Dear Anita,

I believe you may have misunderstood certain things about the matter.

I said “Knowing how humans are” because I have been studying psychology especially regarding relationships for the past three years as part of my medical degree, and all evidences and shared experiences from others indicate that most of them who valued Christian morals only gave in to the idea of sex due to their innocent belief that their current partner would be their last. But you are right, I believed that too, and now here I am.

You have misunderstood B’s history. Most of her life was under her own parents, mainly her mother and she only spent one or two years with her aunt, and that too at the age where she is past the point of childish innocence. Her mother abused her due to being the only one who looked like her father, who had left the toxic relationship cause of how horrible the mother was. Despite coming back for her multiple times, the father was unable to get her to come live with him. Despite this, B did not grow up in a lifestyle where taking advantage of men is looked up on. Her father is a chemistry professor and has made sure to install good values in her during the times that she stayed with him. As she became a teenager(like around 15-17), she had to decide to stay with her aunt or her father, for which she chose her aunt. In the time that she spent with her aunt, she was not groomed to be used as a sex worker. The only behavior that her aunt revealed is her own decision to marry men to gain citizenship, wealth etc. Other than that, she was treated very well in the family, after which she came back to living with her father in 2020, studied law for a year or two, and she was an excellent chemistry student at her college. After an altercation with her father, she started working in a company and she maintained her relationship with her aunt. That is when she started dating Al who introduced her to all the sexual things. She had good influence from her family members during this time. Even to the point where one of her aunts (Aunt 2) wanted her to become a nun. So clearly the only problem then was her immaturity. She was already out of her abusive home, continued her education and everything was normal except for the relationship. Al told her that he was leaving her cause of her restrictions, to which she decided to let go of the restrictions and started having sex with him, staying at his home during week days and living at her Aunt 2’s place on the weekends. Then Aunt 1 (the problematic one) found out about her relationship and took it upon herself to be a good mother and talked to the man and realized that Al is a irresponsible man who did not want to take on B’s responsibilities. She told B to leave Al because she knew Al was not a good man but B, on her own accord, rejected her aunt and decided to stay with him. After which, she stopped talking to aunt 1 for a year.

She had saved up money to start studying at the college where we met, and saved up enough money to rent her own place too, and he was planning to move closer too. But then Al confessed to cheating on her. Then they broke up, after which, she met T. T was a nice guy at first but she believes that he only liked her because he thought she had money. But to her, T was just a rebound for her ex, because “it felt good to have someone to talk to after having your heart broken” (literally quoting her). She confessed that she still had feelings for her ex, and obviously T was hurt. Then T had to leave for some training, at which time, Al returned for a second chance. And still having feelings for him, B decided to give him a second chance. Obviously T was hurt, but Al left her anyway because she was emotionally fighting between wanting both men. So T and B got back together, but that was short lived because T was hiding another woman who he was sleeping with. Then she met me.

Her aunt and she started talking when she started college again. That was almost the same time that we met. She was desperate to talk to her and she missed her. She told her that there was a man who was looking for a young girl for sex. But the aunt told her that she gave her sister’s number to the man instead. But she already had a child so the man wanted B instead. B did not question anything. Aunt 2 started sending the money, which B told me and I warned her that this was not normal. Her job was becoming more of a pain because her manager wanted to sleep with her too. But due to the new source of income, she did not give in. And in December she went to the aunt, slept with the man, returned and got fired from her job.

“But she has had this aunt/ family in her life who instilled some other assumptions, such as using sex as a tool, disrespecting one own’s body, that it’s okay for an aunt to prostitute her niece.” Basically, I told you her history to show that her aunt did not get enough time to install the assumption that sex should be used as a tool, and about disrespecting her own body nor that its okay for her aunt to prostitute her niece. In fact her own aunt had been the one protecting her from being taken advantage of by men, but that effect was still not strong enough for her to grow an attachment to her aunt in that manner.

“Statistically, young people are more impulsive” Yes you are right. That is exactly what happened here. Her own immaturity caused her to be in this position.

“There is no reason for me to believe it was the only incident of prostitution that took place” Based on the history she has told me, there was no room for more actual prostitution to have occurred, so we have to assume that this was the first time she was put in that state, other than being used for sex by Al.

“She needs psychological- emotional help” Yes, I already considered this and it is obvious that she was suffering from the trauma. But now that trauma is also mine. How can I help to heal her when her own actions created my own trauma? How can I help remove the splinter in her eye when I have a log in my own, which she technically put? But despite that, I put aside my own suffering, and tried to help her as much as I could. For the last 3 months, I shut down my own pain and loved her as much as I could, but the severity of the issue was eating me from the inside. I have already seen both sides of the situation. I have seen the bigger picture, but that is not going to change the fact that this all happened cause of her own poor decision making. If she had just trusted me, her aunt would not have had the opportunity to take advantage of her.

B is not the type of person to let her own suffering lead her away from the right path. She was abused by her mother, so she knows pain and for that exact reason, she vowed to become a better woman than her mother. Her mental health issues are actually the lack of maturity, and not having people to guide her properly.

“A man who paid money to her aunt so to have sex with her niece… where is the respect there? Did the aunt respect B when she arranged for that transaction? Did the sexual predator… did he respect B? How about love, where was the love? You expect respect and love from a woman who was shown the opposite of love and respect”  Do not misunderstand, I have already considered her situation in this matter. It is true that her aunt nor the man respected her. But what did I do to deserve this? I had been the only one guiding her, helping her with her decision making, loving her properly, supporting her in building a good future, always remaining by her side despite the issues she faced, respecting her, teaching her the value of her own body. I had been the one doing all of this. So why did I deserve to be betrayed in this manner when all I have been doing was to help her heal from all her past relationships and abuse?  You think I did not recognize her pain? Do you really think that I am so narrow minded that I would only think of my pain and not hers?

“How about love, where was the love? You expect respect and love from a young woman who was shown the opposite of love and respect” Yes she did not receive respect and love from her family, but I gave that to her. I gave her real love. I gave her real respect. Was my love and respect not good enough for her to give love and respect to me? I offered to continue to be her friend, but now she is asking for couples counseling to deal with the matter, which I have decided to go along with, and she has made it clear that she wants to continue having sex, which I have already rejected. I have already sworn that I would not continue until after marriage.

“Her future life partner is not yet known, and there may not be one. She doesn’t yet have a life partner, but she’s had a aunt in her life for two decades.” False. Though we are a young ‘immature’ couple, we had already started making plans to ensure that we would get married and we would be the life partner for each other. Unfortunately this happened before the plan could be finalized. And she only had a connection with her aunt for 3-4 years, and even then, the influence was far too weak because she did not live with her aunt for long nor maintained communication long enough for the aunt to influence her drastically.

“Your anger is directed at the women.. not at the men?” Again False, my anger is directed to the persons who caused this entire situation: B, Aunt 2, and the man. My first instinctive response was to go after the man, which B discouraged, but then I redirected my anger to the aunt, who should be held accountable for being the main cause of the situation. I even went as far as tracking down her aunt, her job, her children (especially her daughter) before I changed my mind cause of how pointless it is. The aunt’s children does not need to suffer for the things the aunt did. But even then it would be pointless as no amount of pain or suffering would knock sense into a woman like that. But despite that, I cannot ignore B’s part in all of this. She chose to hide and lie about the matter. She chose to make all the wrong decisions. She had all the opportunities to get herself out of the situation, which she told me she was well aware of, yet she still chose to go along with it. That is not something I can forgive and forget.

You are right about some men being sexual predators, but I was specifically referring to the matter at hand in my example.

Please tell me why you disagree with B being the bad one and I being the good one? Because you think I do not see the bigger picture? Because you think I do not see her suffering? Was I not understanding enough? I am not trying to paint B as a bad woman, as I keep reminding you that she is actually a good wife over all but that does not change how foolish she was in putting herself in that situation INTENTIONALLY, when I was constantly trying to pull her back from falling into these traps? Am I not in the right when she was the one who rejected my advice? I may have flaws but am I not in the right regarding this specific matter? I am the one who removed sex from the equation after understanding the severity of the issue. I am the one who had been trying to help her heal while my own scars were fresh and open to infection. I only got to this state because that wound has become severely inflamed.

“You want her to change.. but can you change yourself: to endure your pain and anger, and commit to be part of the solution, not part of the problem, that is, to commit yourself to love, not to hate?” DO YOU NOT GET IT? I AM THE ONE WHO IS STILL IN LOVE WITH HER DESPITE EVERYTHING THAT SHE HAS DONE. I AM HERE RANTING ALL THIS BECAUSE I AM SEARCHING FOR AN EXCUSE, A LOGICAL REASON MY MIND CAN ACCEPT, TO FORGIVE HER AND TAKE HER BACK. I AM THE ONE WHO TRIED CHANGING FOR HER. I AM THE ONE WHO ENDURED THE PAIN AND ANGER UNTIL IT BECAME UNBEARABLE. I AM THE ONE WHO WAS COMMITTED TO HELPING HER HEAL BEFORE MY OWN PAIN AND SUFFERING BECAME TOO MUCH TO HANDLE EVEN FOR ME. I ONLY LEFT HER AFTER SHE REPEATED THE SAME STUPID BEHAVIOR AGAIN. SHE ENTERTAINED ANOTHER MAN, FULLY AWARE THAT I HATED IT. A RELATIONSHIP WOULD NOT LAST IF ONLY ONE PERSON IS WILLING TO CHANGE. I WAS WILLING TO CHANGE FROM THE VERY START. I WAS WILLING TO TOLERATE THIS BEHAVIOR FROM THE VERY START BEFORE I REALIZED THAT TOLERATING IT IS NOT GOOD AT ALL.

Its stupid because she slept with the man after we broke up cause of my parents’ belief that she would sleep with another man. We literally broke up cause of the fear of her cheating and that is exactly what she did after we broke up.

“You see yourself as a very loyal, caring man to her, but you are also a very angry man, angry at her.  You shouldn’t try and be in a loving, romantic and sexual relationship with a woman you hate.” Yes I am angry. I can be a very loyal, caring man while also being angry, because my anger is justified. I do not hate her. I hate the things she did. I hate her stupidity. I hate being taken advantage of. I hate that my loyalty and care is rewarded with pain. I hate the feeling of helplessness. I hate knowing that all of this could have been prevented if she had just told me the truth. I hate knowing that this could have been avoided if she had taken the many opportunities she had to not sleep with that man. What I feel is disgust. Disgust knowing that the person in front of me willingly put herself in the situation to be used by that man. She was already aware of what was going to happen DAYS BEFORE it happened. She had time to prepare. Time to think. Time to decide. Yet she still chose wrong.

Like I said, talking to you has organized my thoughts and I am trying to ensure this break up is permanent and I am still offering to be her friend, but she wants me to go to counseling with her and give her another chance.

Paradoxy