I wrecked my sister's marriage because I was attracted to her husband, now I feel terrible

I am married with two daughters although my marriage is somehow unstable. My problem is that I wrecked my sister's marriage because I was attracted to her husband. I encouraged her to walk away when they were having some minor problems. This was out of envy especially after I realized that he made her very happy while my husband was just the opposite of this.

I even encouraged my sister to start dating another man but she is still not happy while he is dating another woman. I even twisted the minds of our family members against this man so I don't know what to do to get them back together. I feel remorseful for the harm that I have caused to their relationship. Please advise me on what to do to mend my steps. {Naomi}

Your Take

To ease the guilt, you will have to confess to her and to everyone you brought into this web. Let them know that you lied, ask for their forgiveness and start afresh.

{Tasma Saka}

While many will condemn you, I am glad you realised that you did wrong. This is the right time to set yourself free otherwise this issue will haunt you to death. Get hem and other close family members together and confess what you did. This is painful but it is the best way to go about this. Seek the face of God, change your ways and you will have a much better life.

{Fred Jausenge}

Confessing and apologising to all the concerned parties is the only thing that will set you free from mental bondage. You also need to know that all marriages have their share of problems. Even when you have issues, remain positive about things. The grass is always greener and thicker across the border but it does not mean that your place is that bad.

{Ouma Ragumo}

You should first seek forgiveness from God before coming to us for advice. No one chose your husband for you, so you did not have to break your sister’s marriage just because of envy. It will be difficult but you need to seek her forgiveness.

{Pastor Ben Shikuku}

Two wrongs don’t make a right and know that if your sister finds out that you are the cause of all her problems she will never trust you again. Go and confess your sins to a church minister and seek forgiveness from your sister and her husband and from everyone else and focus on doing good to others in future.

{Onyango Outha}

You can still do something about this by calling a meeting and confessing your actions. It will be difficult but is the only way to take care of this situation.

{Gilbert Kosgei}

Counsellor's take:

Naomi, you messed up and the good thing is that you know it. You may have also realized by now that it is much easier to break up a marriage than to rebuild one. You were driven by unreasonable selfish interests and jealousy and in the end you led her into a lot of trouble.

You took advantage of the power you held over her which was unfair to say the least and they may never really recover from this. However, you still have a chance to fix this using that power that you hold by using it the right way.

Essentially, you need to focus on managing the damage stealth mode. By stealth mode I mean you have to adopt the role of a mediator behind the scenes. To do this, you ought to go back and mend all the bridges you dismantled in pursuit of your selfish interests. You don’t have to disclose the whole truth about what happened because this would be adding salt to injury. The most important thing is to change the narratives that you made up and propagated.

The starting point is to encourage her to open her heart to forgive and accept him as he is by burying the past and opening a new chapter. You also have a more difficult task of engaging him to pursue her in an effort to mend fences. Then being a mediator, you will have the responsibility of convening a meeting between them and encourage them to get back together. This will not be all because you also created a negative environment within the family circles.

To facilitate a smooth transition and create a conducive environment for the relationship to thrive again, you will be required to actively work towards changing the stories making rounds in the family about them or rather about him. You can do this by casting a shadow of doubt or by encouraging them to forget the past and focus on the future.

Sometimes people may be encouraged to look on the positive side and focus on the gains ahead than on past losses. In so doing, it becomes possible and easy to change their mindsets and help create a smooth transition for things. You bear total responsibility for their break-up so you should do all that is in your power to facilitate their making up. It is the right thing to do and it is up to you to make it happen.

{Taurus}