My boyfriend changed when I got pregnant

Dear Pastor, I need your advice, please. My boyfriend and I have been together for seven years, from high school days. I am now 21 and we have a twomonth-old baby. I really love him. He takes very good care of me, but he beats me when we argue. He is very arrogant. He tells me he loves me every day, but since the birth of our baby, I think he has not really been interested in me again. He takes care of me and the baby well, but I have started to see other females, texting him things like “I reach home” and so on.

When I was pregnant, I found out that he had another girlfriend next door to him (we don’t live together). I admit that I pestered him about it for him to tell me the truth, but he always denied it. He is currently building his own house and he asked me to give him a bit more time for us to live together. My problem is we argue a lot about foolishness, but we make up quickly afterwards.

I am confused and I wonder if he loves me. He works hard to take care of us. He loves his child, and makes sure she has everything she needs. He tries to give me all I need, too, but since I started to see other females texting him, I have become insecure and have lost my trust in him. I know he was speaking with another girl, but I am not sure if they were intimate. I never had women problems like that with him before. It all started when I was pregnant. Do you think he loves me? Pastor, I really need your advice. Thanks in advance.

R.S. Dear R.S., It is likely that this man loves you, but it is also likely that he is playing around with other girls. And you are making the situation worse by harassing him about the other girls.

You have gone into his phone, and you have read his text messages and you feel you have ammunition to taunt him and to harass him about these other girls that you believe he is being intimate with. What is more crucial is the fact that you believe that he is not paying you as much attention as he did before you became pregnant. Perhaps you have gained some weight and you have not done anything to take off the weight people generally call ‘baby fat’.

Please understand that I am not defending this man. I do not know why he is not giving you as much attention as before. Perhaps it could be because of the harassment that you constantly do to him about other women. A woman could text a man and say “I reach home safely” and they do not have an intimate relationship. She could even say “You have been so good to me and I thank you”. And if it is his child’s mother who saw that, she might hit the roof. Why should she hit the roof? She does so because she is silly and insecure. It is not everything that a girlfriend sees in a man’s phone that she should question. She may turn the man off from her. I really mean it! She may run the man away. Little things may build up into big separation.

WORK ON YOURSELF

What I am trying to say to you is to work on yourself. Don’t question every little thing this man does. Keep your man by showing him that you appreciate him and that you are proud of the way he supports your baby and you. On the other hand, you should not tolerate the abuse from this man. He has no right to be beating you. You say that he is arrogant. That might be true, but he has to learn to keep his anger under control. Perhaps he needs to do a course in anger-management. Tell him that you will report him to the police if he attempts to hit you again.

Having said the above, I will end by saying that this man does not seem to be a bad man. Perhaps he has played around with other women, but I believe he loves you. And I would encourage you to ask him whether both of you can go to see a family counsellor and deal with your problems. Make sure that he does not get you pregnant again until both of you are married. After your child has grown a little older, try and get yourself a job.

Pastor