DEAR EMILY,
My best friend and her husband are residents abroad, but divorced three years ago after they found out they got married for the wrong reasons. They were both on the rebound and thought that a few laughs were good enough for them to forget their individual pasts.
After two children, these two just found themselves living with strangers—themselves. She said she had always pined for the boyfriend she left behind; eventually, she reconnected with him.
He’d visit her two or three times a year and she said she was ready to come home and start a life with him after he encouraged her vigorously to do it. She was totally in love with him that she was even willing to leave her children with her husband, were it required of her, she said.
She came home out of the blue last month to her boyfriend. Instead, she got the jolt of her life. Though he picked her up from the airport—shell-shocked—and was able to stay with her the first night, he disappeared from then on, making excuses like having meetings or prior appointments.
She felt down in the dumps that I had to call the guy to ask him what’s happening, asking him point-blank if there’s a third party involved.
With much hemming and hawing, he finally admitted there is, and that “my friend knew about it all along.” My reflex reaction was a screaming “No! She didn’t!” But he kept on insisting and persisting that she did! He was disgusting! I couldn’t tell my friend my conversation with her rat, so I persuaded her not to wait for him that afternoon and instead go out of her hotel to get some air.
In the car I asked her what if this guy were seeing someone else. She didn’t wait for me to finish. “No way, of course not!” she said. I blurted, “He has someone else!” She thought I was joking. But I added, “He told me himself!” She started crying hysterical and striking her breasts with both her hands. She would have left that night, were the planes not full. She left on the first flight the next morning.
My friend and this guy were e-mailing, texting and calling each other up and planning a future from across the seas, which he obviously never had any intention of fulfilling! They were planning a life together here! He encouraged her! This woman was willing to swim an ocean for him! My point is, why are some men so spineless and so bereft of principles, like withholding the truth? Why do they inflict so much pain and heartache on their unsuspecting lovers?
LIVID FRIEND
What happened to your friend is being replicated in many relationships somewhere in the four corners of the planet right this minute. Count on it. Not many men have the scruples to look their partners in the eye and say truthfully that they’ve reached their end, it’s over—opting instead to hide, beat around the bush, give lame excuses till their creative minds runs dry and are outed. What hard work!
Many still don’t know how truth works no matter how much it hurts and how wonderful and liberating it turns out in the end.
I cannot even call him a worm because worms are angels of the soil that give nourishment to plants we eat. He is just a cowardly lying creep who wanted it all. There are no words to describe these creatures. None! There’s no choice but to give her heart time to flush out this horrible inconvenience. Sometime soon, she’ll wake up one morning and possibly even smack her face at how stupidly she ever fell for such a creep. That’s exactly what he is!
There’s nothing more to do but move on and never look back. Just allow time to do its magic. Then she can call it a day.
Send e-mail to emarcelo@inquirer. com.ph or emarcelo629@ gmail.com. Do listen to my radio program “Kalikasan Vigilante” Monday-Friday, 5-6 pm on DWBL 1242khz or my podcast at https://kalikasanvigilante.blogspot.com.