Certain that my neighbour’s son is mine

Dear Pastor,

I am now 25. When I was 19 and still living with my grandmother, there was a woman who was about 30.

She was married, but she and her husband did not have children. She always liked me and I liked her, too, but I was very shy.

One day around Christmastime, she asked me if I could come to her house and help her put up some curtains; I told her yes.

While I was there, this woman told me that she always liked me and I laughed. I told her she had to be careful because I would like her back. I was surprised when she said she would love that.

She asked me when last I had sex and I just laughed. She held me and she told me she would give me some sex right there and nothing would happen because she and her husband were trying to have a child and nothing was happening.

She believed that the problem was with her, so she believed I could not get her pregnant.

Pastor, I tried to leave her house, but she started to unbutton my fly and put her hands down there. We had sex at the edge of her bed. Two months after, she told me that she was pregnant and she believed that I was the father.

I was scared, but she told me I should not worry because she would not call my name. She said that she and her husband had sex two days after we did, so he would think that the child was his, even if I was the father.

The woman gave birth, and when the child was about one year old, he started to resemble me. My grandmother asked me how come, and I told her I did not know.

The woman told me that her husband never questioned paternity, so I should not make that bother me. She said it would remain between us.

I don't have to do a DNA test to find out if that child is mine; I just know that he is my son. It is bothering me because he is not carrying my name.

I have a girlfriend and we have two children together. Sometimes I wonder if I should tell her that I fathered a child with my neighbour.

But I don't have that kind of courage because she may talk and it may go back to the ears of this woman and her husband. My girlfriend has a good job and we are planning to get married very soon. I would love to know what to do.

This man is supporting my son as his own but I would love to have this boy under my roof. This was not what I had planned to happen to me when I was not even 20. I would love to hear your comments.

Initials Withheld

Dear Writer,

It is likely that this married woman admired you and set a trap for you. But you did not run from the challenge; you fell right into her trap and now you feel sure that you are the father of her son.

The woman knows the truth. Her husband will have no questions to ask because he believes that he impregnated his wife.

So he might see himself as a mighty big champion. Your conscience is bothering you but the woman's conscience is evidently not bothering her.

You are planning to get married and you feel that you should say something to your expected wife about the suspicions that you might have fathered a child. Would you want to destroy the good relationship that this woman has with her husband?

For selfish reasons, you can press this woman to do a DNA test; she may not agree. You may say that the child deserves to know who his biological father is. I will say to you be patient, the time may come when this child will find out the truth.

Leave everything as it is now until the child is much older and might begin to ask his mother questions if he is in doubt as to who is his biological father.

I know people will attack me for the position I have taken. You don't have to agree with me; you can do your own thing, but this is where I stand. I am prepared to take my blows with those who will disagree with me. I am accustomed to that.

Pastor