Dear Aunt Silvia,

I am a young woman and have been living with a man I call my husband for over ten years. I overheard my sister-in-law talking about attending a wedding of a relative, but she was not willing to divulge a lot of information about it.

I did my investigations and found out that the person who is going to get married is actually my husband. When I confronted him about it, he told me that he is going to marry another wife who will produce heirs for him.

Does this mean that I am not his wife legally just because we did not officiate our marriage, even though we have been living together for over ten years?
Lilian

Dear Lilian,

Unfortunately the come-we-stay-marriages make us believe that we are married to our partners even though the marriage is not official.

In your case, you wasted a lot of time building an empty nest thinking that all is well and that you are home and dry – only for it to turn sour. Ten years is a long time to have wasted on somebody whom you believed was married to you.

For your information if you do not get the man to legalise the marriage immediately before you start living together, then he will assume that you are not in a hurry to be his wife, and eventually he might find a reason not to marry, after all younger and beautiful girls are always available.

The unfortunate thing is that no man wants to be called an impotent man who cannot give his wife children. With that man ego, a man can only go thus far before he starts looking for a woman who is going to bear children for him.

Children are sweet and we all love them, nobody wants to live without experiencing the joy of being a parent – so your husband should not blame you for not being able to produce heirs for him, but then men are men – they never want to be told that they might be the ones with the problem.

Thirdly in all the years you have been together, the two of you should have sought medical advice so that between you two, you know who has a problem.

Unfortunately when a woman fails to produce children she is often blamed, when actually sometimes the man might be the one on the other end of not being able to produce fertile sperms.

This is something that needs to be discussed between both families before you think of going to court. In case you want to seek legal redress, you need to have all your documents in place to prove that you actually have lived with this man for that long.

Also long court sessions can be time consuming and can turn you into a pauper spending all your savings running after lawyers.

If you feel it is a war worth fighting because you have a lot to lose then go on, albeit carefully. If you have nothing to lose except the title of being a Mrs. so and so, I advise you to pack up your bags and leave the home honourably before it gets nasty. Believe you me life will continue and maybe that man was not worth the sole of your shoe.

Ends