Mom slept with dad’s best friend

Dear Pastor,

I am a regular reader of your column, but this is the first time I am writing to you. My letter concerns my parents. I grew up seeing my father loving my mother and providing for her, but every opportunity my mother had she cheated on him. I know that one of the men my mother used to have sex with was my father's very good friend, and he was not living far from us.

My mother used to cook soup every Saturday and she made sure that she would share this man's soup. I had to take it to him at his house, and whenever she had a chance, my mother would go to see him. As I got older, my mother told me that my father was very jealous, so I should never tell him that she goes to his house sometimes. This man used to give my mother money, some of which she gave us to pay bus fare to go to school.

One day, my mother and father had a fight because someone told him that my mother was having an affair with his friend, and he asked her and she told him a bad word. He reacted by slapping her, and it turned into a fight. My father told her some terrible things and she told my father that it was because he was not doing what he should be doing that caused her to seek another man. My father told her to pack her things and leave, but we, as children, begged our father not to put her out of the house.

My mother told my father that he has never caught her with the man and my father told her he would never trust her again. Now my father and mother are separated and my mother is living in one of the islands. She wants to come back, but my father doesn't want her back in the house. We understand that she is living with a man. My father has a girlfriend, but she does not come to the house. He has remained a good father to my siblings and to myself. My mother says that she wants to come home, but my father's heart is as tough as stone. My mother is not friendly with the man she cheated on my father with, and my father and this man still talk to each other. My father said he does not have anything against him.

L

Dear L,

Your mother got involved with your father's friend. Evidently, she loved him. She cooked and made sure that he got his portion. Perhaps she put a special piece of pigtail for this man and you father didn't even have a clue that she was having a sexual relationship with his friend.

Although your mother was wrong to have an affair with this man, he was too bold to be going to bed with his friend's wife. Your father could have got himself into trouble. He could have ended up in prison for beating up your mother. I am glad it didn't get that far, but he was quite correct in asking her to leave. Wherever she is, life is not good with her, therefore she wants to come home.

It will not be easy for your father to forgive her. On the other hand, if he is able to forgive the man for having an affair with his wife, perhaps as children you may wish to persuade him to forgive your mother and take her back.

Pastor