Hi Emily,
I am a married man with four kids. The youngest is now four months old, and I am not even 100-percent sure that I am the father.
The problem started two years ago when my wife reacquainted with her first boyfriend through Facebook. The guy is an OFW. At first, she said they were just excited to connect with each other again. I warned her about their too frequent texting and chats but she just ignored me, until I accidentally read their intimate conversations in YM. She promised to stop it and be just friends with him.
Then one time, without my knowledge, they met and he allegedly forced himself on her despite her protests. I found this out again through her messages, and I nearly broke up with her. By then, she was already pregnant with our last child. I forgave her after she promised to stop all communications with him.
Since then, I’ve been a good husband to her and father to our youngest. I didn’t question the paternity of this baby or if she is still in touch with him. She is now very careful with her FB, Yahoo Messenger and texting activities. I don’t go through her personal accounts anymore, but she knows my Internet passwords and has access to my gadgets. I don’t want her to assume that I am hiding anything from her.
I want to think we are now okay, but I am questioning why she has to have all these passwords for her laptop and cell phone. She is making me doubt that she really is over him. Should I be worried or just forget all about it and trust her?
—Worried Man
You can do two things. First, if you want total peace, have the DNA of the child taken. You will never be happy unless you get to the bottom of who this baby’s father is.
You may deny it, you may say you don’t really care, but there will always be this pebble in your shoe, this nagging, incessant suspicion of “what if?” A thousand and one unanswered questions churning your mind into mush. The DNA exam will solve this problem once and for all.
Or, second, if you truly believe you’re a good man, accept your wife’s alleged indiscretions as well as this baby—whoever the real father is. Wave the past as you would a pesky fly, and move on, and make a go of this marriage. The heavens will bless you for your magnanimity and generosity with your acceptance of this baby as your own, without rancor. After all, the child was just the innocent “collateral damage” to all these.
And for that wife of yours who is behaving like a lovesick teenage-wannabe, scheming and paranoid enough to put locks and bolts in her laptop and mobile phone—stop already this song-and-dance you’re having with her! Ask her pointblank what she expects from this former boyfriend. Are they or aren’t they involved? Will they or won’t they fly the coop?
This confrontation will certainly hurt big-time, but so does the removal of a cancerous tumor. The invasive operation does the body good as it’s rid of the rotting mass inside. Stop acting lost, pretending that everything will be all right just by sweeping your apprehensions under the rug.
Don’t prolong your agony anymore. As the Buddha said, “three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.”
E-mail emarcelo@inquirer.com.ph or emarcelo629@gmail.com—Subject: Lifestyle.