Enough is Enough!? (Part 2)

Linda paused for a second and then continued amidst our collective silence, “What about the drinking and the physical abuse when he’s stressed out? The same man who claimed to love you in one breath would find within him to hit you in the next? Remember the black eye on my daughter’s 1st birthday, when I told you all I’d missed a step and fallen? I lied!!

When is enough, enough? Is it till I am infected with HIV after he’s been with different women that I could then be released for this contract of marriage? Was the contract not broken the minute he had slept with another that was not his wife? Or would it be after he had fathered a child outside of our marriage (and that’s the one I got to find out about and not the ones I don’t know or would never know about).
I got no support for my dreams like I did for his; mine were nothing but “little hobbies” to keep me occupied and not a real career that required time and energy to concentrate and develop. I was a non person because he  expected a housewife for ever and not for a season

I am sure we had many a good times, but now I cannot remember them, I had reached my enough ladies! To you I should pray and ask God for help… I did and still do, but first I needed to accept and identify what was wrong and break out of a mind of denial, shame and hopelessness. I am fighting now for my sanity, I can not let depression step in to my life yet again after battling for years to the point where death looked so attractive that I welcomed its bleak finality twice in our marriage. No more!!! My life is worth more than being just his wife or their mother, there is more to me than that. Though you choose to call me selfish, maybe I am, but I reckon it’s time to think about myself because Enough is Enough!!”

Linda carefully wiped her eyes, picked up her bag and calmly walked out of the restaurant with a stride I had never seen her in before, some would call it a swagger.

RefinedOne (my first geisha contributor)

…so when is enough, enough for you? Each person’s threshold is different so don’t judge another too harshly. Linda is my first geishawife…..can you be my next?

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!! (Part 1)

After  nearly 20yrs of marriage, Linda walked out! Linda was a lady, her marriage was perfect (or so we thought), with her beautiful children and her husband who always had nothing but praise for his wife. We were shocked and sad because it made no sense. Some said she should not have given up to the easy option of  divorce (as if divorce ever is!), some said there was nothing that God could not do if she would only be patient, some that she was selfish and it would destroy the children, some argued that she could have waited until they were older!!!……these were the voices in and around Linda.
No one saw Linda for a season until one summer afternoon when she calmly walked into a ‘Ladies Lunch Meeting’ and with teary eyes said “When is enough, really enough? I was faithful and devoted for all the years I was married, I supported my husband’s dreams, I counted pennies with him, I was never demanding. I certainly was not perfect but I gave my very best because I wanted to grow together in love. I chose to stay at home to raise our children and manage the home. I cooked and cleaned for him,  not out of duty but as an expression of my love for him. What you all did not know was how I had to survive for years with a man who pornography was his other love.”
Met with a hushed silence Linda continued “Do you know how that could affect ones self-esteem as a wife and have no one to talk to about it because of the shame and embarrassment attached to it? Do you know how hard it was to keep the facade of a ‘perfect family’ out of a sense of protecting him and not wanting to talk about our problems? Do you know what it was to keep hoping and praying that things will change and get better someday? Do you know how many fights we had just because I asked him to stop and all he would say was ‘It was just pictures and that is meant nothing’? Do you know what it felt like to think that once he started looking  the next thing would be to act on it? Do know how a woman feels when she knows and has even walked in on her husband looking at naked women having sex? Didn’t that count as adultery of the mind?”
RefinedOne (my first geisha contributor)

MIRROR, MIRROR, ON THE WALL…….(ask your next question)

When we adorn ourselves each day with our best finery to suit the occasion, we stand in front of a glass sheet and ask a question;

Self: “How do I look?”

Self: “Damn sexy!!:-)”

We walk away and come back after a few minutes and ask another question;

Self: “How will everyone think I look?”

Self: “Maybe I should change these earrings, they look too gaudy for this outfit, or maybe this shade of red lipstick makes me look like a tart, or these dress is a little too short…..”

…………the list grows, the longer we look!!!

A mirror has two faces; a reflection of your physical appearance and a reflection of your heart’s condition.  We walk around daily with the mirror’s reflection of our insecurities introduced by a mother, a father, a brother, sister, friend and unfortunately most times, a lover! I’ve had two very special men in my life; one said I wasn’t the fairest amongst all and the other said I was as beautiful as I thought I was.

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is” (Proverbs 23:7)……thank God I finally believe neither because they are flesh and as such not infallible! But the one who was as close in definition as the Master remains in my heart forever! Selah! (;);))

 

Women….Friends OR Enemies???

I have met a lot of women since I became separated from my spouse; tall ones, short ones, fat ones, slim ones (not many skinny ones though tee!hee!), plain ones but more often than not ‘carefully coiffed’ ones because in the country I live in our war paint and designer props are the masks that we wear in order to make ourselves appear to be just like everyone else (now that’s worrying but a blog for another day!) 😉

Anyway, these different women are perfect fodder for a writer at best times because watching them switch personalities depending on their location, their feelings or the company they keep is like a cross between a Hollywood and Nollywood movie on the best days. Still that is comic relief and definitely more enjoyable that what I call the ‘Cruel Treatment of Self to the Detriment of Ones Just Like Us’

I see women who have been hurt, some still hurting, some living through so much pain that they hug the hurt to bring them the comfort of the familiar because they are afraid of the emptiness if they let it go. Some hurt so bad and scarred on the inside that they become angry as the sore festers and the stench of defeat, the inability to go to the Healer, stokes the fires of anger that becomes guilt, then self condemnation, then envy, then jealousy, then the very thing that destroys…..HATRED! Hatred for other women who are hurting just like them but are ‘carefully coiffed’ so it looks like everything is okay; hatred enough to hurt them just because……..

Women can be our own worst enemies when all we need is the Healer to help us love ourselves enough to love others just like we are……just women!