We want you to help us resolve a matter. A wife told me that the husband doesn’t trust her. She said there was a book she had about marital ethics written by a pastor. In a portion of the book, the pastor supposedly advised married women to use condom in case they want to have affairs outside. And when the husband read it, he told her he hope she uses it (condom). She said she was shocked by the husband’s comment. She said that since then she has changed her attitude to him and they’ve been living like cat and rat. What is your take on that? – Victor.
Dear Victor, if indeed there is a book like that, then it has the potential of surpassing the notoriety Salman Rushdie’s book, Satanic Verses. Really, I wouldn’t have wanted to waste time addressing this issue because I still find it difficult to believe that a pastor would publish a book encouraging sex outside marriage by advising that if it should be done, a condom must be used. But on a second thought, I’m going ahead to address it because so many things are happening now in the world of religion. Many heads of the different religions are losing it daily and so much sex is taking place in the secret. A friend told me just like week that the married head of her religious denomination gave her an appointment to meet him at a luxury hotel for the weekend. His wife has travelled for business and since he had been trying through gifts to get my friend’s attention (and she too had been accepting with joy), he felt it was time to cement the relationship. She didn’t find the invitation funny and wanted to embarrass him by informing other members. She came to me to see if I could help publish the drama if she carried out her plan. I advised her against embarrassing the man, and instead put a call to him man to desist from practicing his fantasies on members whom he was supposed to lead to God. So such religious leaders are everywhere, but writing a book and trying to put a stamp on adultery is crazy!
On your friend’s issue, I guess the husband is just being too reactive in this matter. Yes, it might have shocked him that his wife could be reading a book like that. Maybe things would have been different if she had called his attention to that controversial portion of the book and they had discussed it together. Maybe the husband is acting the way he is doing she didn’t show much disdain for that portion and in any given relationship, an I-don’t-care attitude to issues of cheating, even in a joking way, gives a wrong impression.
Your friend has to have a talk with her husband and let him know where she stands on the issue of sex outside marriage. She has to make him know that she doesn’t support extra-marital affairs condom or no condom and if there are things she’s doing to make the husband suspicious, she should stop them. She was the one who brought the book; she should be the one to tear all forms of suspicions from the man’s mind. As for the book, can I have its title and probably a copy?
I may be able to see if or not the pastor is being quoted out of context or not.