Boyfriend gave me an STI

Dear Pastor,

I am 35 and I have three children. They are living with me, but they have different fathers. That just happened to be the case, but people may think I was a bad woman. I trusted these guys too much, and each of them ended up giving me a child and left me.

Right now I am so angry with my current boyfriend. After three months, we started to have sex, and since then, I have started to feel itching in my vagina. It was almost unbearable, so I went to the doctor, who told me that I caught an STI. I could not believe what the doctor was saying. He said that either my partner gave me the disease or I went with another man.

I know that I have not gone with another man. When my boyfriend came to see me, I told him what the doctor said and he said 'no way'. I know that I have not gone with anybody. I told him we need to go to the doctor together. If he does not want to go to the doctor we will have to break up, because he convinced me that it was alright for us to have sex without the condom.

How can I love men when they lie so much? I have tried to keep myself clean and this man came right into my room, on my bed, and gave me a disease. I don't see how I can continue to love this man when he is such a liar. He could have given me AIDS.

T.

Dear T.,

It would be difficult for you to forgive this man. He is indeed a very wicked man. He is a liar. But on the other hand, at your age, you should know that you should not trust anybody with your life. You have three children for three different men; that is more than enough to keep you on your guard. So regardless of how this man begged you to have unprotected sex with him, you should not have done so. Even now the man is lying and not taking any blame for what he has done.

If he refuses to go to see the doctor, you should drop him. But even if he makes a promise that he will go, don't take his word. You should accompany him to see the doctor. This relationship will not last if you can never trust this man.

Pastor