believe that I could get so angry that I would beat another person the way I was pounding him.
Worse though, I could not believe I could feel so much for a woman that I would put myself in trouble for her. When the police told me that I was going to jail for beating a man, it then hit me how foolish I had been. So all I could do was cry.
When I went to court I had no one to sign bail for me so I spent nearly two months in jail on remand. That was the worst time of my life. I was among some of the most ignorant people in Barbados who used to talk foolishness all the time and were ready to fight at the slightest thing.
Thank God the guards were always quick to intervene whenever fellows started to get loud and aggressive with one another. Prison is a terrible place and I would never want to go back there.
Eventually, my uncle, for whom I did anything, came to my rescue and stood bail for me. He helped me get a lawyer and eventually the guy and my now ex-girlfriend agreed to a settlement and the case was dropped.
Between that settlement and lawyer’s fees, all of my savings went. I had to start over from scratch. I had it rough. I had to sell my car and a few other things and I could afford only the basics.
Because of going through that, I swore I was done with women. And since then, I have not been involved with another woman. What scared me was how I had freaked out seeing my woman naked with another man. I knew for sure then how much she really meant to me and how much she had hurt and disappointed me.
Now she has come back asking for another chance. After all this time I don’t see how I can do that because I can never trust her again.
