Girl Talk #2

One day I was with one of my girl friends. She told me she had a secret to tell me but that I had to promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. Sure, as long as you didn’t commit a serious crime, I told her. She asked me what I think about love. I told her that I believe love is something special between two people that are really hard to describe, especially in a second language, but that love is something shared. She asked me if I’ve ever been in love. I said yes. She asked me if I am currently in a relationship. No, I told her. She asked me if I was still in love with whoever I was in love with. I said no. She asked me why. I explained to her that people freely enter romantic relationships by choice, because of how they feel about each other. They leave relationships the same way-by feelings changing and leaving if they want to. Just. Like. That.


She then went on to tell me that she has been married to her husband for about ten years and they have three young children together. She said she appreciates her husband because he’s the father of her children, the provider of their family. But, she said, she just can’t make herself love him. She went on to say that she had a boyfriend ten years ago before she met her husband, and she was passionately in love with him…and still is. She said they were dating but then one day they got in an argument and he moved to South Africa for a temporary job. She didn’t know the job was temporary. She thought she’d lost him forever. While he was gone, she felt pressure from her family to get married and her husband had approached her family saying he wanted to marry her. So, they got married because she was of age and following social/cultural norms.

Her boyfriend came back after she was married. He was hurt and so was she. She said they still talk and when they talk and see each other her mind goes crazy and she thinks about leaving her husband and children to be with him because he’s the love of her life. However, she said if she left her husband her children would stay in his house because she would be the one leaving…also that she’d be looked down upon by the rest of her community. Forever shunned. She asked me what an American would do in this situation. I told her that it would be different for each person; but that Americans have the right to divorce their spouse and they would not be frowned upon by society. She asked me what I thought she should do. I told her that she should think of her children first, put their needs before hers and that fidelity is very important, she should remain faithful to her husband. But I told her that whatever she chose to do, she should continue to be safe in all of her interactions.