Hard to tell him I had a child before…

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com,Tel: 08054500626 

Debby writes Agatha:
Dear Agatha,
I have been dating this man for seven months. He has even proposed marriage to me and I have accepted.
But there is a huge problem. I don’t know how to tell him about my past that I have a child from a previous relationship. I am scared I may lose him if he finds out.
Agatha, please help me because I don’t know how to go about it.
Debby. 

 Agatha advices:
Dear Debby,
Try putting yourself in the shoes of this man; how would you feel if after seven months of being together, you are just finding out that he has kept the vital information about a child from you?
Would you be able to trust him again? It isn’t just that you kept the information from him that would bother him but the issue of trust in its entirety that has been mortgaged by your refusal to tell him at the very wee hours of your first meeting.
The major question is why did you not tell him at the beginning about this child? This is going to his take when you finally tell him about this child?
Is it just fear that you would lose him or that you were desperate to have him and didn’t want anything that would drive him away from you? Could it be also that you weren’t too sure about his love for you or that you were too ashamed of your past to let him in?
Your refusal also calls to question the place of that child in your life. If this man of yours is a deep person, this might make him wonder at the kind of mother you are. No mother, no matter the consequences, denies her child even if it is one second.
Could it also be you deliberately kept the information from him till you are sure you have him where it would be difficult for him to back out?
These are questions you must quickly answer within yourself if you hope to convince him of your true intentions at not telling him from the onset.
In addition, whatever your reason is, be very honest with it since that is the only way you can defend whatever reason informed your not telling him initially.
Marshall your points very well before confronting him with the truth, the issue has gone beyond you having a child from a previous relationship to the twin issue of you keeping such vital information away from him and the credibility of your person.
Rather than deal with you having a child for another man, he has to convince himself that you don’t have any more unpleasant skeleton in your cupboard, persuade himself that his initial guts, feelings about you, are still right as well as overcome his sense of hurt at your attitude.
Whatever thinking you have to do, ensure it is done quickly to prevent someone else telling him about your child before you have the chance to tell him yourself. You can bet if some 'busybodies' give him the information before you do, it won’t be easy getting him to listen to you.
The best way to handle it at this stage is to first beg him on your knees for forgiveness. Make him understand that your reason was induced by fear of what his reactions would if he got to know when you first met that you are a mother of one.
Whatever his reactions are, don’t stop until you tell him the whole story of what happened between you and the father of your child. Tell him where the child is, your role in the life of the child as well as your current relationship with the father. He would definitely be interested in knowing this.
Continue by letting him know that you would understand if he decides to leave you as a result of what you had done but that he would make you the happiest woman on earth if he finds it in his heart to forgive you.
Don’t expect him to just gloss over the issue, he would need time to properly assimilate it and decide on it. Don’t forget that he also has the challenge of telling his parents and friends that his wife to be already has a child.
He has to first convince himself that irrespective of what may have happened in your past, you are the woman for him.
No matter the temptation, don’t attempt to hurry him into a decision. Let it come from his heart else you risk losing him to disappointments. You must let him learn to trust you again because you are now a total stranger to him based on what you held back from him.
One thing you can be sure of, if God has ordered the two of you to be together, he would eventually find a place in his heart to forgive you.
Good luck.