Love advice to Jonnie: ‘time to face the music’

I have gotten all sorts of inquiries on my posts in this blog, the most popular being people who have asked me about this private pool in Laguna and who my favorite psychic is. Yes, some have even hounded me on YM just to know about the rates, time of availability etc. that I feel like a Wikipedia/telephone directory already. Mercy, mercy moi!

The other day, reader Jonnie left a comment here to unload his problem. Being a frustrated advice columnist, I now deal with his dilemma in this post. If you were in the situation, how would you act too? Here goes:

Jonnie: Hi I made the misstake and I cheated on my wife we keep trying to work it out but she is having a very hard time forgiving me, I came to her with this and told her what I had done, Now the woman I had been with will not leave me alone she says I belong to her and I started this and we belong together I have done everything i can But this woman keeps showing up and tracking me down, And I don’t have the heart to tell my wife and hurt her any more then what i have done, Can you help?

Ajay: Hi Jonnie. What a predicament you’re in. Looks like you’re suffering from the “Fatal Attraction” syndrome. Perhaps you are now painfully finding out that we can’t always get away with our past pitfalls; sometimes, it will be there to hound us at such a great price. What you must do now is to deal with it like a man, such as what you did in admitting your infidelity to your wife; to face the music and settle the score between the two women in your life.

Infidelity kills and hurts all parties. People who fall into temptation entertain the illusion that they will not be found out, especially as they mean it to be fleeting anyway. But it affects everyone more than we can imagine: the wife or the husband who waits till the wee hours of the morning; the children; and the mistress who wishes at the back of her head that things will change and she will no longer be the secondary woman.

Obviously, the person you’ve chosen to have an affair with Jonnie is in the latter mode. What you must do is to talk to her once and for all while taking care not to let her feel more scorned than she is now. Be firm in your avowal to end things but still be prepared for the worst. If she threatens to end her life, accept her bluff. Hopefully she will tire in bugging you and finally move on with her life. At worst, she will not stop pestering you and the wife will find out. How you will act is not something I can teach you like a DIY tutorial, you will have to deal with it instinctively, depending on the situation at hand.

As for the wife, you’ve told her the worst and anything more will no longer shock her. Your more urgent problem with her seems to be the fact that she has a hard time forgiving you. The trust has been broken, but hopefully not irrevocably. Perhaps you can go into counselling together; perhaps it is important that you woo your wife all over again and make her feel that she is now and forever the only woman in your life 😛 Take her out of town, take her to dinner and give her loads of shopping money. If she’s good and has taken to heart your vows to be in it together for better or for worst, she will forget it and forgive you.

Good luck.