Ten years ago, I gathered the courage to cheat on my wife with no other person than a woman my wife warmly welcomes into our home.

I married one of the finest women alive. A beautiful woman with a beautiful smile. A woman who treats me like a king. We have three kids together, children who smile when they see us pose for the camera before church. When it feels right, we share kisses in front of them. They look at us like we are the world’s perfect couple. Ours is/ was a happy family.

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Then one day I returned from work and our home had lost its spark. It wasn’t warm or cold. It just felt unfamiliar. I waited for the feeling to return, but it never did. Instead, we began to fight over small things, and those small things built tension in our hearts and in the bedroom.

Nothing was working for me. I felt tired, emotionally drained, even deranged. I didn’t want to be a married man, or I found myself wishing I had married someone else. She wasn’t living up to expectations, and I had started to resent her.

She would come home from town and say nothing to me. She would cook and serve us. After eating, we would talk briefly and then go to bed. Our routine became too predictable, too quiet, and I disliked it so much.

But, Mansa, came into my life. And immediately, my spark returned. Like magic, everything that felt lost came back. She became everything my heart had been quietly craving. She is easy to talk to. Full of life. Attentive and most importantly she understands me. She listens to me in ways my wife hasn’t in years. She laughs at my jokes. She notices me, even the stain on my shirt, the worry behind my “I am fine.”

My wife and I stopped being friends many years ago, so there’s nothing holding the hem of this marriage except once in a while, we talk and even that doesn’t last a minute. We rarely look at each other with comfort. The thing that has gone missing in my wife, I find it so easily in Mansa, and what joy it has offered me.

The only problem in this beautiful evil is that Mansa is a member of our church. My wife even babysits for her when necessary. Every glance when she walks into our home feels like betrayal. Every conversation feels like a line being crossed. I keep telling myself, maybe I deserve to be happy, so what I am doing is not evil.

For the past ten years, Mansa has given me a kind of peace that makes no sense. But I feel like I’m running out of time. There’s only so long I can keep two women. It’s about time I choose one for my happiness.

Because what I feel might be real, the realest I have felt in over ten years. But so are the consequences.

If I follow my heart recklessly, I could break my home, hurt my children, betray two women at once, and destroy trust that may never be rebuilt.

It’s Not God’s Law For A Man To Apologize To A Woman

If I step back from Mansa, I have to face the emptiness in my marriage, choose responsibility over impulse, and give my family a fighting chance.

So what should I do?

Should I pause or pursue?

I try to create distance, but it feels like one step forward and five steps backward. See me as your brother in need of advice.

—Oppong

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