We Sued for Marriage but Love Was My Traitor

I was 28 when I married my sweetheart from high school. We were both virgins, convinced that we had found the perfect partners in each other. A few months later, we were delighted to learn that she was expecting.

It was on Christmas when she went with a neighbor to celebrate with her parents in her hometown for only three days. She was three months pregnant. Unfortunately, their car was hit by a drunk driver. The only casualty was my wife.

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When I got the message, it was like my life had come to a standstill. It took me months to recover my normal functioning. I found it hard to eat, sleep, or work. Eventually, I resorted to sleeping pills, and when that didn't work, I turned to alcohol to block the pain.

I completely cut off social contact. My brothers and sisters would call, but I would not attend. The self-imposed isolation lasted more than a year. Sometimes I would go out of the house and walk for hours, at times losing my way back. I was so lonely that I wanted to be around my hurt to the point of not being at home.

Last year, I went to her grave to say my final goodbye and I made a promise to her that I would let go of the past and move on. It was a very hard step but people were all very supportive insisting that it was for the best. After that, I stopped working and shifted to a different city where nobody was familiar with me hoping for a new beginning.

I had my heart caged up but this time I was ready to set it free. Then I met Erica and opened up my past to her. She inquired if I could love her like I did my spouse. I responded, "I'm letting go of the past, so I will try."

I was devoted to the idea of waiting for marriage before having sexual relations, and the partner was on the same page as me. However, the waiting didn’t seem to last long. One night, she phoned me, saying that her belly was paining a lot. She insisted that it was only her menstruation causing the cramps. I was with her throughout the night, a hot water bottle in hand to alleviate her discomfort until it became cold.

When eventually she went to sleep, I walked to the toilet and saw something in the trash. It was a wrapper of a test kit and the test result was positive. I thought to myself, ‘What’s going on? Is she hurting because she was...?’

The whole night I was serving a pain that had nothing to do with me, a pain caused by another man. I sent her a text message along with the picture of the test kit and left. She saw my message and answered, "At least you could have waited for me to explain."

After a week, I got only an apology, but no explanation. I came here to get rid of my past, only to meet the pain that I had been trying to avoid. I am finished with love. I have grieved for years and the realization I have come to is this: mourning a lost love is much better than the emotional pain Erica caused me through her wrong interpretation of love.

—Ben

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