Disillusionment...
A friend I work with thinks her husband is having an affair on-line. Or at least that it started online. A few months ago she started to notice that he was spending a lot of time on-line which was suspicious since he's not the internet-addict type. Infact he used to hate computers so much that he never even had his own email. They shared one & she used to answer all his email for him.
So she did some detective work, checked the history & temporary internet files to find out which sites he was visiting & joined all of them - forums, chatrooms you name it.And she would make a point of talking to all the girls until she found the one. Subhanallah. It was just his bad luck that the girl couldn't keep her mouth shut & couldn't stop talking & telling the whole story. She even forwarded my friend some of his emails to read.Of course the poor girl has no idea that he's married with 2 children.Now their relationship has gone off-line & they are going out together.
Am amazed at my friend's patience. That she would have the strength to sit & chat with this girl for HOURS & hear stuff like this. My friend would even laugh at some of the things her husband said to the girl.
And she can still live with him.She can face him everyday & act normal. I mean he has NO idea that she knows.
This morning she came in my office to tell me the latest & I expressed my shock. She said it wasn't the first time she caught him playing around. More shock!And she said that infact this affair of his was practically harmless because she could tell the girl is 'bint nas' - implication that the girl wouldn't sleep with him.What a mentality!I ask her but aren't you afraid he might fall in love with the girl or marry her?She said no he won't. He hates commitment. When he realizes he can't get the girl he'll get bored.
So I tell her if the situation is like you say you can end it just by telling the girl who you are & that he is married so why not do that?She said no.Then he'll know she knows & she doesn't want to face that.
I asked my friend what made you so hard & cynical?She used to be such a romantic. She answered in one word. Marriage.And she talked for a long time about how selfish men were & how it didn't matter how much you give to them they never appreciate it, they're all liars. And she did start crying. I felt bad for forcing her out of her emotional equilibrium.
We had to go into the bathroom until she could get herself together again & she told me that basically she survives by thinking of her children first & that she has given up trying to change him because he doesn't want to change.
This has come as a shock. Both of them are very old friends. I had no idea their marriage was in such trouble. Not even when she started talking about this on-line thing. First I thought she was joking. Then I thought maybe she wasn't but it was some harmless online chat thing.
We always knew he was a bit of a womanizer. But everyone had assumed he'd settled down after marriage. And they were so much in love when they got married & seemed so happy. That was only 4 years ago. If this happened in 4 years what shape will their marriage be in in 10 years?
Am upset & I feel bad for my friend & also for the girl he met online who is also a victim & who is probably falling in love with him. Am also worried that next time I see him I won't be able to keep from saying something. Don't have my friend's patience & fortitude. When am angry with someone I don't hide it very well.
Is marriage really the end of romance?
Labels: Friends
posted by LouLou @ 8:06 AM
2 Comments:
sad story, very sad. your friend is in a very bad position. itis not that she doesn't care but that she is helpless. if she says something, then her pride will have to push her to do something drastic. and she loves him and doesn't want to lose him. she thinks she wouldn't know what to do without him and so she is quiet and prays that nothing bad really happens and maybe he'll come around. poor girl.
i know this story of another friend also in UAE, who also got married after a stroming love story. they were so in love. anyway, last year she heard he knew someone or something and did her detective work and all and found out he was fooling around, although to what extent she did not know.
anyway,she found out after it was over from a friend's wife. and they fought but she stayed with him for their son's sake. a year later she found out he met someone online (like your friend) but this one he married!!!
and she discovered he had married and divorced the previous one too.!!!
she was monhara, but he divorced the other wife for her sake (which is also unfair for the other girl) and she is trying to stay with him anyway because of her kids (they had a second child last year in the midsst of all this)
so online things are not as harmless as she thinks. maybe she should tell him she found out, so he would think again before anythng.
but the marriage is not the end of everything. in contrary, whatever was there first might persist. . including his traits.he still loves her but he loves himself much more that is all. it is an illusion that she will change him. i am not saying nobody changes after marriage, some do, but it is safer to go for someone who has good ethics from the start.
i am sure the selfishness was there from the beginning and apparent in other things but she didn't feel it because it was in his best interest to keep her happy. so if it coincided with what he wanted to be good to her doesn't mean he is good. good traits are apparent from his actions with other people, especially ones he doesn't need, or whose well fair might cross with his.
Doshar,
Hate to be always quoting poetry but this is from Eros Turannos by Robinson Edwin Arlington. It's about a woman who knows her husband is cheating but stays silent because she is afraid to lose him & be alone.In the end she loses her mind.
SHE fears him, and will always ask
What fated her to choose him;
She meets in his engaging mask
All reasons to refuse him;
But what she meets and what she fears
Are less than are the downward years,
Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs
Of age, were she to lose him.
Between a blurred sagacity
That once had power to sound him, 1
And Love, that will not let him be
The Judas that she found him,
Her pride assuages her almost,
As if it were alone the cost.—
He sees that he will not be lost,
And waits and looks around him.
A sense of ocean and old trees
Envelops and allures him;
Tradition, touching all he sees,
Beguiles and reassures him;
And all her doubts of what he says
Are dimmed with what she knows of days—
Till even prejudice delays
And fades, and she secures him.
The falling leaf inaugurates
The reign of her confusion;
The pounding wave reverberates
The dirge of her illusion;
And home, where passion lived and died,
Becomes a place where she can hide,
While all the town and harbor side
Vibrate with her seclusion.
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