NOTHING CAN COMPARE to a loving relationship.
As someone who had physical relationships with more people than I care to remember, I can say that being involved with someone who respects you and genuinely cares about your welfare is more uplifting than any encounter, no matter how pleasurable.
My reasoning is simple – sexual pleasure is a fleeting moment, but a loving relationship is enduring.
I’m talking about a 50-50 love where your partner appreciates that you are an individual with your good and not so good points – just like him. He also recognises your loyalty and commitment to work with him to build a quality life together.
Most of all you both respect each other and would never do anything to undermine your relationship, particularly something that either would not want the other to find out about.
In these days when a price is placed on everything, such a bond is rare and priceless. That is why I thank God each day I have a man in my life who truly values what we have together.
Given my past, I never imagined I would be this fortunate. Like the woman who wrote in on March 18 – Proud of you women for speaking out – I was abused as a young girl. Because of that I never thought I would be capable of caring for a man. In fact, that was why I had sex with quite a few of them, especially the married ones. That was like revenge against my abuser.
I ensured I got whatever I wanted from them. I did not care if they could afford it or not. My objective was to make them feel so good that they would do anything for me financially, and when I got exactly what I wanted, leave them high and dry. I hurt those men the way my abuser disrespected me and devastated my mother.
My abuser was my mother’s partner. He became our sole financial support after she was sent home by Government in the early 1990s when cuts were made.
That man would come, spend time with my mother and leave. I was nearly 15 at the time but never realised what was happening until one day our next door neighbour cursed my mother and called her names. She did that because she wanted to borrow $20 and my mother told her she could not afford to lend her. She was insistent because it was a Saturday morning and the married man had visited the night before.
For weeks after that she would drop remarks like calling my mother a home wrecker for living with another woman’s husband, and a hypocrite as she went to church every Sunday.
The situation deteriorated to the point that she and my mother nearly came to blows. One evening when the married man was leaving she came to her window and called out his name, literally stopping him in his stride. She said she knew his wife and would tell her he had a woman.
The married man went to her and told her since she knew who he was she should realise what he was capable of. So if she wanted to live in peace she better learn to see and don’t see.
After that, she never said another word to my mother. Clearly she was scared of him but would cut her eyes at us every day.
Anyway, as the months rolled on, the married man began spending more time at our house. We got along well and he sometimes helped me with my schoolwork.
During that time I turned 16. All was going well until one Sunday morning a few weeks after my birthday. I was in my room drying my skin after bathing when he pushed the door and grabbed the towel. I was just standing there naked and screaming at him to get out. He overpowered me and pushed me on the bed. Then, without saying a word, began to kiss my body. I struggled to get him off of me, but couldn’t. As I continued resisting he stared at me and told me to let him do what he wanted or he would beat me.
His voice and cold stare scared me. Afterwards I hardly tried to resist. So he continued and that was how I lost my virginity.
When my mother came home from church I was too ashamed to say anything and stayed in my room. I didn’t even come out for lunch, telling her I felt sick. She never queried my sudden change in behaviour, instead suggesting I may be coming down with the flu that was going around. She gave me two tablets and told me to rest. She then spent the rest of the day with him.
It was in the morning when she came to me that I told her what he had done. She got angry, called him and told him off.
In no time he was down at us. My mother began screaming at him and then the blows started. He gave her a beating. When I went to her assistance he hit me too. He left us both crying that day but my mother said we could not do anything about it.
The evening when he came over my mother behaved as if he never beat her and raped me. That’s when I understood what being poor, dependent and powerless meant.
He came another Sunday to trouble me but I lunged at him with a knife and cut him on his hand. After that he never tried to bother me again.
The situation only changed about a year after that when my mother finally got a job and I also got work. We moved out of that house he paid rent for and rented a place together. She told him never to come around us again or she would report his behaviour and get him into trouble.
He responded by telling my mother she was ungrateful. Imagine that. He abused us yet we were ungrateful.
That’s why afterwards I exploited married men in particular. I hated all of them who took advantage of poor women like my mother.
Thank God I finally met someone whose love showed me that there is more to my life than just revenge.