Dear Pastor,

I am a regular reader of your column and I hope God continues to bless you with health and strength in order for you to keep giving your fatherly advice to people like myself who value it so much. I have been married for eight years. I originally got married to help my husband and, in the process of doing so, I fell for him and tried to make it work otherwise. After going to hell and back with my husband, and with him threatening to kill me and my children, I decided that our marriage would not work. I relocated to a different state.

involved lover

I met someone who I have been involved with for almost a year. He lives with his child's mother. Being with someone who is in a relationship is something I would have never done. I am in an excellent paying job, so it's not like I'm not making good money.

For some strange reason I have accepted his living with him child's mother. I am not happy. I think my self-esteem has lowered so much that I sometimes think that not even God is hearing me anymore. I am used to praying and asking God for guidance and, lately, I don't think He listens to me anymore. Maybe He is tired of me, the same way everyone else is. I have lowered myself so much that I can hardly recognise who I am anymore.

I pray to find a good church with an understanding pastor who I can talk to without being judged but that does not seem to be working well. I really need your prayers because right now I am living day-by-day and just doing whatever might come along, without thinking of the consequences. I wonder if it is that maybe I don't care about the consequences. I have other family issues that would be a whole column by itself.

For the most part, I'm still mentally and physically able to think and function daily and I must thank God for that. I really don't want to be with this man but I'm not ready to deal with a man for myself.

I can't trust another man 100 per cent right now, so I figured its best I leave things the way they are. My husband now tells me that he is not signing the divorce papers in order to let me go in peace.

What should I do, pastor? How can I turn my life around?

Please, help me. I need your fatherly advice.

Lost, U.S.A.

Dear Lost,

I have said it before and I will say it now. Happiness is a choice. You brought unhappiness into your life by doing a business marriage because you claim you wanted to help the man who became your husband. That was wrong. You tried to make the relationship work by pretending that you loved him. None can force to himself/herself to love another. It has never worked and it will never work in the future.

need company

You got involved with another man who lives with another woman. Perhaps you got involved with this man because you believed you needed male companionship. Again, you chose the way you want to live. You didn't have to agree to become intimate with this man. Now you feel that if you were to end the relationship with him, you would be left alone.

Another mistake you are making is that you feel that nobody understands your problem. Nobody cares for you. You are always in a state of self-pity. You have chosen to believe that nobody cares, not even church brothers and sisters. You have lost confidence in God. You want God to help you but, at the same time, you want to do your own thing, so to speak.

What I want to tell you is you are messed up and, until you come to the place where you are going to put your life in God's hands, you will never be happy. Use God's word as your guide. Read it everyday. Confess to God that you are a rebel and ask God to clean you up and set you free.

Pastor