Divorced twice and I am not yet 30

Dear Pastor,

I am Jamaican, but I am living in the US. I have been living here since I was a child.

I got married when I was 19, but it did not work out. My father was against it, but I felt I was old enough to get married. The man used to treat me very well. He had different girlfriends, but he told me he was willing to settle down with me and I believed him. But he started to abuse me. I called my father and he said I should come home. So I told him I was sorry for not listening to him. I went home and was quite happy.

When I was 22, I met another man and I felt I was in love with him. He was 25. My father became a Christian and he did not want my boyfriend to sleep with me at his house. He was lecturing me all the time about committing fornication. So I married this young man. He didn't tell me he was divorced. It did not bother me when I found out, because I was too. After we got married, he started to work with my father and he was really involved in the business.

One day, they had a heated argument and my father fired him. My husband said my father called him a thief. My father told me what the guy did with money that clients paid, so he didn't want him back. I left my father's house to live with this guy and it did not take me long to realise that he was deeply in debt. One day, I was at home and a lady called me and introduced herself as my husband's babymother. She said while he was working on a site, they became involved and he got her pregnant. She said the child was six months old, but she was keeping everything quiet because my husband told her that he did not want to lose his wife. But he hardly gave her any money. She said she was willing to give me the baby. My father discouraged me from doing that, so I did not. I told her to take my husband to court for maintenance.

So that is my second divorce and I am not yet 30. I started to attend an evangelical church. The senior pastor's son is in love with me. I have two problems: I am older than he is and I have been divorced twice. He said that he does not mind my age, but being divorced is a big problem because his church does not believe in it. He discussed it with his father, who told him not to touch me because a curse would be upon him as my two husbands are still alive.

I love this man so much but I don't know what to do. I asked him if he told his father that we have been having sex and he said he couldn't. I told him that if he doesn't, I will, because how is it wrong for him to marry me, but it isn't wrong for us to be having sex?

R.F.

Dear R.F.,

I knew a pastor who lived in Georgia, in the US, and he is considered in the Christian faith as a fundamentalist.

He was somewhat of a 'hard shell'. Whatever interpretation he tells you of a passage of scripture, he expects you to accept it and not question him at all. This man had two daughters who were very active in his church. One of them got married, but her husband proved to be no good so they got a divorce. Her father almost went crazy, because all the years he thought that divorce was a very terrible thing, but now his daughter could be described as a sinner because she is divorced.

Listen, my dear, people are willing to condemn folks who are divorced. I declare to you that I don't like divorce, but I must add that divorce is a necessary evil at times. Whatever mistakes you made as a young person cannot be undone. You didn't listen to your father the first time you thought you fell in love. You got married, and it didn't work out. Neither did your second marriage.

Now you are in love with this young man and his father told him not to touch you, but the man has already 'touched you', and that is why you are questioning whether he told his father that both of you have gone 'a long distance'. I am trying to say that you and this young man should go and sit with a family counsellor and discuss this problem. You may even want to mention to the counsellor that you wrote to me and I understand the situation and I give you my blessings.

Pastor