Belongings
Lerato: Hello David. I hope this message finds you well. I was married to my husband for 17 years before his unforeseen death in October, 2025. He showed up in my life when I needed a good laugh with someone. Laughing together was actually what bonded us in our relationship. I was married to a man who constantly made the attempt to win my heart over again. For 17 years, he never stopped flirting with me. He did not stop surprising me with gifts and random kisses here and there. He was the first to wake up in the mornings and I would wake up to handwritten notes of appreciation and acknowledgement. I did not have to drive my car to the filling station to buy fuel because he made it a habit to fill my tank anytime he noticed it was getting low. He made my heart swoon because he thought I was special. I was a happy and grateful wife for 17 years.
Until March, 2026, when I mustered courage to go through some of his belongings. In one of the books hidden behind his shelves in his study, I came across pictures, letters, small notes and phone numbers and email addresses of a second family he had created that I had no idea of. I found pictures of him and his two other children, who were younger than my own three kids with him. There were pictures of him and his second wife’s engagement ceremony. The shock of my life that is currently shaking the entire foundation of my world. My faithful and perfect husband never breathed a single word or hint about them to me. I’ve been trying to do the math but it’s not adding up. At what point in our marriage did he find the time to go and start a second family?
David, everything I believed about my dear husband, his love for me and our marriage has now been thrown into question. And the worse part, I will never be able to confront him about my discovery. I am never going to get closure. I don’t know who to talk to about my findings.
David Bondze-Mbir (DBM): As sad and uncomfortable as this may sound, he’s not here for you to cuss him out or demand his accountability. You need to understand that you are not in the wrong here. You have no reason what-so-ever to feel shame about your finding. I am telling you for a fact that, men harbor secret lives more often than you women do. And that’s why for whatever strange reason – a lot more men are dying prematurely than women. He made his bed six feet under, and is resting peacefully in it. When a man intentionally lies to you, or chooses to hide a fundamental truth from you to avoid accountability or take responsibility for something, he’s always had it in whatever his love for you was packaged in – an intention to deceive you one day. Do you have access to his phone?
Lerato: No
DBM: Where is his phone?
Lerato: With my mother-in-law
DBM: Why is your husband’s phone with his mother?
Lerato: I haven’t even thought of it. My mother-in-law was here in October to December, 2025. My husband was buried in December, and my son told me in November that he had seen his father’s phone in his grandmother’s possession. In one of the many pictures hidden in the book was my mother-in-law and the children of the other woman when they were babies.
DBM: She’s been in the known. She’s known all this while and had made the decision to keep it from you too. His siblings are probably in the known too. That’s the kind of family you’re married into.
Lerato: How stupid of me. I’ve been so trusting and clueless.
DBM: That doesn’t also mean you should be cherry-picking your memories of him. He was human, with all of his complexities. Your husband was flawed but he was also tender. He’s dead, and it’s your choice to fondly remember him for who and what he meant to you – though he kinda, sucks now.
Lerato: Do I reach out to the other woman and her children?
DBM: Do you want to?
Lerato: No
DBM: Then don’t. You don’t have to accept them in your grief or adopt them as your family. Your mother-in-law will continue to take on that role since she’s been kind and welcoming to them.
Lerato: How about my kids, do I need to tell them about their half-siblings?
DBM: There is never a perfect time to disclose this kind of information to anyone. Do it when you feel the time is right. Is that time right now?
Lerato: No
DBM: Exactly! This is going to be big news for any child. It is big enough news even for you – as it’s still influencing your feelings and thought processes. So, just make sure you know exactly how you feel about all that you have discovered, and whether or not you can be as objective and neutral as possible before breaking the news to your children.
Lerato: Ok. Thank you
Image Credit: Dydx Dominic
