My wife won’t get pregnant

Dear Pastor, I have been reading your column since I was in high school. All of my school friends used to read it and discuss the letters and your replies. I went to college, and my mother kept every copy of THE STAR she bought so that I could get to read them when I came home for breaks.

In my 20s, girls flocked me. I never had one girlfriend, always two or three. By the time I was 25, I had had six children. I accepted three of these children, and I denied that the other three were mine because the mothers of two of them were married. So, these women gave them to their husbands. The other woman kept going to my mother for help, so my mother became the child’s godmother and supported her.

I told myself that I didn’t want to marry any woman who had children. I became a Christian, and I fell in love with a sister in the church. She didn’t have children. I decided to tell her about the number of children I have. She was shocked, and she told me that I had to look for another woman because she couldn’t have a husband with so many children. When I told her that I don’t support all of them, she said that I was not a good man.

I could not stand to see another man getting this lovely girl, so I stopped attending the church for nearly three months. Then, one day, she called me and invited me out. I was so surprised. She paid for the dinner, and we had a long conversation. She wanted to know if I was having sex and if that was the reason I wasn’t attending church. I gave her the reasons for not attending church. I held her hand and begged her to give me a chance. She told me to come back to church, and I did. After church, she told me that I was forgiven.

We have been married for 10 years, and we do not have any children together. She is not interested in getting pregnant anymore. I used to tell her that we needed a child, but whenever I said that, she would say that I already had six, so I didn’t need any more. I wonder if God is punishing me for the amount of running around I did and for having affairs with married women. I have given up trying to get her pregnant, and she has been to doctors, but she is not interested anymore.

Everything I own is in both our names. We don’t fuss or fight. We are active in church. We both have good jobs. Do you think that I made a mistake when I insisted that I didn’t want to marry a woman who had children? Is the Lord punishing me now? E.C.