A lying bastard, a baby mother and a near nervous breakdown

Dear Counsellor,

My boyfriend and I have been together for two years now. We do not live together but we live five minutes away from each other. When we started dating, he told me that his last girlfriend was pregnant and he was not sure if the baby was his. He also told me that she had cut off all contact with him so that he could not contact her to find out if the child was his.

Three months ago, a rumour started circulating that my boyfriend has a baby and that his baby’s mother and the child live with him. Around this time he said I had to stop coming over to his house for a very dumb reason. I confronted him about the rumours which he said were not true. He said he had no idea where his ex girlfriend was and that he was still trying to find her so he could find out if the child was his.

Then I saw her on the bus one day, with a baby in her arms. She picked up her phone and called my boyfriend and started talking loudly in the bus, telling him to come for the child. I nearly had a nervous breakdown. The next day I told him the relationship was over as he was a liar. Apparently she was going to meet him to drop off the child at his house. I gathered all this information from her phone call. He had lied to me about not finding his ex and the child.

We met up the next day and he started crying and told me that he had found the ex girlfriend and that the child was his. He said the child was over a year old and that he did not cheat on me. He claimed that she was pregnant before we started dating and that he would never cheat on me.

To cut a very long story short, it turns out that he lied again to me about cheating. It turns out that he lied about the baby’s age (the baby was only seven months) and that he had cheated on me six months into our relationship. When he finally confessed, the, he claimed he only had sex with her once and that he got her pregnant on purpose because he really wanted a child. He had initially asked me if he could get me pregnant at the beginning of our relationship, but I told him no because I was not ready. He claimed that when I told him no, he decided to try one last time with his ex girlfriend while being in a relationship with me… and what a miracle that turned out to be for him.

He claims that he loves me and only lied because he knew that I would leave him if I found out the truth. He has begged me to stay with him as he wants to marry me. But he has been lying to me for 15 months about having a baby. He had been supporting his ex and the baby for 15 months and I knew nothing about it. How can I be with a liar? How can I ever trust him again?

I think I love him and I am trying to give him a second chance. But every time I think about the lies and him cheating on me, I get very angry and I want to hurt him back. A part of me wants to leave him for good and a part of me wants to stay. What should I do? Can a man really love a woman and do all of this to her? I could never marry a cheater and a liar. Is it possible that he could change from the lying bastard that he is?

Trust and honesty are two critical pillars that keep a relationship together and when there is a breach the relationship will fall apart. Failure to tell the truth, regardless of the outcome, will result in the person perpetually fabricating stories and living a life of deceit. After a while the truth will be revealed and one will be embarrassed and disgraced. Unfortunately some men (and women) play the cheating game with such regularity that humiliation and shame are not deterrents.

Your partner seemed to think he could father a child with another woman and you his current girlfriend would not find out. How wrong he was, as thanks to his baby’s mother, she, as it were, “let the puss out the bag.

This argument about impregnating his ex because you were not ready for a child is a lame excuse that some men use to justify their selfish and insensitive behaviour. A child should not be brought into the world because one wants to prove one’s virility. To wilfully impregnate his ex while he was in a committed relationship with you is the heights of disrespect.

Whereas he claims that he is over his ex, who says that she is over him? That drama in the bus would suggest that she is still laying claims on him; after all she is his child’s mother and so has some legitimate claim that you will have to deal with.

So at the beginning of a new year you need to stop and take stock of your relationship. If, as you reported, your man has been lying to you from the start of the relationship, you need to decide if you are prepared to forgive and forget.

One thing is certain is that an innocent child is in the mix. What role would you be playing in this child’s life? Would you and the child’s mother share a cordial relationship? How would your boyfriend maintain an affable relationship with his baby’s mother without jeopardising his relationship with you?

So should you give him a second chance? This is entirely your call, but do let your head rule your heart.

Wayne Powell is a relationship counsellor. For questions and appointments write to crisscounselloronline@gmail.com.