My wife cheated on me, twice!

Big Man Wamkulu, this is a distress call from a man who has pushed between a rock and a hard, cold place. Naturally, I am not the kind of man that would write to an arrogant, conceited, egotistical, faceless newspaper columnist to help me solve my marital dilemma. But, as has been said before, a problem shared is a problem half solved.

So, since your reputation precedes you, I hope you can help me crack this. I have been with my wife for 12 years. And just as we are nearing our anniversary, she left me for a man we both work with.

She was my world and I assumed we’d always be together. We had a really good relationship that has only been blemished for five years when she had an affair with one of my friends. I took her back and learned to trust her again.

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Then in January she did it again. To say I was devastated is an understatement. Since then, we have been sleeping in separate bedrooms.

I must tell you that my wife left her first husband for me and I have practically raised her three daughters, who I love as mine since I have none of my own. Her former husband used to hit her, go out drinking seven nights a week and was very controlling. I am the opposite.

I let her be the person she wanted to be. So it amazes me that the man she is now seeing is a drunkard, aggressive, lives on takeaways and goes to play darts four times a week. My first intuition was that I am the problem so I took the psychological route, attempting to find out what drives a woman to cheat—from lack of attention to intimacy, revenge, bad sex, the need for financial independence, low self-esteem, feeling under-appreciated, to being bored.

But one thing I can assure you Biggie is that I have given this my best shot. I have been such an ideal husband that sometimes I wake up crying, wondering what I could have done wrong to deserve such treatment. I spoke to her last week and gave a letter saying how I felt about her.

She cried and said she cheated because she was bored and he makes her laugh and they go places in his car. The thing is, I was bored, too. I suppose we got into a rut.

I still love her so it has been tough emotionally and I nearly lost my job through it. Also, I can’t afford the house on my own. I know I’m crazy to want her back—even my step-daughters think I should move on.

I don’t know what to do. I have been going out, but I just think about her all the time and feel lonely and miserable. I will not waste your time by patronising you or beating about that bush—the woman is a serial heartbreaker and has no care in the world about how you feel. I’d have been candid with you, man-to-man, but this is a family newspaper and my editor is a very prayerful man, so I’ll spare him the blushes.

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