TRUE STORY

“I derived my strength and confidence from his words, “I will never leave you.” With those words ringing in my ears I could stand up against anyone or anything and stand my ground…I could fight for my love,” I heard myself say.

I now realize that I was the strong one in our relationship in spite of all his years of experience in life and living, and claims to that experience. In the face of pressure and criticism he buckled – to put it quite simply.

Now he has gone off to “sort out my (his) mind” into the jungles of Habarana and initially was not even sure that he would be returning.

In reality, I can only imagine what he must be going through, having to live day to day wondering whether he will be able to earn in the next minute or save up to achieve his goals in life. He must be exhausted after having done so for all these years.

He craves companionship. If what he says is true and it was living hell being married all those eight years, then the only reason he stuck on was because he did not want to either (a) be alone or (b) be alone with no other financial support except his own.

This probably explains why he immediately started looking around for my replacement. I truly pity him, with all my heart. But like I told myself, I deserve much better than this. I love him and I hate him at the same time; but I do not want him back. I do not need him back.

I did not deserve to be hurt the way he hurt me. I did my best in the relationship. I gave him my all. I fought for us, tooth and nail. We built so many happy dreams together. We built our future together and we planned out our future together. I no longer could not imagine myself without him as my husband, the father of my children. By God! I could not believe that I was even picturing myself as a mother!

But he changed all that. He made it possible for me to imagine myself as a mother and wife and to want to be it, and to live happily with the man I was in love with; am still in love with. So how dare he dash my dreams and hopes and plans for the future like that? How dare he??

He deserves nothing but that which comes out of the jaws of hell for how he abandoned me, but then the naïve side of me still is naïve enough to actually want to cushion the bed of thorns he is in.

I am still wondering if anyone can still make sense of this!

I am still wondering if anyone can still make sense of me!

The wonderful man that he is, is there within him somewhere, still. But his acts of cowardice, betrayal and abandonment easily overshadow if not completely block out his wonderful qualities – those qualities that single him out from the rest of the world. All the happy wonderful memories of the two of us together bring only tears to my eyes.

No one ever fancies being alone. But that is what I planned for myself before I met him. Then he waltzed into my life and changed all that. I got used to being with someone rather than without and it reminded me how wonderful it is to have someone special like that to share my everything with – my hopes, dreams, fantasies, LIFE.

Then he waltzed right out of my life as suddenly as he waltzed in.

Now I have to get used to being alone all over again, which is not the easiest thing to do. It took me all of nearly four years to condition my mind to loneliness, whereas it took just a single day to erase all that conditioning.

Now I have to constantly battle with myself to keep at bay the yearning to have someone fill up the void. I have to start all over again…