Tag Archives: marriage

Women’s Day: Late Post

10 Tuesday Mar 2020

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I was typing on Women’s Day when someone decided to interrupt, which changed the focus of what I wanted to write.

As usual, something that someone needed clarified at 12.30am (thank you very much!) because someone said, something (another thank you!) which needed to be double checked with me, on whether I said something like that, at midnight (thank you again!)

(And I did write a few more things, and erased. I have learnt that I should not publish things which I might regret later.And of course, changed the title a few times, based on what I was typing/ not typing/ should have been typing. According to me of course.)

I shall move back to the gist of what I wanted to say, as part of the Women’s Day Post. What I was hoping to type in a bit more detailed manner. Which I won’t now, cz I am starting to get sleepy (something strange for me, but much appreciated).

So here goes, a few things I have learnt in life, in the last 10 years:

  1. Being divorced is not the end of life. You could restart your life on getting a divorce, than live a life of misery with a wrong person.
  2. Being a single mother is not something to be ashamed of. If you are a single parent, due to a divorce, being unmarried, because your spouse is not alive, if you are doing what is best for your child, then you are doing things right. Your child will love you for it.
  3. What people say about you, what they think of you do not matter. What matters is what makes you happy, keeps you healthy, and successful. Focus on you, and not other people’s opinions. You cannot make everyone happy.
  4. Getting raped is not your fault. A no is a NO. You have the right to say no. Rape does not demean you. You should not blame yourself for another’s behavior.
  5. You should not tolerate domestic violence – be it physical or verbal. No one has the right to subject you to violence, and there is no justifiable reason for it.
  6. Educate yourself, gather knowledge through out life. We learn things on a daily basis. And it helps improve ourselves, as well as those around us.
  7. Be able to stand on your own feet. Be financially independent.
  8. Be able to say no to money – even millions. Sometimes, money is not everything. But also be able to be afford what you need in life. (Back to point 7 when in doubt)
  9. End of a relationship, a marriage is not the end of life. Nor is failing an exam, something you tried to achieve and did not.
  10. You will find love, meet interesting people. Be able to be happy with where you are in life, what you have become. Be able to look at yourself and be proud, for all that you are. 

We are not perfect humans, but we can be happy ones, in spite of it. And more for later. For when I am not sleepy.

Oh and smile! (Easier to do so in life, than not to. At least what I think).

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Divorcee, single parent, smiling me.  Evidence that every day is a new beginning, and that we can always change life’s course with our choices, you we really want to.

 

“that” mail

30 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Relationships

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I sent the final e-mail I will ever write to him. I had given it thought, I had waited for him to come to his senses (if he were ever to) to evaluate his decision. I had given him once again the chance to pick, like I always did.

It has been three months since I heard of him and his mistress together, in the land in which he claimed he wanted to move on as he wanted a fresh start. The only thing I did not see in my head was the possibility of being duped again, but I was. I was dragged again, down to those pits within my empty hollow of emotional trauma, three weeks into the delivery of our son. I was,dragged and shattered. One believes many things are possible, even from a man who cheats on you, lies to you and breaks you over and over again. But does not believe a man could sleep with another while you carry his son, at least you choose not to. Out of sheer stupidity of course, but you still choose to think he is a little bit better than what he could turn out to be. And even when proven otherwise, you chose to believe otherwise, out of sheer stupidity, or the faith you carried in your life in people for 28yrs of existence, while reality slaps harsh truth into you, incessantly.

You go through photos of you with the man you once thought loved you, claimed wanted to build a life with you and had a child with you. You come across of a wedding to which he claimed he was forcibly driven to, while he seems happy to have his arm wrapped around you. You feel a melt-down coming your way, which if you could chose would avoid, with prayers that you would not be led in to a break-down.

The first days are the hardest, seeing the baby’s face, and wondering if he would bother to see his son, to call or mail, in the least. With the lapse of a few weeks you realise that he would not. Then begins the figuring out as to how you answer the questions of the world; those ones who decide to love the kid, but still think it’s appropriate to ask that question “so did you hear from the father of the kid?” It is not “from your husband” but “father of the kid”. The world had realised to pick the appropriate, where I had failed. It is a “no” to all the questions. Some offer advice, tell me I should reconsider being with the man ( for the sake of the kid of course, as they put it) They for sure know not the number of emails sent or calls made, at least with the hope of speaking to him, or hearing his voice before his child is born.

One can only type as one’s memory blocks, mind goes blank but finger move on a reflex based meditation. One still types, with questions in one’s mind as to how one ends up where she is at present, how a man could choose a woman he once questioned saying “why would I be with such a woman?” She has only one reply today, “God knows” with doubts whether even God does.

She lives with talk of a woman around her, questions of a man who had chosen to be with “that” woman, and a beautiful child with whom she would move on in life. For October is the month of decisions, decisions which should have been taken a while back, upon hearing of another woman, and being reduced to just an option, and possibly an emotional wreck.

I send out that final mail. That mail he might not even read, or not register in his dead, even if he does. That mail I sent a zillion times, in different versions. And today, sent for the last time, for the sake of the days I spent believing to be loved, then hoping to be loved while bringing a bed tea, and then begging to be loved, while crying to have a few minutes of peace with my cheek on his shoulder while our child moved from within .

I sent that mail, I look at my son, and I give it a day. For I sure doth know I have tried.The mother of a new born, and may be the soon to be divorcee, had tried. She had tried all she could and had decided for their child’s sake, where he had failed but to decide for his sake.

“ Pregnancy Tests Should be Mother friendly NOT Marriage friendly!”

17 Friday Aug 2012

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So apart from other complications in my life, I am told that I have pregnancy complications too. Not that I have been unable to recognise that with whatever I have been going through of late, physically of course, but then to be confirmed by the doctor on the matter was, well not relieving in this case. The water levels of the baby is not normal, he says, and some acidic level in the blood ain’t too good either. I do not catch his scientific explanation as my education of science was force fed and was not necessarily appreciated. Anyhow in summary I am to get tests done, and to have the delivery of the kid, way in advance than the date expected. Awesome I think, considering the troubles I am going through at present in finding a maid to take care of the kid. No I do not want to drown the poor thing (referring to the baby of course) while trying to give him a bath! Having never played with dolls in my childhood, I have not much faith even in holding the little living doll, when he will scream himself out of the womb.

Anyways, the doctor having highlighted all the anomalies, tells me that I need to go get a particular test done, and that it is available in Asiri hospital. And daddy dearest has his own reaction to this. He claims that the test should be available in any lab, and that the doctor would be thinking of getting a commission out of directing me to one particular place. I maintain silence, a practice I have developed since moving back home, and having to depend on my parents for the next 4 months at least, unable to work with the little bundle of resilience to take care of. Life changes in the most fucked up ways, than ever expected, and after 12 years I will have to bear with total dependency on my parents, something I hate at all times, and something I despise vehemently given that the baby will be a presence in that picture as well. Silence, silence, and more silence.

Anyways the ordeal does not end at that. I walk into the counter, and the people are not too familiar with what the test is. And tells me after 3 readings, that it will cost me 2520 LKR. I look in my purse for money not sure whether I had that amount, and feel relieved upon that I have 2580 LKR in my purse, and that I would not have to walk back to the car to get money from my father.
And then comes the million dollar question that I hear too many times upon getting a pregnancy related test done.

“Your name please?” “ V. Wijenayake.
Then to unnecessary specifics “Mrs, right?”

I always wonder what importance this stupid question plays in getting a test done.
a. Does it have an impact on the rest results?
b. Is it only married women who get pregnant?
c. Do you have to be married to be pregnant?

Or should it be the fourth option of having this social norm of trying to make women who would want to get a pregnancy test done without being married feel uncomfortable, because only women who are “bad” would get pregnant out of wedlock.

I just do not get it, but it really drives me insane every time this question is asked. It is time the society gets a grip of their selves to accept that people in Sri Lanka do have sex out of wedlock, and that woman have the right to get a pregnancy test done, whether they be married or not. And if they choose to be so, even to be unmarried mums, and raise their kids. What is important is to as long know how to behave and raise a kid without messing up the poor kid’s brain.

So please give the women a break! They have enough shit to deal with without having to deal with this type of innuendos every time they need a pregnancy test done too!

“I would have killed myself”

17 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Fiction

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“If I had stayed with him one more week I would have killed myself” her friend tells her. She has not spoken to her for a long time, and they were never close friends. She had made it a point to not be around the two of them in the past, just so that their groping of each other would not make her lose her appetite. But speaking to her now, she could realise how the other felt in the past.
She adds, “ he even called me a bitch, asked me why I came behind him wagging the tail like a bitch!” It was weird to hear someone tell all those things to another who had been close to him. “He used to very rude to me, but when he needed me, he was very nice. I was too young, and I did not know what I was doing.”

But she had got out of the misery, she had moved on, and she was expecting her first child. She was happy. “ My husband is not that educated, but he loves me, cares for me, and thinks I am the best thing that happened to him. He does not want to let go of me.”

“ I am lucky that I paid those last thousands for his operation. That was the price I paid to get my life back. He thought I was not good looking enough to be his girlfriend, but my husband treats me like a princess. It ‘s like dying and being born again.”

She smiles, happy at the other girl’s plight. It was good to hear that at least one person was happy, and was no longer emotionally traumatised by her past.

It was also evident that the family genes did manage to make women want to go kill themselves. The villagers tell that his dad drove his first wife to commit suicide, through his affair with the other woman, who later bore his son for him. His daughter in law had considered swallowing a handful of tablets and ending all her misery. Not once, but a few times. It was her son who had stopped her. She did not want to cripple the poor child due to any more than what he suffered.

The circle of life that turned. A dad, a son, and women around them. Plots that thicken, hopefully reaching their end and one day giving sanity to those that be haunted by those filled with insanity. For now she waits and watches where her life be headed, to see the marriage to the woman who screws half his office, him and half the town.

She awaits the day to see her in laws who called her a bad woman, embrace the woman who their son still continues to deny screwing. She waits for that laughter, which she’d have patience to see, the day those in laws behold the truth.

” I can understand how you feel”

10 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Fiction

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A friend tells that the friend can understand how she feels as she had to stay a few days without her husband while pregnant and that she felt as it was hell. She shakes her head. She cannot imagine how her friend could understand the emotions she was going through. The friend’s husband had not gone and screwed other women while she was pregnant, had not gone away and cut all communication with her, nor had she been going through an eternal roller coaster of emotions. So there was no way her friend could grasp any of what she was living.

Early in her pregnancy, she had seen how her friend’s husband had been paying attention to her. He would go bring her food, make sure that she would eat something, check if she did, and then make sure he kept her cool while she acted all hormonal. She had watched the two of them, a husband who cooked for his pregnant wife, and made sure she was kept happy. She had wondered why her life had become all messed up, why her husband could not be around her, spend his free time with her, and then ended up being the man he was. But then she had not found a proper answer yet. It was like the conversation she had with Niluka the day before, where she tried to make sense of the man’s behaviour, and then she was told by him that sometimes one cannot make any sense out of anything, though we would like to
see a reason as to why all happens.

Hubby dearest parents’ seem to believe that putting money to her account covers up all the shit their son does. Him running off and not keeping in touch, and then screwing his mistress while abroad, and then cutting all ties with his wife who is supposed to give birth. Her mother in law had asked her a few times whether she thought they were beggars. It did not matter to her even if they were, as long as there were no other women in her life to deal with, and had a husband who would have been caring and truthful. Her mother in law had been very specific the last time she had thrown a bitch fit at her “there is the maid to take care of “your” child, and we are there, and your parents are there! What kind of woman are you who does not want your husband to become an important man “ She was a little taken aback as she did not know how to respond to a woman of this nature.
a) She was not Mother Mary to get pregnant on her own for the kid to be “your” child.
b.) The husband’s presence was not needed to wash nappies, but to be there for his wife and child when needed, so that they would have emotional support.
c) The maid never turned up, nor did the certain in laws ever check on her or the kid, whether they were dead or alive
d) One does not attain importance in life by screwing around while married, and then running off from their responsibilities, and then by continuing to screw around.

She liked how they analysed everything based on money, and not the human relationships. Then she was glad that she did not have to spend much time with them. She had completely different values from what they believed in. Their issue was not their son screwing another while married, but that people did find out about it. And for that too, they preferred to blame their daughter in law, who they claim they could never invite home. The woman adds “you can do anything you want to us, we will die soon, and then you can come to our funeral”. She wanted to ask what good her death would do to her, as she never played any role in her daughter in law’s life. And why in the world was she to go there upon her funeral, when she did not bother to ask her daughter in law to come home even while the woman breathed. Till her communication with her in laws she had thought all the dialogues found in Sinhala tele dramas to be quite made up, but they proved that people like the characters in those were actually found in the Sri Lankan society. Just that she had not had the misfortune of meeting such, prior to her marriage.

Mother in law adds “ send the summons to our house”. May be they want to save their precious son, who will turn into an important person through screwing multiple women and then hiding it to the world, or pretending to be otherwise. She decides she can wait. Her son will be born very soon, and then she will have only time to focus on the little one who she knows would be a demanding little kid who will shriek for milk every second, and want affection which was deprived to him early on from conception. She would have to be there for him, the little one who needs to be taken care of, and manage on her own, without the claimed support of a maid nor the in laws who were to help her out in taking care of her son. Her parents were getting ready for the little one’s arrival, and stitching little cloths, that have started filling her household. Her house was starting to fill up with baby stuff, and baby lists.

And she was learning to live the idea of a marriage on paper, where there was never a real commitment, for the sake of a kid who will need his dad, or at least need to know he has one.

“Parents, beat your kids with a belt!”

17 Friday Jun 2011

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I was pissed off with my mum (nothing unusual just the ordinary status). My parents have this awful habit of getting a little too excited every time I start dating someone and start thinking marriage or ask me if I intend to marry. Well at times, I do not know, cause I am not sure myself, on what I want to do. ( though this time be an exception)

Anyhow, all worked up about my mum’s random comment I was on a mission to move out, when this kid who comes over to hang out with me, was like trying to reason out with me, by pointing out how wonderful my room is! (hell no! It looks like a dump. Partially due to my fault, still..) and then started to highlight how lucky I was to have my parents. And (behold!!!)starts to tear up and cry.

I was like, “what the hell is wrong with you?” To which she responded saying “have your parents ever hit you with a belt?”

For me that was the stupidest thing anyone could have ever asked me, so I gave her my “ are you off your mind” look.

“See they are nice, mine do”

I was like “what the fuck!!” Who in their proper senses would beat their kids with belts. What kind of barbaric acts do these people indulge in. She went on to elaborate that when she was around 11 years old, her dad beat her with a belt cause she swore.

I wanted to know what her mother did. Her response was “nothing”

I knew the kid had issues with her parents, but assumed it was something to do with her being in her teens.

Funny how the parents get off from posh looking cars, and act all sweet and loving, and one never wonders what goes in their stupid households.

Wonder how many kids in Colombo 7 get beaten up by their parents with belts, or worse! Quite something I am sure that people would think is normal, since most of the population believe that kids are parents property to do, as they please with them. Inclusive of beating them up with belts of course. (bloody assholes, how can you do that to their own kids!!)

I wonder when people would start believing it is high time for some measures on violence against children…

Cohabitation: still a taboo?

27 Friday May 2011

Posted by in Random Moments of Life, Relationships

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I have this bad habit of pondering on life at regular intervals. Then of course venting my frustration by typing a blog. What bugged me today was the question on how people would take it if I were to move in with someone!

Behold all the reactions that will flow in!

Mum’s friends will go, “chee that daughter of hers! How can she do such a thing after all that the parents have done for her!? What a shame!”

Then mum would go “What is wrong with you, you want to give your dad a heart attack?” (yes she is all about emotional black mail and dad getting a heart attack being the latest threat. She would go “come home early, dad is not well and all!” I am like “really?”)

So the question pops up, how much are we able to make a decision about our lives nowadays. It is super funny how my mum is chilled about my sharing a room with a man if I am not in the country, but if I were to do the same while in Colombo, I am sure she would flip.

Travelling with a man when not in the country is acceptable, but in the country, well takes a little difficulty to swallow up. (though eventually she is forced to, as she seems to have run out of options)

I was having this chat with a friend a few weeks back, on how one cannot really know a person till you really live with that person. Like little things such as those shoes that are thrown all over, the socks which are never in place, or reading the newspaper while brushing teeth (if you do not believe that people do so, trust me I have met a few who do) which irritate you. Well these will never be known unless and until you wake up to find that person caught in the act! (I remember the horror of the first sight of one walking around brushing teeth for good twenty minutes and then reading the newspaper with a brush in hand, and foam in mouth!)

So yea, what do you do when you discover this, after signing some paper, after legitimising the “union”? how are you to deal with it, when you realize that you cannot live with all these weird habits. Kick the moron out, or file for divorce? Dammit, what kind of mess do you have to put yourself just because such messed up “norm” required you follow such “norms”? I have met friends who got married just cause they wanted to have sex, and their parents were phone harassing them so much that they did not even have a minute to make out in peace when they were on a date! (no it was not a happy ending, they ended up going through a divorce after about a year of marriage. So much for getting married!)

Fine leave alone living with a man, say I want to move out just by myself, how would that be viewed?

Well it will be the same scenario I guess (if the parents are in the same vicinity, and your only reason to move out is to gain some autonomy and lead your life the way you want). “Look at that girl, moving out while her poor parents are living all alone!” quite a possible expression to be heard I presume.

Or it could jolly well be “I am sure she wants to lead a loose life, you know bring in her men and all, can’t do so when she is with parents noh!”

What bloody rubbish!!

It’s high time people get over their dumb hypocrisy and their double standards. And who the hell said that a girl should be under the parents roof till she got married?

What the fuck!! What if one never gets married? Should you live under the parents roof till an old maid?

Hell NO! Screw thy norms! I sure have better things to do!