I married the wrong person

IT’S better to marry than to burn, the Bible says. But it is also possible to marry and end up burning from the effects of a bad union.

Marriage is not primarily about finding the right spouse, rather, finding the right person.

For many people, they did not weigh the options before saying yes and ended up living in bad marriages, enduring separation or painful divorce.

Below a few readers tell their stories of marrying the wrong individuals and sleeping with the devil.

Sheyenne J, 26:

I definitely married the wrong guy. He was gay. I was blinded by him being in the church and so involved that you wouldn’t even guess. Six months into the marriage I got the shock of my life when I found out he was cheating on me with another man, in our matrimonial bed. I took it real hard as I did everything right in God’s sight. I waited, I saved myself, only to realise he was gay. I wanted to die, but through God I found my strength, left the marriage and most importantly, I’ve matured as a woman.

Yvette B, 63:

I’m now on my third marriage. The first two were definitely wrong. My first husband cheated and left the marital home to live with another woman. When he decided to come back to me, he was killed. My second husband didn’t like my son, who was my first husband’s child, and it was after marrying him that I realised he really didn’t like my first child and only liked his. My third marriage is the right one; they say the third one’s the charm.

Rose W, 32:

I married my daughter’s father to not bring shame to the family’s good name as my mother suggested. But that was the worst decision I made. He would lock me up in the house without food for weeks. Sometimes I was forced to drink the baby’s formula or else I’d starve. When he came back he would take the baby and beat me up, then leave. He also made sure my cellphone had no credit on it. However, one day his friends were there and we kept up a pretence until I went to the kitchen and his brother told me he knew what was happening and would help me to get some amount of freedom by bringing it to the attention of the police and my family. Thank God for my brother-in-law. I’m still friends with him; he’s the middle man with my daughter and her father and me where communication is concerned.

Angie G, 37:

I got married at 25 and I was in love, but he wasn’t. When our son was born, he would take him to the houses of other women he was with. He cheated on me, he was a professional liar and many times he would say “wives must submit to their husbands”. Yes, he was a Christian and he would give many exhortations, testimonies and even small sermons at church, yet our home was the epitome of hell. I lived in hell! Eventually I told the pastor what was happening and he said ,“Angie’ do what you need to do. Infidelity is grounds for divorce in Christendom. Ensure you haven’t contracted any diseases too.” I took my child, filed for a divorce and I’m doing fine with my son and God.

Dwayne W, 40:

Many times it’s women who complain of failed marriages, but in my case it was horrid. She was possessive and violent. She cheated openly and believed that I would sit comfortably by because she thought I couldn’t do better. I had to leave her no matter what the cost was. Apart from that, while on business trips she would invite her boyfriend/s over to my house, where our daughter also lived. The marriage was a big show and I remained the laughing stock of her and her friends for years until she was served the divorce papers.  I filed for full custody of my child and won.

Kevin P, 45:

I got married in a Bible study session at church. Big mistake. She was leaving the island to work and since we had just become Christians, it was sort of forced on us by church members. “Make it right” was what they said. She left, came back with stuff for her new-found boyfriend and not even a sweet for me, her husband. I was crushed and tried to work it out, but she moved out, said she never wanted to get married in the first place and she wouldn’t stay and try to work things out. The divorce process lasted for five years, but at least it’s over now.

Leonard L, 50:

You think you’re in heaven but you’re living in hell, truly describes what my marriage was. We were incompatible. If I were to rate how often we had sex on a scale of 1-10, the score would be -10. If I were to rate how frequently we argued on the same scale, the score would be 15. I couldn’t take the constant nagging. I loved her, but we just couldn’t exist together or even attempt working it out.

Winford D, 43:

I realised she was the wrong woman from the wedding night — from the moment she said her mother told her we did not have to have sex that night because we had the rest of our lives to do it. The marriage lasted two years. She had a bad temper and she was very disrespectful. She had no clue what it meant for me to be the head of the household. And every time we had an argument she threatened to put me out. Three times she actually put out my things and locked me out.  She would curse over the slightest things and everything I told her she would use it against me later. So the third time she put me out of the house I just didn’t go back.

Manning D, 40:

Well, I am very competitive and I do everything with a bang. My parents have four of us and I am the second. The older sibling got married and the third child was planning to, so I was the missing gap. So I proposed and married my girlfriend before the third sibling did. Little did I know that I would be the first to get a divorce. This woman was having an online affair and also a work affair and saying I was not man enough and I didn’t have the time for her. So I realised she was the wrong person because she was not ready to settle down and I did not take the time to find that out from before I married her.

Now I am paying by giving her half of everything I own. Thank God I never had a Tundra because she would have wanted all of that!

Joy S, 43:

I was a Christian and active in the church. I wanted a family like everybody else, so when this eloquent preacher man asked me to marry him  I decided to accept. Turns out he was only a Christian at church. All that was on his mind was sex. I used to be happy when he left the house for work  and sad when evening was approaching for him to come home. I was a virgin when we got married and the honeymoon night I was so tired from all the wedding planning and everything that the moment I touched the room  I fell asleep, only to feel him on top of me during the night. No foreplay, no nothing. From that night I’ve hated sex. When he was finished he just rolled over and went to sleep. So that was the first time I questioned what I had done. Some years later he backslid from church and started getting involved with numerous women, including a teenager.

— Additional reporting by Donna Hussey-Whyte