Dear Christine,
I MET A MAN about six years ago. I am a very generous and kind-hearted person – or maybe I should say a fool. Anyway, after we got to talking I found he was a very disturbed person and I would listen to his problems. Boy, did he have problems!
He had just broken off with his girlfriend and he was in financial difficulty as well. After the girl left him he tried to kill himself. I had to act as a psychiatrist to bring him back to his senses.
In all this I grew to love this man and would do anything for him. He also said he loved me.
Since I am an independent person, I never looked to him for anything. When he got back on his feet, he never gave me a Christmas gift or a birthday gift but when Christmas and his birthday came around, he would be very picky. He would find the most expensive gift for me to buy for him.
After two years together, he left me and went and had a child with another woman. He swore the child was not his, yet turned around and had a second. During this I kept my cool while the woman called my house to ask if he was there. He then had the nerve to ask me for money to give the woman for their children. Would you believe it? I gave it to him.
He had another girlfriend overseas and he would tell me: “You are nicer than she is.”
I told him that when she comes back he would probably leave me for her. He swore this would never happen.
Christine, the woman came back and he never told me a word. She came on holiday and during that time I did not see him until two days before she was due to return home. He called to say he was coming to talk to me.
It was then that he dropped the bomb. After telling me how much he loved me, he said: “I got married yesterday [but] that won’t affect us. She will be gone and you will have me all the time for yourself.”
All the time he was telling me this, he was “skinning” his teeth. I asked him what was going to happen when she came back.
He said: “She will have to share me with you.”
“No way,” I told him.
“If I am not good enough to marry, I won’t be good enough to live with.”
Well, his wife finally came back and even though we are doing nothing, she still blames me for him. He says he wants me to make it true. I don’t think they get along very well. Every time they have a noise, he comes to me.
He wants me to help him finish his house which he said he and I will live in. Still, whatever his wife tells him to do, he does. He says he is trying to keep the peace.
I care for him, but a man like that, who comes and borrows money but never repays, makes me think that killing is too good for him.
Do you think he is really trying to keep the peace or is he making a fool of me?
– I.P.
Dear I.P.,
Are you really asking that question? Where is your self-esteem? You are making a fool of yourself and this trickster of a man is making a bigger fool of you. You have become his automatic teller machine (ATM) and you provided free counselling when he should have been paying a psychiatrist to listen to his woes.
How can you be so foolish as to allow yourself to get caught in this web of deceit and dishonesty? How long are you going to allow him to disrespect and emotionally abuse you?
He’s now married and did not even have the decency to let you know he was heading to the altar. Why are you still making yourself available to him? What hold does he have on you? Stay away from him. In fact, have absolutely nothing to do with him – unless, of course, you want to continue being his fool.
– CHRISTINE
