Easy to forgive when in love!

IT is easy, so easy, natural in fact, to forgive the one you love even when it does not make sense. One keeps hoping and believing they will change but to stay with someone who does not respect you and brings another woman into your house in your presence . . . It is always sad when a marriage or relationship breaks down and it is even sadder when one has no choice but to stay after their partner has cheated on them. It also is particularly painful when a marriage is defined by unfaithfulness, but one partner has no choice but to stay put, particularly when the other partner is disrespectful.

For a very long time I have always been under the impression that we all have a choice no matter what we are going through, there is always a choice. I have never understood people that say they had no choice and had to do what they do not desire to do, but well that is just me.

I think a “family home” is defined by the act as the dwelling house that is completely owned by both of you when you are married and which is generally used, or used “from time to time” by you as spouses as the only or principal family residence that should be treated with respect. Bringing affairs home is something I am yet to understand and as I pen this column I am still trying to wrap my head around the idea of a man who brings mistresses to their matrimonial home and forces his wife to play “host” to them.

I think it is okay to have an image of the other woman in our heads but to have them forced into our lives and accept them is a huge step. This week our column is on a woman who has been cheated on, humiliated, battered and abused but has chosen to stay with her husband.

I am not sure I am ready to put this into words but I have thought about this long and hard enough every week as I read other people’s stories on this column. The one thing I know for sure is if I do not try to put this in words I will continue regretting not putting into words what needs to be said. So, at least at the end of this, no matter how it ends, or what people think of me I can at least say I was brave enough to tell my story.

I am going to be honest with you because I want to tell my story the way it is and let people out there know that such things still happen, believe you me. This is something I have been dealing with for a long time and it has gone on long enough and it hurts so much. It is not fair but I am still here with my disrespectful husband playing happy families.

This may sound stupid I know but I am holding on because I hope things will change, which is perfectly reasonable in my own world, but I cannot change a person or change my circumstances. The same way I cannot change you or your situation. I can only change myself and the situations I choose to be a part of.

If I could move on or if I had a choice I would have done exactly that but I am stuck here because I allowed my marriage to be an achievement. I know by now many people are asking themselves why I have done nothing about my situation, I mean taking action and making adult decisions.

I cannot really remember the first day my husband came home drunk soaked in alcohol struggling to walk in the company of his mistress but I can certainly remember the last time because it is certainly not too long ago.

I have thought about leaving and starting over but my problem is I have nothing and nowhere to go, I am an orphan and growing up is another story for another day but I am stuck here. I have been married for five years, and my marriage was my escape from poverty and hardships. I fantasised about marriage and I had all these ideas when I got married, little did I know that my marriage was not going to be pure bliss. My husband brings home girls and women to spend a night while I sleep in the next room and I have tried to fight, confront and do all sorts of things but he has never stopped.

I have stayed with him through it all after our honeymoon days and I still call this filthy house my home. I am too embarrassed to talk to anyone about this and sometimes he promises to stop and goes for months without doing it but somehow he never totally stops. Sadly, there is no amount of repainting or redecorating that can fix the fact the devastating events take place in my home and I am forced to live with it. I also have memories of serving food to my husband’s lovers in my dining room, when it gets to its extremes and right now I can hear the walls mocking me. Leaving this house should have been a natural decision for me.

I feel so hurt every day, I have cried a lot but nothing seems to take the pain away, I feel so disgusted thinking of my husband having sex with another woman in my presence. I wish he could end all this madness so we can be normal again, we do not even talk about all this anymore, all I do is break down and cry when I think about it.

At some point, he used to apologise and promise to stop but now I do not even look forward to his apologies because they mean nothing. I cannot cheat on him and I cannot leave him so I have decided to carry my cross and face him everyday. He knows my situation and is sure I will not leave him because we used to joke about it before. I have nowhere to run, I am stuck here with all this pain.

I have lost my husband, the one I believed was my best friend at some point and I am not sure I will ever fully recover from the heartache he has caused me. I cry because I know all I have is pity. Pity because I have nowhere to go. Honestly, I feel like a beggar a beggar who deserves nothing but spare change, a beggar who deserves only the leftovers given by those who are more fortunate, a worthless trash of society who deserves nothing but to be shunned because this has been the story of my life.

I want to run away, but a homeless beggar like me has nowhere to go, no place to call home. I am choosing to stay in this relationship and endure all pain, and ridiculousness because I have no one to turn to and I still love the one who causes me so much pain and hope that one day he changes and goes back to the man I married. He is the first person who loved me for who and what I was and he taught me everything there is to know in life and he has been my support system for a very long time. I love him, I do.

Getting through a breakup is as much a physical process as an emotional one. Remember that, and know that it will get easier. Keep going. You will get there someday and in the mean time continue to share your heartbreaking stories with us.