Afraid to marry, my child's mother promise to kill me

Dear Pastor

Please accept greetings for your staff and yourself! I am a Christian man. I am 50 years old. I am not married. I have started to attend church.

I believe the time has come for me to settle down. I have seven children with four different babymothers. I treated all these children well. None of their mothers had to take me to court and all these women say they still love me, but I am settling down.

Two of these women are now married and I have to be careful what I say. The night before one of them got married, I had sex with her. We always found time to have sex. I am done with that now. I want to do what is right.

Sometimes I say to myself that I have to find a new woman because the mother of one of the children always warned me that if I marry another woman, she will surely kill me. I believe that she has tied me to her. I know you don't believe in these things, but she is a woman of science and I can't do anything wrong for her.

She is the mother of my youngest child. She doesn't demand anything from me. She would even call me from time to time to ask me if I have money.

I can't marry her because she has some dirty ways that I don't like. They are so bad that I wouldn't even mention them to you.

I see a young woman in my church that I like. She likes me too. I know that. We have to keep our relationship on the low.

She has a visa and I have a visa. So we are thinking of leaving the country for good. I don't know how that will work. That is why I am writing to you for words of wisdom. Please do not mention my name.

P.L.

Dear P.L.,

I am glad that you want to settle down. You have been a very bad man and you have encouraged a woman who was getting married to have sex with you on the night before she went to the altar. But we can say that all these bad things that you have done are behind you now.

The challenge you now face is whether you can get married to this sister in the church who loves you without causing a big problem with the mother of one of your children. As I see it, you don't need to go abroad and get married. You can stay right in Jamaica and get married to the woman you now believe you love.

Your child's mother is threatening you that she will kill you, but that can just be talk. How is she going to kill you? If you have promised to marry her, you would have broken your promise and she would hate you. But if you would tell her why you can't marry her and stand your ground, there is absolutely nothing she can do.

Would she carry out her threat and cause her child to be motherless? I doubt she would. So my suggestion is to attend premarital counselling. Plan your wedding carefully. To prevent too much publicity, plan a private ceremony.

You have encouraged this woman to believe that you would not marry anybody but her. She loves you. She is concerned about your welfare, that is why occasionally she would offer you financial assistance. So you know now that you should stop taking her money and whatever gift she may offer to you. Do your part in supporting the child both of you have together.

Pastor