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)

I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF!!!

I was 16 when I met my ex-spouse, married him at 23 and spent the last two decades and a bit swinging between the decision to love ‘for better or for worse’ and the tiny little voice that often talked about all the little things I missed out on because I married early, most especially in the very interesting World of Dating!!!…..

There, I said it and I didn’t die from the shock of finally admitting that maybe I wanted to experience the thrill of Mr Tall, Dark & Handsome like the romantic novels described, or I wanted to experience being picked up by a stranger at a bar and having wild, uninhibited sex all night without a thought of what will be tomorrow or the days after, or maybe I just wanted to be somebody’s mistress without the stress of dirty socks, dirty underwear, cleaning house, having children underfoot and losing my size 10 figure with stretch marks to booth!(Geishas seem to have all the fun I tell ya! Hehehehe!) Maybe I would have enjoyed going on exotic holidays, meeting great people and making new friends while pretending that there are no strings attached when I know that in life every relationship comes with a ball of strings so thick it could tie you up for years…

There are many maybes, many secret fantasies and desires, many opportunities to look at life and love through the lens of right and wrong and decide to choose wrong sometimes while taking a chance that you’ll live to regret it! But still I’ve learnt that there is still time…..as long as there is life, the ability to laugh at oneself, the desire to pray and the bravery to love without condition…there is TIME!!!

Through it all God’s mercy has kept me even though I haven’t always deserved it but I’m proud to say that I’m human just like the rest of the world, with even crazier fantasies than most and finally able to shout out loud “Keep your judgments to yourselves people, ‘cos I can certainly do bad all by myself”

Eat, Laugh, Love & Pray…….

I love sex….(Bet that shocks the fainthearted amongst you 🙂 )….but I love the sound of the sea clashing against large rocks, the warmth of a little baby as he falls asleep in your arms, turquoise skies and deep blue seas, the sudden darkness of rainy skies as the smell of rain fills the air…shared laughter and the beauty of sisterhood, green tea and ice s-cream!!! I love the sound of silence in Grecian temples, the sight of old priests dressed in black in silent worship…I like the feel of a warm bath after a hard day, the shuffling of children’s feet outside your door, whispering…..I love food, rich, velvety red wine, the silent anticipation within me as I wait to see what else God will do with me……I love life, its just that simple!………what do you love that ‘He’ knows but ‘he’ can’t see?