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Should the man tell his wife about the outside children?
By DONNA HUSSEY-WHYTE All Woman writer
Monday, October 24, 2011
<span style="font-weight: bold">His story:
</span>
SIXTY-something-year-old Nathan has been married for 30 years.
Nathan has three children with his wife whom he describes as the most wonderful woman God ever created, and whom he would never want to lose. But Nathan said he has four outside children that she knows nothing about.
"She can't know," Nathan said. "I love my wife badly and if I tell her she would leave me, so I can tell you one thing — that secret will die with me."
Nathan's four outside children are all adults, one as old as his marriage. In fact, he has five grandchildren by these children and they too do not know their stepmother.
"It would be hard for her to know, yes," Nathan continued. "That is why I can't tell her. It would kill her."
But more than that he said, he is sure she would leave him and he could not live with that.
When asked why he did not come clean after the birth of the first child, Nathan said she would have had one reaction — she would have walked away from the relationship.
"So now or 30 years ago, it would still be the same," he said.
Over the years he has kept in close contact with is four outside children and has always been there for them financially.
"The truth is that I am a humble person and anywhere I go women just love me," he bragged. "It's not that I go out and seek these women. And they all know about my wife, I don't hide her."
While he does not regret his children, he regrets that his wife does not know and according to him, can never know.
"I don't think that there is any way she is just going to find out unless I tell her after all these years. She might find out yes, but that is when I am dead. That time anything can happen 'cause I won't know."
<span style="font-weight: bold">Her story:</span>
"It was my worst fear come true," Rita B said. "I noticed that my husband was distracted for about a month or so, and each time I asked what was wrong he would kind of play it off like nothing. This was eight years after we got married."
Rita said one day her husband came home and looked very nervous. They were in the process of preparing to migrate with their five-year-old daughter.
This time he did not wait for her to ask what was wrong. Rita said she still remembered like it was yesterday.
"He sat on the bed and stared into space. Right then I knew something terrible had happened. I was tense. He held my hand and started crying. Then he began to tell me that he loved me and that he didn't want to lose me," she recalled.
Then he let her go and she sat beside him. Then came the worst words Rita said she could ever hear.
"He told me he had a six-year-old daughter. I went numb. I felt as if someone had stabbed me in my heart," Rita said. "All the questions started to flow and the more he answered them, the angrier and more hurt I got. For five years I had thought our daughter was his first child. And that in itself had given me a special bond with him. Now to hear that he shared a child — his first child — with someone else was devastating. I cried that night. I cried the day after. I cried for about a week."
While she was upset about the matter, Rita said the fact that he told her that he was not involved with the child's mother and hadn't been since the child was born, gave her some amount of comfort. This did not excuse his behaviour, however, and for weeks she didn't talk to him, unless it was to ask questions regarding the child.
But one day she decided that it was not the child's fault and that she wanted to meet her.
Shortly after migrating, they decided to file papers for the child to also migrate, and she has since become an accepted member of the family.
<span style="font-weight: bold">The expert says:</span>
Psychologist Dr Leachim Semaj said it is a common situation in Jamaican culture for men to have outside children that their wives know nothing about, some having even two or three families that sometimes only literally meet over his dead body at his funeral.
"Some their wives find out about it and kind of grudgingly go along with it. Others find out and throw out his things. Those are the realities. It's a common component in the Jamaican male/female landscape," Semaj said.
"Most men will end up not admitting to this and will take this to their graves. It's a common thing at Jamaican funerals to see another family turn up. There are a lot of people in Jamaica who are in this situation."
Semaj said when the wife meets the 'other family' at the man's funeral, the situation is worse for her, as not having him there to give her closure, she will now have to evaluate her entire life with him as being a lie.
"When you see these grown children you will now say, 'My God, my entire life living with this man and the commitment I had, and the intimacy that we shared was a lie'. So it can result in some serious emotional trauma."
Dr Semaj said many men will choose to keep silent because they fear their wives' reaction.
"The very fact of a man getting another woman pregnant — it's one thing to go out and have another relationship but a pregnancy is really a confirmation of infidelity. It's a confession and confirmation of a violation of an agreement. So most men would have no reason whatsoever to share this information with the wives and there are a lot of men in Jamaica with two and three families."
Other experts warn that it's better to let siblings know that they're related, to avoid problems like inbreeding in the future.
And Semaj said what tends to happen most times is that by default some wives accept it.
"Why? Because they value their marriage and they value their relationship, so by default they accept it, some even to the point of accepting the child. That is almost one way of controlling the relationship. The child comes and lives with them so there is no reason for him to go to be with that other mother"
But he said that with 30 per cent of paternity tests in Jamaica showing the named man is not the father, this shows too that women, in the same way, are also liars.
"Women are not that much more innocent because the issue of 'jacket' in Jamaica is fully entrenched. So women are as guilty in many instances as the men and probably even more devious. Because she ends up calling a man's name knowing full well that he is not the father," Semaj said.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines...5#ixzz1bigCGGQC
By DONNA HUSSEY-WHYTE All Woman writer
Monday, October 24, 2011
<span style="font-weight: bold">His story:
</span>
SIXTY-something-year-old Nathan has been married for 30 years.
Nathan has three children with his wife whom he describes as the most wonderful woman God ever created, and whom he would never want to lose. But Nathan said he has four outside children that she knows nothing about.
"She can't know," Nathan said. "I love my wife badly and if I tell her she would leave me, so I can tell you one thing — that secret will die with me."
Nathan's four outside children are all adults, one as old as his marriage. In fact, he has five grandchildren by these children and they too do not know their stepmother.
"It would be hard for her to know, yes," Nathan continued. "That is why I can't tell her. It would kill her."
But more than that he said, he is sure she would leave him and he could not live with that.
When asked why he did not come clean after the birth of the first child, Nathan said she would have had one reaction — she would have walked away from the relationship.
"So now or 30 years ago, it would still be the same," he said.
Over the years he has kept in close contact with is four outside children and has always been there for them financially.
"The truth is that I am a humble person and anywhere I go women just love me," he bragged. "It's not that I go out and seek these women. And they all know about my wife, I don't hide her."
While he does not regret his children, he regrets that his wife does not know and according to him, can never know.
"I don't think that there is any way she is just going to find out unless I tell her after all these years. She might find out yes, but that is when I am dead. That time anything can happen 'cause I won't know."
<span style="font-weight: bold">Her story:</span>
"It was my worst fear come true," Rita B said. "I noticed that my husband was distracted for about a month or so, and each time I asked what was wrong he would kind of play it off like nothing. This was eight years after we got married."
Rita said one day her husband came home and looked very nervous. They were in the process of preparing to migrate with their five-year-old daughter.
This time he did not wait for her to ask what was wrong. Rita said she still remembered like it was yesterday.
"He sat on the bed and stared into space. Right then I knew something terrible had happened. I was tense. He held my hand and started crying. Then he began to tell me that he loved me and that he didn't want to lose me," she recalled.
Then he let her go and she sat beside him. Then came the worst words Rita said she could ever hear.
"He told me he had a six-year-old daughter. I went numb. I felt as if someone had stabbed me in my heart," Rita said. "All the questions started to flow and the more he answered them, the angrier and more hurt I got. For five years I had thought our daughter was his first child. And that in itself had given me a special bond with him. Now to hear that he shared a child — his first child — with someone else was devastating. I cried that night. I cried the day after. I cried for about a week."
While she was upset about the matter, Rita said the fact that he told her that he was not involved with the child's mother and hadn't been since the child was born, gave her some amount of comfort. This did not excuse his behaviour, however, and for weeks she didn't talk to him, unless it was to ask questions regarding the child.
But one day she decided that it was not the child's fault and that she wanted to meet her.
Shortly after migrating, they decided to file papers for the child to also migrate, and she has since become an accepted member of the family.
<span style="font-weight: bold">The expert says:</span>
Psychologist Dr Leachim Semaj said it is a common situation in Jamaican culture for men to have outside children that their wives know nothing about, some having even two or three families that sometimes only literally meet over his dead body at his funeral.
"Some their wives find out about it and kind of grudgingly go along with it. Others find out and throw out his things. Those are the realities. It's a common component in the Jamaican male/female landscape," Semaj said.
"Most men will end up not admitting to this and will take this to their graves. It's a common thing at Jamaican funerals to see another family turn up. There are a lot of people in Jamaica who are in this situation."
Semaj said when the wife meets the 'other family' at the man's funeral, the situation is worse for her, as not having him there to give her closure, she will now have to evaluate her entire life with him as being a lie.
"When you see these grown children you will now say, 'My God, my entire life living with this man and the commitment I had, and the intimacy that we shared was a lie'. So it can result in some serious emotional trauma."
Dr Semaj said many men will choose to keep silent because they fear their wives' reaction.
"The very fact of a man getting another woman pregnant — it's one thing to go out and have another relationship but a pregnancy is really a confirmation of infidelity. It's a confession and confirmation of a violation of an agreement. So most men would have no reason whatsoever to share this information with the wives and there are a lot of men in Jamaica with two and three families."
Other experts warn that it's better to let siblings know that they're related, to avoid problems like inbreeding in the future.
And Semaj said what tends to happen most times is that by default some wives accept it.
"Why? Because they value their marriage and they value their relationship, so by default they accept it, some even to the point of accepting the child. That is almost one way of controlling the relationship. The child comes and lives with them so there is no reason for him to go to be with that other mother"
But he said that with 30 per cent of paternity tests in Jamaica showing the named man is not the father, this shows too that women, in the same way, are also liars.
"Women are not that much more innocent because the issue of 'jacket' in Jamaica is fully entrenched. So women are as guilty in many instances as the men and probably even more devious. Because she ends up calling a man's name knowing full well that he is not the father," Semaj said.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines...5#ixzz1bigCGGQC
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