Help! Is my husband married to another woman?

She has been married to her husband for ten years and has no cause to doubt him but the story she just heard from her sister is giving her a nightmare. Our writer of this week needs your advice. Please read and advise. Cheers, Monica Taiwo

Dear Taiwo,
I am very sad and worried, I need someone to tell me what to do, please I beg you. My heart is bro- ken and the worst part is I haven’t been able to spill out what is bothering to the right quarters for two reasons. One, I don’t want to lose my home and husband and, two, I am not even sure what my cousin told me is true. I have no way of confirming her story yet I cannot remove it from mind and my thoughts.

I have been married to Ben for over nine years and I am still waiting on the Lord to give me the fruit of the womb. I guess you know what this type of situation can generate in our society. I have faced a lot of problems with my mother-in-law I have been called different names by Ben’s mother, his siblings too are not left out of the war.

It is difficult because Ben is the only son of the family and the first child. He lost his father at an early age and his mother raised him and his three sisters singlehandledly. One of my offences is the fact that because of my influence on him, Ben did what he had never done before disobeyed his mother to please me.

Ben’s mum had advised him several times to take a new wife but he had refused. In fact, there was a time his refusal resulted in a big row. I became the object of their caustic tongues and I had to plead with Ben to make up with his mother because of his love for me.

My husband decided to seek transfer from Lagos to Abuja so as to reduce the heat of his family’s pressure concerning our state of childlessness. To say Ben loves and supports me is putting it midly. He had never done anything to hurt or give room for suspicion in our nine years of marriage. Whenever I raised the issue of our childlessness, he always advised that I take it easy, assuring me that he would never take another wife.

He used to remind me of all the things we had gone through together and in his words, he would say "I am not ready to forget all we went through in a hurry”. Ben and I went to the same university and started in our 200 level. We were mates, but did not do the same course. When I took him home to meet my parents, my father did not accept him because we do not share the same faith. Ben is a christian while I have a muslim background. We vowed to stand and stay by each other and not allow anything to separate us.

We thought our perserverance and seriousness would make my father accept him. But he still did not. We finished school and went for Youth Service. One would have thought time would have doused my father's attitude but no. I became pregnant just as we were about to finish our youth service and Ben and I made up our mind to keep the pregnancy.

Few days before I was to come home, I received a call from my mother. The question she asked shcoked me and her dream that she relayed to me after I answered her question was more shocking. I denied being pregnant, she thanked God for me and told me that in her dream, she saw me telling my father that he should allow me marry Ben because I was pregnant. She said my father refused and I stood up in annoyance. She relayed that as I stormed out of the house and made to cross the main road in front of our house, I was knocked down by a hit-and-run motorist and I died immediately.

When Ben came to see me at the weekend (as we did not serve in the same town) I relayed my mother's dream. We both agreed to abort the pregnancy to avert evil. I went for an abortion, not knowing that the doctor was a quack. I bled for several months after the abortion and when I eventually visited a gynaecologist at the Teaching Hospital, I was told the foetus was not properly evacuated. He had to do another D and C for me before I became okay.

Since then, I have been unable to conceive again, even after my father had consented to our union and we got married. I have done every test available and I have been certified okay medically. But yet I have not been able to conceive.

I am waiting on the Lord as I know only He can do what is humanly impossible. Like I explained earlier, Ben got a transfer to Abuja and I remained in Lagos. Three weeks ago, my junior sister came home and started behaving funny. When I could not stand her attitude any longer I asked her to come out with what was on her mind.

She told me she saw something that concerned me, but she did not want to make me unhappy. I asked her to tell me whatever it was. Reluctantly, she told me that she went with her friend from school to pay a visit to her friend's auntie. In front of the house of the woman they went to visit was a kiosk, where a woman sells provisions. She was looking out of the window when she saw Ben’s car parked in front of the woman's kiosk. seated inthe front passenger seat of the car was a woman carrying a baby and at the back of the car was a little boy of about two years or thereabout.

According to her, Ben came down and bought some provisions from the woman. As he was about to enter his car, a young man who Ben had apparently helped to secure a job walked up to him and greeted him and thanked him. Afterwards, he enquired if that was Ben’s wife and children and Ben said yes. She told me she was shocked and when friend saw her reaction, she asked her questions. She did not declare her reason but asked who the couple was. Her friend's aunty told her that the couple lives close by, but the husband works in Abuja. She went on to tell my sister that the supposed Ben’s wife just gave birth to her second child few weeks ago. When she heard all these, she became restless and left straight for my house.

She said if I wanted a confirmation she could ask her friend to come over to see me or better-still we could go to this woman’s house. I became confused, because on this particular weekend, Ben called to say he would not be coming home. It wasn’t even the week he was supposed to come home. He comes home twice in a month. Whenever he is not home, we communicate steadily on the phone. He had never given me a cause to doubt or suspect him of infidelity, I can visit in Abuja at anytime, even without announcing my visit.

I find it difficult to believe what my sister told me. Yet I cannot remove it from my mind. I don’t have the courage to ask him, maybe because of the fear of finding out all these things are true. Please help me.

Ajoke, Lagos