What would you do if you found out that your mate was cheating on you? I am not talking about hearsay, rumours or gossip; I’m not even referring to that gut feeling or woman’s intuition you may claim you have. I’m talking empirical proof that is irrefutable and so strong that it cannot be ignored as it jumps up and slaps you in the face. Hard.
Well many will say what they think they will do but few will stick to that script if it actually happens as emotions may run high and all the fancy speeches do not amount to a hill of beans until the shoe is actually on your foot.
BUZZZ MAGAZINE sat down with Patricia*, who has been through the fire and made her way out of purgatory in one piece. She will tell you that confronting infidelity was far from easy but she made it out on the other side, not unscathed but at least unbroken.
A self-confident professional in her 30s, Patricia had no idea that Miss Infidelity could come knocking on her door, but when she did, that which would turn life as she knew it upside down. “It happened more than once but the most impactful was about seven years ago.”
They had met in college at age 19, got married by 24 and together they travelled the Caribbean and lived the life. Eventually, they moved to the Bahamas and later settled in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). Soon he was back travelling for work and coming home on the weekends. “He was always busy and always gone and I suspected something was up but had no evidence. I once pushed my hand in his pocket and came out with a tablet, a female iron tablet and he said it was a friend…I left it alone.”
Fast forward several years later, and her best friend’s life was spiralling out of control because she discovered that her husband was cheating and she blasted him on Facebook. “I was busy trying to calm her down to get her to see reason and she turns to me and blurted out ‘Nuh sey nutten to me cuz all your man breed woman and make her dash it wey.’ I was shocked and devastated.”
Somehow she was able to overcome that storm. Years into the marriage she realised his pattern of behaviour and finally being fed up, declared she wanted a divorce but he said let us work on it. “We were still in the BVI and I was working hard when he told me that he had business in Jamaica he had to go take care of. While he was gone I found out I was pregnant. Everyone was happy but soon he lost his job and things got stressful but I held it down and we got by. I would be working and he would be home with the baby, supposedly looking for work using my laptop. So one day I was on the laptop and an email came into him from my mother-in-law and I read it. She said Latoya is calling and you need to stop avoiding her. I’m like, who is Latoya and what is he avoiding? The long and short of it was that while he was in Jamaica he had gotten this girl pregnant and his mother was telling him that she went to see the baby and it didn’t really look like him. I was incensed. I told him to get home and all he had to say was ‘why are you searching my email?’ He didn’t say anything to me, he didn’t even apologise. Now I was in a foreign country so I didn’t know what to do. At that time it didn’t affect me directly as I was in the BVI and the mother and child were in Jamaica.”
Soon after she found out that she was pregnant with her second child so she decided that she could not put up with it and would move back to Jamaica and find a job. They were however encouraged to go to counselling. “That’s when I realised he was not the kind of person who took responsibility for his mistakes or his actions. I can own up to my part in it. It was my fault that I got pregnant because I didn’t stop having sex with him or protected myself. At first, I was upset and it made me not want to have the child but then I thought why to punish the child for what I did. Besides, despite whatever he did as a husband, he is, without doubt, a great father.”
To Read More: Purchase your copy of Volume 9 #5 November-December 2017