Think mom slept with my future father-in-law

Dear Pastor,

This is the first time I am writing to you. I am 20 and my mother has five girls, including me. She pretended that she was a Christian, but as girls we knew that our mother had different men she used to go out with on the weekends.

That is how she supported herself. She encouraged all of us to go to church. She had two sons, and she loved her sons more than her daughters. When I was 15 years old, my mother had my older sisters hold me down, and she searched me to find out whether I had started to have sex. I hated my sisters for holding me down. My mother was very cruel. One of the sisters who held me down became pregnant, and my mother beat her. When she was beating her, we had to hold our mother so as to rescue our sister. My sister's boyfriend encouraged her to leave the house. My sister was 18 at the time, and she left and never returned.

My sister and her boyfriend got married and although she has not forgiven my mother, she supports her financially. My mother eventually asked my sister for forgiveness for beating her after she got pregnant. One of the men my mother had tried to have sex with that sister, and when she complained about him, my mother said she was lying because he was a decent man, and he would never get involved with any of us girls. But he was always looking at us in a strange way. I have not come to the place where I can forgive my mother for what she did to me.

On a Sunday morning, my mother would put on some beautiful Christian records and behave like the holiest Christian, but those of us who lived in our house knew that she was only pretending. Sometimes when she thought that we were all asleep, my mother would get dressed and go out with different men and come back early in the morning before we woke up.

I am telling you these things because I want to say that when I met my boyfriend's father and I told him who my mother was, he smiled and said, "I know her.'' When I asked him where he knew her from, he said, "That is alright, I just know her." My boyfriend laughed and told me later in the day that his father was a 'bad man', so maybe my mother entertained him. I left it there. I believe that my mother and my boyfriend's father were lovers.

My boyfriend and I are planning to get married, but I have not told my mother my boyfriend's last name, because I would hate to know that his father and my mother were really lovers.

I would like to hear from you. How do you feel about my mother and the terrible things she has done?

Anonymous

Dear Writer,

Your mother will always be your mother, regardless of what she has done. Without question, she did some very foolish things, including searching you to find out if you were sexually active.

I knew a man who put pepper on one of his daughters' panties after he became aware that she was having sex. The young woman almost became crazy when she realised that it was her father who did that to her. So your mother was totally wrong; she made a terrible mistake. Whatever your sisters did with their lives can be pointed back to their mother. She tried to hide what she was doing, but many children are aware of what their mothers are doing. The boys know, but it is not a big issue to them. Their fathers will talk about it and call their mothers whores, but they will stand up for their mother at any time.

I am glad to hear that you are hoping to get married very soon. You don't have anything to be ashamed of, and you cannot be blamed for the things that your mother did. So don't be reluctant in telling your mother your fiance's last name. Be careful about the life you live, and please take good care of yourself.

Pastor