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When love turns bitter
2006-05-04 08:29:20
By Correspondent Mary Segulle
Of late I have not been able to spend my weekends without relaxation, something just crops up and, sadly it has to do with a woman being hurt by a man.
Last Saturday I was just relaxing at home with a friend who was once beaten to a pulp by a barbaric ex-boyfriend and while I was feeling glad that he had not bothered her since the police gave him a stern warning and took him into the cells, my happiness was short-lived.
I soon got a call from another friend who is a mother of two and whose husband makes O.J. Simpson look like a saint when it comes to violent and wayward ways.
Now, this is one friend who I look up to with admiration because of her decent nature, love for her family and the way she gives her all to marriage.
All I can say is the husband is the devil incarnate and I need not explain any further.
So the phone call came and the friend was sobbing and asking me to go over to her place as a matter of urgency. I quickly made the short drive to her plush townhouse, my heart beating fast as I was very sure that something was extremely wrong.
On getting there, I found everything chaotic, the children looking hungry and screaming at the top of their voices, the house strewn with clothes and dirty dishes, no sign of cooked food on the table, stove and even in the fridge and I realized that whatever was the matter was something major.
This friend of mine is a neat woman who loves her children and would never starve them unless her world was coming to an end.
I soon gathered that her good-for-nothing husband had just left home to move in with another woman and had told her that he no longer loved her and she could get a life, date other men and move on as he was never coming back.
This came as a shock to her as until then, he had managed to hide the fact that he was living a double life and making plans to move and leave her in the lurch.
Upon demanding to know why he was doing this to her and to the children, he simply shoved her aside and brought his fist down on her.
I soon set out to do what is expected of a good friend, more so when this is the same woman who wiped my tears when my ex-hubby walked out on me and our two young children years ago.
Sadly, history repeats itself in the most unbelievable ways for I could have sworn this case was similar to what happened to me at that time and she was there for me.
On this sunny and bright Saturday afternoon, I sat with her, wiped away her tears, comforted her, cooked a hot meal for her and the children, forced them to eat and cleaned up the house. As we spoke I could her pain, its only natural because I have been there and gone through all that.
By the time I left, her sister had arrived to also provide comfort and a shoulder to cry on and for a few days my friend seemed to be getting along finely and I was planning to visit her the following Wednesday when an even bigger bombshell dropped.
It was just three days later when I got another phone call from her maid asking me to go over quickly as she was sure that her madam was badly hurt.
Apparently she had followed her husband to his new place of residence to demand food for the children and to ask what she was supposed to do, as she still wanted to save her marriage.
My poor friend should not have bothered to physically go there as this resulted in her getting a thorough beating in front of the gloating new woman who must have been feeling so on top of the world to see another woman being treated like this.
The sad thing is that the new woman never imagines that sooner or later it will be her biting the dust when the man falls in love with another woman and the vicious cycle goes on and on.
Naturally a man who cheats on a woman especially his wife, will cheat on any other woman till the cows come home.
So anyway my friend was beaten t pulp and over the past few days, the man she so loves and who fathered her two beautiful children has ordered her to leave.
The townhouse, she has been verbally abused by the new woman in her husband’s life, she has missed work, she is not eating well and is failing to be a good mother to her children.
All this because of a creature called man. I cannot say in detail how much this woman has suffered at the hands of this man over the years.
What pains me is the fact that she loved him when he was a nobody just trying to make ends meet. She saved with him so they could buy their own car, which she is no longer given a chance to drive.
She loved him for who he was and not what he had. Instead of getting love and respect, the same man she has cared for has abandoned her and their children and will not listen to reason.
I am hurting badly and the other night when we sat in her lounge where she cried out and asked me what she would do on her own, I hugged her tight and told her that I will be there no matter what happens and my door will always be open. I also told her that she had to be strong and accept the situation as it was.
The man could not be forced to love her back
As women we need to continue loving our men but at the back of our minds we must be reminded of the fact that they are as unpredictable as the weather and as unreliable as a weather forecast.
This will prepare us for the shocks and bombshells that will drop on us in our quest to be the perfect wives, girlfriends and companions.
What do men have to say about this? Are they women bashers or in some instances or most of them, the women deserve it?
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