The me within

After the last post, I went into the bedroom, trying very hard to sleep.

I covered my head with the blanket, closed my eyes hard, and tried to fall asleep.

Sleep is a strange thing. The harder you try at it, the more you can't get it.

I woke up to play Bejeweled, but found myself thinking of Coco's plight, and how it came to all these. I reflected on the hurts within me, the insecurities I feel about this marriage and how it is affecting the way I live, the way I educate Coco, the way I talk to William.

I am doing the part-time job because I feel insecure about losing my full-time. Unlike my friends who stay at home to look after their only child, I don't have a husband who brings home enough bread to support Coco and me.

I don't have anyone to co-save with me. I have only myself to depend on for old age. So I save hard, and to save hard, I need to earn enough for savings as well as for spending.

I am treating Coco so harshly because I have this great fear of having my effort wasted. I know I should not have told Coco this, but I was so disheartened I told her that I have staked my doomed future happiness on this marriage. I don't want to see my years invested in this unhappy marriage wasted. The least that she could do was to get into a good secondary school because a large part of why I married William had to do with her primary school education, which was a headstart for her.

My elder sister recorded and played my talk while I was on the phone with William, so all the audience could hear was what I said to William. My nephew guessed that I was talking to William. He said that I only talked that way when I talked to him. It sounded horrible. I kept scolding him "Crazy! You are crazy!" and my tone was foreign to even myself. Do I really talk like that? Like a shrew? Yikes!

But I guess I really speak like a boorish shrew when I talk to William. I have no respect for him, the man I gave my word to honour at the altar.

I was chatting with a chatfriend earlier on. William read that he was looking for an accommodation in Singapore. He blurted out his grouses when I remarked that most girls who enjoy a happy marriage seem to have a similar pattern - they are plain-looking but their husbands are much better-looking. He said,"Because such men will look for plain-looking wives, knowing that the not-so-plain ones will look for other men outside marriages, and it makes life easier for themselves!" He proposed that we divorce the moment my chatfriend comes to Singapore.

I kept quiet. Not because I was speechless. Not because I felt guilty. I just don't want to fight, at that moment.

I only feel that it's a fair exchange - if I work so hard for my keeps, I should also have the right to pursue my own happiness. And if I can't find that happiness within my own marriage, why should I bury myself in a marriage doomed for a divorce, when the husband is a gambler? You like to gamble, I won't check on you. Go ahead. But you have no right to stop me from finding another man to love, because you have given up your right to when you decided not to work at building a marriage with me.

A marriage is hard work. But he doesn't seem to know that. Since our ideals are different, I'll just do my thing and you'll do yours. I won't interfere with yours, so you don't intervene with mine either.

Tears flow. Not because I feel heartached for this long-gone marriage. I am reminiscing about the woman who so wanted to have a simple and happy marriage, and have a complete family for her child.

He said that I wanted something extraordinary, that's why I am pursuing another relationship. How ironical is that! I just want to have a simple and happy relationship. I just want to remain sane. I don't know how others remain sane in a loveless and respect-less marriage.

I asked myself if I still love him. And I know that I can no longer love him. The love I had for him were wasted away. Love and respect for a man go together. Without respect, how can I love him? And he has eroded that respect I had for him before marriage.

He is angry that I am spending his money on expensive meals. How else can I feel like a married woman if not for the digging out of his money for something?

I think about what would happen if we divorce. Actually, it would be for the better - for the kids, and us. I wouldn't feel so frustrated within. I wouldn't feel so terribly insecure and uncertain - isn't that what a marriage should be - to provide a sense of security and eliminate uncertainties? I wouldn't feel so shortchanged as a legally bound woman. I wouldn't feel so cheated after marriage, and continue to be cheated in the marriage. I wouldn't treat Coco so harshly. I would treat her more humanely because I would have been free from this set of shackles.

Is that why my favourite authoress refuses to get married? Because she knows that most marriages go down the ugly route?