My name is Munirat. I met Ahmed just after I finished my secondary school and we fell in love. He was everything a woman would ask for: handsome, intelligent and God-fearing. He loved me so much that he shared everything he had with me; he was willing to do anything I asked for even though he did not have much. He did everything possible for me to gain admission into the university and when I was finally admitted into the same institution he was, our love became stronger. We literally lived like a married couple. Our friends were jealous of the love we shared. Although I was young and as a fresher, I was naïve and could easily be carried away, which is the beginning of my story.
I did not know what came over me when I had a fling with a guy named Sam. However, I never loved Sam, but I became pregnant for him. I did not know what to do, but terminating the pregnancy was not an option. I did not want to lose Ahmed either. It was as if my world crumbled. I did not tell anybody, not even my best friend because I didn’t know what would happen if I did. I made a smart move by telling Ahmed that I was pregnant for him. He believed me because he trusted me so much. He came to see my people to tell them what had happened and he decided to get married to me to avoid the shame.
A few months afterwards, we got married. I put to bed a baby girl. That was in 2008. My baby was exactly the carbon copy of Sam, which did not surprise me. I had wished that the baby would resemble me. Ahmed accepted us even when he knew the baby did not look like either him or me.
Ever since then, I had been dying in silence. My conscience kept killing me. At a point, I hated my own child, seeing a picture of another man in her. My husband loved her more than anything else. In 2010, I had another baby, a boy, for my husband and my joy knew no bounds. Two years later, I had another boy for Ahmed. Even at that, he loved my daughter more than he loved his two biological sons. At a point, I became jealous and just could not bear it anymore so I decided to confess and beg for forgiveness. I could not continue to die in silence. I felt it was time for me to confess to my husband, but how would I achieve that without breaking my home? I did not want to lose my marriage for anything.
One day, I called him on phone to ask him if he would ever forgive me. He asked what I meant by that. He asked if I was alright and I said yes. He hanged up on me. I cried like a baby. When he came back from work that same day, I served him his dinner, after which we went to the bedroom. I told him to forgive me. He asked again what I meant by that. I narrated everything that transpired between Sam and I. To my greatest surprise, he dropped a bombshell. He said he knew all these years that he was not the biological father of our four-year-old daughter. He said he knew that someday I was going to tell him but he never knew it would come this soon. What he refused to tell me was how he found out.
I was so ashamed of myself that I bowed my face in tears but he cuddled me and said he had forgiven me long ago. He said that we pray every day and that he had no reason not to forgive me. He went further to say no one was perfect and that we made mistakes in life, that I was a nice person and that we had been through a lot in life. Therefore, he could ot abandon me now that I needed him most. He said he could send me packing if he wanted to but he had always loved me.
At this point, I wept for cheating on someone who would rather cover my shame at his expense. I wept because I took advantage of his love for me. I wished I could turn back the hands of time. Why did I do what I did? I thought to myself feeling so ashamed of myself. “As far as I am concerned, she is my daughter, I have always seen her as mine and always will. Everything that has happened is in the past now. You still remain the love of my life.” Those were his exact words.
I was short of words. All I could do was to cry and thank God for the kind of man He blessed me with because I knew that no man would take that from any woman no matter what. I was lucky to have gotten away with it. Some other woman might not be as lucky as I was. But I learnt my lessons big time.
