If Your Husband Fat-Shames You Then Leaves You for Someone He Met on the Internet, Would You Just Break Down and Cry?

THE bamboo is known to bend when pummeled by typhoons. But the bamboo, even if it bends, does not break.

Alliums, on the other hand, are not supposed to bend. But the recent storm, bringing with it rains and strong winds, must have bashed and forced these summer beauties to bow.

The bowed alliums in my garden that greeted me this morning, for whatever reason, reminded me of a blood relation, Natalie (not her real name).

‘I’m leaving you for someone new, someone I met on the Internet’

What could be more devastating than when your husband suddenly packed a suitcase and cruelly said to your face that he’s leaving and divorcing you?

I was at a loss for words when Natalie shared this with me.

No-one amongst family and friends knew about this specific detail. She was mortified of the way she was dumped. It was the height of humiliation for her.

Natalie was not aware that Brandon (not his real name) was nurturing a relationship online, with a woman who lived 10 hours away.

Natalie’s focus was on their two young children (one aged three years, and the other eight months). She missed all signs of Brandon cheating on her.

So when Brandon snapped shut his suitcase, Natalie was so gutted. She begged him not to leave.

Brandon, the cruel cad, stressed that he was leaving because Natalie had let her body go. That from being slim, sexy and a desirable partner, she had become fat, shapeless and unattractive.

Feeling her insides being totally torn apart, Natalie grabbed a pair of scissors. She threatened to hurt him. It was an empty threat, though.

And Brandon knew it was a bluff. He called the police, just the same, so he could leave their rented house. The police came. They realized it was a simple, non-threatening domestic scuffle.

They let Brandon leave the house, with its rent payments way behind, to join his Internet mistress.

They let Natalie, with their children, to be quaffed whole into a dark, dark place - penniless, homeless, loveless.

Misadventures of the heart

Over 10 years ago in the Philippines, Natalie got pregnant by her first boyfriend. They were both young, but not so young as to be unaware of the result of unprotected sex.

The boyfriend refused to make an honest woman of Natalie.

Without any recourse and not wanting to have an abortion, she had her baby adopted by a childless couple.

For Natalie who had so much love to give but who couldn’t as yet afford to be independent, giving away her first-born was enough to break her.

But she didn’t break.

She took the blows even as she bowed and bent with the bleak bitterness of what just happened.

She got on with life, joining a family member in another country where she hoped she could mend her life due to her romantic misadventure.

Misfortune in love seems to await Natalie overseas

There she met Owen (not his real name), some 7,000 miles away from her home. He was 40 years older than her. Retired and divorced with no children, Owen beguiled the impressionable Natalie. Despite her kin’s disapproval, Owen and Natalie got married.

There was no white wedding for Natalie. After the ceremony at city hall at 9:30 a.m., the newly married and the two witnesses proceeded to the nearest McDonald’s for the wedding breakfast meal.

It did not matter to Natalie. She was happy. She was in-love – until Owen lost his passion for his young wife after only two years.

Unable to bear the brutal ending of her marriage, Natalie tried to end her life. She failed. She must have asked herself a thousand times why she could not even triumph in wanting to stop breathing.

Like the bamboo that sways with the wind

Natalie returned to Manila. She refreshed her skills in cosmetology. In less than a year, she got a job overseas - as personal staff of the wife of a very rich man in the middle east.

For the next six years, Natalie had what I would describe as having a glimpse of the high life, although on the sidelines. Her employer, a minor royalty, lived a life that was beyond any ordinary person’s wildest dream. She had houses and apartments in major cities in the world – London, New York, Paris, Zurich.

And Natalie was there, on call anytime to do her employer’s hair; to give her another hair-color change, or nail polishing or nail-color change just to pass the time.

It was easily a life of comfort for Natalie.

But she fell in-love again. With Brandon. They met online.

Out of concern for Natalie that she might have another romantic misadventure, the family did a little digging on Brandon’s background. He was found to be the opposite of ideal. He had twice applied for bankruptcy on his IT business. In other words, Brandon had no record of stable income; he was even divorced twice.

There was no discouraging Natalie. Brandon, she said, was the love of her life.

She quit her cushy job in the Middle East. Upon returning to Manila, she worked on her immigration papers for entry to Brandon’s country. Shortly after joining Brandon, they got married.

Natalie had a white wedding for her second marriage.

She walked on clouds.

Life looked and felt good.

After giving birth to their first-born, Natalie centered her attention on their daughter, who was followed by another.

She did not neglect Brandon. On the contrary. She prepared sumptuous meals for him and herself all the time, never mind if he only ate half the meal, which she ended up finishing off. What Natalie overlooked was why Brandon always locked up himself in his home office.

And then Brandon dropped the bomb four years into their marriage.

She later learned that Brandon left her and their children because he had already proposed to her Internet girlfriend even when he was still married to Natalie.

A concerned friend showed Natalie the Facebook post of Brandon’s girlfriend. The couple was in a happy pose, with the woman showing off her engagement ring.

Bent and bowed to the core, Natalie did not break.

Like the allium that bends but remains unbreakable

While working to survive to give her daughters the best she could, Natalie went to the gym four days a week, spending an hour each session. She lost almost half her body weight. This achievement made her the poster girl of the fitness center.

When I saw Natalie’s before-and-after photos that was the featured image in the gym’s brochure, I was, again, dumbstruck. I could not believe that she ballooned that much; we had not seen each other in quite a while so I did not know.

And I could not stop admiring the effort she had put in to return to her shapely self, and her resolve to be both a good mother and father to her children.

She attended skills trainings; she worked as nail technician, side-hustled as church cleaner, and did not refuse whatever extra job or shift she could get at a nearby take-away shop.

She juggled motherhood, work, wellness and exercise. And she was good in all four, even after she received her new qualifications. Her dark, dark days were transformed, with much effort, into days of mostly sunshine.

How Natalie managed to weather all the storms that bashed her heart and battered her life without ever breaking, I’ll never know.

But I remembered a flippant conversation with various kin many years ago. We were in a tourist-type coach, having just attended a big family wedding reception held on the edge of the sticks.

To pass the time during travel, someone asked what each of us would like to be if given a choice to live, as plants or trees or bush, even flowers.

I said I’d like to be a flower, like the tall-stemmed purple allium. It is rich in nectar and would attract honeybees to help pollinate more plants. An allium, I added confidently, could also view from a height the other flowers in the garden that were not as tall.

That’s when Natalie scoffed at my choice of being an allium.

She said that an allium bows to the wind and might break, so she’d rather be a bamboo, adding, “Bamboos bend with the wind, but they never break. I like the strength of the bamboo no matter how much bashing it receives from the rain and wind.”

AND that was probably the reason why I was reminded of Natalie when I saw the bent alliums in my garden this morning.

She who preferred strength; she who withstood a wicked dose of heartbreak from miscreant men, but none made her broken.

A Word of Advice

People whose partners left them for someone they met on the Internet – and even body-shamed their spouse to deflect the blame – should learn from this humble grass, the bamboo.

(Just remember not to grab a pair of shears when your spouse shuts the packed suitcase to leave.)

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Thank you for reading!

First published here.

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