My daughter is sleeping with a married man

Dear Pastor,

I am a mother of three children and I am in my late 40s. I should not be writing you at this stage in my life, but I am very unhappy. I have two sons and one daughter, but my two sons do not care about me. I am living in a rented house and it is my daughter who is helping me to pay the rent. My sons do not even help to support me. Pastor, my daughter is having an affair with a married man. I know about it and warned her. She told me that the relationship she is having with this man could not stop because he is giving her money to take care of herself and to help me.

My daughter went out with another man. He waited on her and when she came home, he came up from behind her and slapped her right in front of me. I was so embarrassed. When I asked him why he was doing that right before my eyes, he told me to tell my daughter to stop sleeping around, otherwise I should prepare for her burial. I told my daughter to let the man go, but she has become closer to him and he is now sleeping here with her on some weekends, which he never used to do. I am so embarrassed when I look at my pretty daughter to see what she is going through.

Pastor, my daughter has an old schoolmate. Both of them love each other and he wants to come to Jamaica and marry her. He is trying to finalise his divorce in America. She does not want this man out here to know anything. She would prefer him not to come. She wants to know from you if it would be better for her to go to America and marry him and start the filing over there. I am so scared. She wants to get this man here in Jamaica out of her life.

B.H.

Dear B.H.,

Your daughter means well. She loves you and she is doing her best to support you. She knows her brothers are not very helpful, so she is using her body to augment her salary.

This married man evidently is a man of means, but what he is giving to her comes with a high cost. It is not for free. Very few men are going to roll out money every week and give it to women without the women paying one way or the other. This man knows that your daughter is at his mercy, that is why he was bold enough to beat her up in your presence and can come home to your house and openly sleep with her whenever he likes.

Your daughter has a plan; she wants to leave this man. Her old boyfriend will marry her, but he is not totally free. He has to get out of a legal marriage and come to Jamaica as a free man, but your daughter is tied up here in Jamaica. Sure it may not be a bad idea for her to go to America after her boyfriend up there has finalised his divorce, but she still has a problem because she is with this man here in Jamaica. So how would she marry up there and come to Jamaica and have a relationship with this married man? She would have to end the relationship with the married man here, and that is not going to be easy. She would have to free herself here from this man, and make sure that when she returns to Jamaica he does not have a claim on her. Otherwise, she would have to prepare herself for more beatings, while you prepare a spot for her in Meadowrest or Dovecot.

Pastor