Our wedding is five weeks away.
My dress is ready, the hall is paid for, our families have bought their outfits, and some relatives have already booked flights to Lagos.
Last Saturday, I visited my fiancé, Femi. While he was in the shower, his phone rang repeatedly. I wasn’t trying to invade his privacy, but a message preview caught my attention:
“Daddy, see the dress I wore to my friend’s birthday.”
A photograph of a little girl was attached.
When Femi came out, I asked who she was. The colour drained from his face. After a long silence, he admitted the truth: she is his four-year-old daughter.
Her mother became pregnant shortly before Femi and I met. He says they were never serious, but he has supported the child financially and visits her occasionally. He simply kept her existence from me—and almost everyone else.
We have been together for three years. During premarital counselling, we discussed our pasts, children, finances and family responsibilities. Each time I asked, he assured me there was nothing important I didn’t know.
Now he says he wanted to tell me but was afraid I would leave.
His daughter is innocent and deserves love. If I marry Femi, she will become part of my life, and I would never want her to feel rejected because of her father’s choices.
But my problem is not that he has a child. It is that he hid her from me for three years.
I asked whether he would have told me if I hadn’t seen the message. Crying, he said, “I was going to tell you before the wedding.”
“When?” I asked. “On our way to the church?”
He has begged me not to cancel. His family says he lied out of fear and that I shouldn’t destroy a good relationship over one mistake. But this was not one mistake. It was a decision he made every day for three years.
I still love him. I remember the man who prayed with me, supported my career and respected my family. But now I keep wondering what else he may be hiding.
If I cancel, people will talk, money will be lost and both families will be embarrassed. If I continue, I may marry a man I no longer trust.
Femi wants me to meet his daughter and her mother this weekend so we can begin healing. I haven’t answered him.
My invitations are already out, but the man I planned to marry has become someone I’m no longer sure I know.
What would you do if you were in my position?
A. I would cancel the wedding and end the relationship.B. I would postpone the wedding and begin counselling.C. I would forgive him and continue with the wedding.D. I would meet the child and her mother before deciding.