An Insecure Love Story

Set­backs are an im­por­tant com­po­nent of life. They are les­sons in life that give you strength and courage to face the dif­fi­cul­ties. The hard­ships and problems that I ex­pe­ri­enced in life turned me to be a sur­vivor.

I came from a poor fam­i­ly in one of the ur­ban cen­ters in Asia. At the age of nine I helped in earn­ing a liv­ing for the fam­i­ly. We were side­walk ven­dors in the busy street of the ci­ty. Side­walk ven­dor is il­le­gal for we don’t have li­cense or per­mit to sell our merchan­dise. Most of the time we were driv­en by the po­lice and con­fis­cate our merchan­dise or there were even times that our stuff were be­ing thrown in the garbage.

I strived hard in my study. I hate the sys­tem and I want­ed a bet­ter life and a bet­ter fu­ture. I had fin­ished my Jour­nal­ism de­gree when I fell in love to Ron­nie. It was a whirl­wind ro­mance that went so fast and we’re mar­ried. Our first three years of mar­ri­age was smooth sail­ing but as we get along I no­ticed some changes in his be­havior and at­ti­tude to­wards me. He no longer treat me as a wife, but as a com­peti­tor. As if we’re hav­ing a race, a pro­fes­sio­n­al ri­val­ry. Since I earned more and had a bet­ter job, he thought that I’m too dom­i­nant. He be­came so inse­cure. In­stead of striv­ing for his achieve­ment, he went the wrong way. He proved his man­hood through wo­m­an­iz­ing. He got an af­fair to sev­er­al wo­m­en and th­ese lead to the col­lapse of our mar­ri­age

I was com­plete­ly de­v­as­tat­ed. I did ev­ery­thing to keep him and main­tain our fam­i­ly but my ef­forts were in vain. I re­mem­ber him telling me, “I pre­fer to live in pover­ty as long as I’m the man in the fam­i­ly. I should mar­ried a sim­ple wo­m­an with sim­ple am­bi­tion in life. You are too high for me, I could­n’t reach you.”

I’m think­ing if it’s my fault that I have more abil­i­ty than him. It’s not a sin if I earn more than him, it’s be­cause I’m more ta­l­ent­ed than him. And I did­n’t have the in­ten­tion to hurt his ego or to be a dom­i­nant per­son. Ev­ery­thing was on­ly in his mind.

Since there is no di­vorce in our coun­try, we se­parat­ed our ways. Now he got another fam­i­ly with a sim­ple wo­m­an, I hope he will be hap­py for his new found love. Me I have to start all over again and I know I could make it.

First pub­lished Jan­uary 2008