Hi Emily,
I am a 52-year-old expat living in Manila for the past three years. My partner is a 28-year-old Filipino woman I met in Singapore.
We’ve been happy all this time until four months ago, when she had a fling with another man. I found out about it and she admitted her mistake.
She assured me this will never happen again. Now, she is pregnant and is on her fourth month.
The doctor assured me that according to her calculation, it is my child. But I am in doubt because we’ve been together for the last three years, and nothing has happened.
I still love her and I don’t want to let the child suffer. I can’t forget what she did even if I’ve forgiven her. I feel I can never trust her again. I don’t want to leave her and I don’t know how to move on.
JOE
It’s a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” situation, isn’t it? Whoever said life isn’t exciting?
If you say you truly love her and wouldn’t want the child to suffer—there is no problem then!
Accept her folly wholeheartedly, move on, and do not allow bruised pride and a humiliated ego get in the way of having a life with this woman.
Saying you can never trust her again is such a sweeping, can’t-hold-water statement. “Never” is such a profound and deathlike word which should only be uttered when there’s proof that you will not see a tomorrow again.
Till then, hold this empty promise under your breath.
She has clearly given you happiness and probably still does. How else can you feel so strongly about her? Will it kill you if you accept what happened blindly?
When the child is born, find it in your heart to welcome it. Consider it an adoption on your part if this will assuage the heaviness in your heart. If it turns out to be yours, well, hurray! Good for you. You’re finally a father.
Overall, just be kind—whatever the outcome is. Hasn’t it been driven in our psyche that “no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted?”
“If you can’t forgive and forget, pick one.” Whoever said it has greatness in his soul.
E-mail emarcelo@inquirer.com.ph or emarcelo629@gmail.com