AS CHRISTIANS WE are told that we need toforgive people who wrong us, and should seekto reconcile our differences with them. But to tell the truth, though I believe in God and always try my best to be a model Christian, I find forgiving people to be the most difficult thing I have everbeen asked to do.
To be specific, how can I forgive my boyfriend for having sex with my cousin for nearly seven months, though we were engaged to be married? How can I forgive him for having sex with her after we were married? And how can I forgive my cousin for being intimate with my spouse because she always envied me?
Two years on since finding out about that affair, I just can’t get over it. I do not trust my husband and find it difficult to believe anything he says. Things between us have deteriorated to the point that I do not say anything to him unless I have to.
I am in this marriage now only for my mother and aunt’s sake. If I did not want to save them embarrassment and cause scandal in the church I would leave him.
At first when I found out about them I stopped him from touching me. I cried and told him I was going to leave him and even went back at my mother’s house for a weekend. But between her, my aunt and the pastor she got involved, I was persuaded to go back with him and to try towork out our differences. Though he has apologisedand tried to show me in every way how sorry heis for his actions, I still can’t get his deceitfulnessout of my mind.
After all, this man used to come and spend a few hours with me at my mother’s house, then go home, call from there to give the impression he was going to sleep, and then leave and go and sleep at my cousin. He did that for about seven months before we were married, and continued to do it for about a year after we were married. So how sorry could he really be? He knew what he was doing.
It is one thing for a man to have sex with a woman once or twice. That is what would qualify as a “slam, bam, thank you ma’am” thing. But to be having sex and sleeping all night with a person, then waking up next to her on mornings, even though you are engaged to marry someone else says what a nasty, lying, wicked person you are. And when you compound that by continuing the relationship after you have married, it shows you have no regard for your wife at all.
Yet, I am expected to forgive this action as a weakness and a terrible mistake. Seriously? How can such deliberate action be a mistake?
As for my cousin, I have banished her from my life. I do not speak to her, look her way, or even walk on the same side of the road as her if I spot her first. If I could have changed congregations, I would have. I hate her for what she put me through. I just cannot forgive her.
What is particularly painful about my cousin’s actions is the betrayal of my love and trust. We grew up in the same house and sleeping in the same bed as children – the daughters of two sisters, four months apart in age. We were inseparable until we were teenagers when her mum got married and they moved out. But we always kept in touch and saw each other twice a week at church before she stopped coming. We drifted apart somewhat, but remained close and talked for hours whenever we got together on the phone.
But after she became pregnant andmoved in with the man, we hardly heard or saw each other.
On the other hand, I went on to university, got my degree and then got a job in government.
By the time my cousin and I saw each other again, she had lived with three different men and was really bitter about life. She then started saying how lucky I was as if I had opportunities that she didn’t. But I never let her negativity get to me, and I introduced her to my fiancé.
Within weeks of meeting him, she managedto convince him to start sleeping with her. All the while he acted like the perfect gentleman with me, and was content to wait until we married to have sex. I was a virgin and wanted our weddingnight to be special. He was going to be my first, and one and only. But he could afford to be patient with me as he was getting his every desire satisfied by my cousin.
After we married he continued to see her, lying to me repeatedly about his activities. But it all came out when my cousin and her daughter were at my house and the little girl, unbeknownst to them, saw them kissing. Later on, in her innocence, the child asked me if uncle kisses me like he kisses mummy. My questions to the two of them quickly revealed the sordid story. It also exposed just how much my cousin envied me.
As I said, it is two years since that revelation, but I still can’t get over it. I still find it difficult to trust my husband, knowing he had an ongoing affair with my cousin, who was my bridesmaid and the person I regarded as my best friend.
Yes, I believe if I cast my burdens onto the Lord that he would take care of me. But I really have difficulties forgiving the two of them.
