Ex-boyfriend wants to marry me

Dear Pastor,

This is the first time I am writing to you, but I am a regular reader of your column. I am 30 and I have been reading your column from I was a teenager.

My father brought THE WEEKEND STAR every Friday, and after having his dinner, he used to sit on the verandah and turn to your column and make comments. When he was going to bed, I would take the newspaper into my room and read your column.

When I was 16 years old, I went out with a guy for the first time. I used to go to the library with my school friend. The day I went out with this guy, my parents thought that I had gone to the library. My boyfriend was 19 years old and he used to talk a lot about sex. But I told him I was not ready for that, and whenever I was ready, I would tell him. I broke up with him because he started a relationship with another girl from my school. She used to give him money, as her father had a business.

I had just enough money to take me to and from school. One day I saw him with a lot of money. He took me to Devon House and we sat under a tree. He kissed me and I asked him about his new girlfriend. He said I shouldn't worry about that because it was her money he was spending. I cursed him and told him that if I could vomit up all the ice cream he bought for me I would, because he should not be spending the girl's money on me. I did not go out with him again.

When I was 17, another guy was interested in me. He used to drive his mother's car, so we went to Port Royal. He bought me fish, but he had to go home early because his mother had a meeting and she needed the car. He got his mother's car another time and we drove to Port Royal again. We stopped on the way and he took me near to the seaside, and we made out. Having sex with him was very painful. He tried for a while before he was able to enter me. He became my regular sex partner, but he did not get me pregnant.

I went on to university and he went abroad. He met another girl in New York and he married her to get his papers. He never stopped corresponding with me. He is now divorced and is back in Jamaica. I have never stopped loving this man. Because it was a business marriage he did in New York, I slept with him. I never felt guilty about it. I have had other men in my life since he was away, but none offered to marry me.

This man is now asking me to marry him. I told him I am not worthy to be his wife because I have had other men, and one of the guys was his friend. I just told him that it was one of the guys he knows. Do you think that it would be wise to marry this man? I did not think that this day would come, but I still love him and he says that he loves me.

Y.T.

Dear Y.T.,

When you started to date, the young man was eager to take you to bed, but you were not ready and he did not force you. You broke up with him because he was not a man of principle. He was taking money from his new girlfriend and spending some of it on you. You realised that was not the proper thing for him to do.

You became intimate with the other fellow, and both of you had sex regularly until he left for New York. The love that you had for this man was very strong. He told you the truth, that he was doing a business marriage to get a green card, but he was going to divorce the woman and come back to Jamaica and marry you. He has kept his word. You have played around with other men, and you told him that you are not worthy to be his wife, but you have not told him the full truth.

If he is willing to marry you, forgive yourself for what you have done, because he knows in his heart that he has also played around with other women.

Pastor