The Sunday News
Nhlalwenhle Ncube
THERE are secrets which are usually kept in the name of protecting the other party, but the day the Pandora’s box opens up, it becomes even more complicated, leaving someone heart-broken to an extent that he/ she fails to restore the trust ever again.
Of course we can safely say each and every individual has a hidden skeleton in her wardrobe and some secrets are worth to be taken to the grave, but never think you will escape with a hidden love child. Remember we are talking of a human being who will grow up and want to know his or her true identity, having a relationship with both parents and siblings.
Many people have suffered heartbreaks after discovering that their partners have a child with someone and they never saw the importance of sharing that information. When you get to know the truth, you begin to think that there are a lot of more things he never told you and your relationship was just fake and full of lies. Even that maybe he never loved you, but baby mama.
The dilemma gets to be too much to handle!
There are women who, in fear of being judged, decide not to tell their newly-found partners that they have a child and keep it a secret. They would lie claiming that the child is their sibling’s. They start living a fake life and most of the time keep a distance from the child fearing disturbances. It is sad to be betrayed by your own mother, anyway this is a topic for another time.
Then there are some women who also get to have children from their extra-marital relationships and keep the issue a secret.
The husband gets to take care of all the responsibilities without knowing the truth for years. Sadly as the truth always comes out, at some stage in life the man finds out that the child whom he was made to believe is his belongs to someone else.
On the other hand, there are also men who have children whom they hid from their partners. For some, they had these children before they got married and never saw the need of sharing their past sexual outcomes. Fortunately for men, if they denied the pregnancy and kept their distance from the woman, at times they even forget they had a child somewhere until later in life when the child hunts them down.
On the man’s part, his partner gets a heartbreak when she discovers that the husband had children from his extra- marital affairs and for years was supporting them without her knowledge. It is painful as at times it also comes out that other family members knew everything while you were the only one in the dark.
When truth of the hidden love child comes out, it always hurts and no reason can justify one’s actions!
Not everyone feels completely comfortable engaging in self-disclosure, even to the people you hold most dear. For example, early in a relationship it seems particularly difficult to know just how much to reveal to the other person. Some people are of the belief that there are some secrets that if known, would potentially be stigmatising, particularly those involving unwanted pregnancies. Little do people know that this matters most! Whether you like it or not, the child will always be part of you, better say the truth and let the other party decide on his own whether he wants to be part of you or not.
It is even better if you are the one who opens up, unlike him finding out on his own or it becoming a surprise.
Never take the route of making life easier by keeping your love child a secret. One day, it will actually hurt those you are protecting even more. A lot of issues will be attached to the secret and when you try to explain, it will be too late and for some time when your partner looks at you, she will be seeing a liar. Know that the most damaging type of secret to keep is exactly the kind you fear would lead your partner to disapprove of you. But protecting those secrets that may lie in the core of your identity keeps your partner from having a complete picture of you, flaws and all. The longer you keep such secrets, the more they can jeopardise the pathways of communication between you.
Also at the same time, such secrets not only hurt your partner, but the keeper as well. Keeping secrets may be stressful, but not because of the activity of hiding it from a person. It may be stressful, because you may keep thinking about that information, which reminds you that you have a secret. Knowing you have a secret may make you feel as though you are not acting authentically, and that can depress your mood. Worse at times the child will be suffering somewhere and because of the fact that it’s a hidden child, your hands will be tied to help, frustrating you as well.
Our culture has gone from one where secrets were considered ok, to one where telling secrets is seen as a great “cure all”.
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