the sad story of meg July 5, 2009

i heard of this story long ago, about a close friend and why she has this immense fear of marriage. she permitted me to share her story on my blog. so here it is. i am not at the liberty to reveal her name, so i would just christian her “meg”.

meg is the youngest girl in the succession of siblings in the family. there are six of them in all, of which only one is a boy. throughout her growing years, meg had been blissfully unaware of the strained relationship between her parents. all she knew was that she had a dad that was hardly around. the only times of the day she caught a glimpse of her dad would be when he came home in the wee hours of the night or asleep in the early mornings before she headed off to school. when she had to fill up parental information in school, she could only state her dad’s occupation as a businessman. where he worked and what he dealt in, she had no inkling.

there was no father-child relationship between meg’s dad and his children. to make matters worse, meg’s paternal grandmother did not like meg’s mom. there was always much friction between the two women, even though meg’s mom did her maternal duties and even played the father’s role in her children’s lives in bringing them up and disciplining them when necessary. her grandmother often badmouthed meg’s mom to her dad and relatives. meg was also the least favoured of all the grandchildren.

it was only in her adolescent years that meg found out the reason for the strained relationship between her parents. her dad was seeing another woman for a long time. he even brought meg’s brother along on certain outings with this other lady. to her young mind, meg could not understand why this should happen. only when she was older that she understood why her mom had never walked away from the family – the children were her reasons.

meg’s dad had some brushings with the law, due to his political involvements. he was fined heavily in court, held in remand and declared a bankrupt when he was unable to pay the fine. the flat they lived in and everything in the house was seized by the court and the family basically lived in fear of eviction. at the same time, meg’s dad’s business folded. all expenses and the children’s school fees were then borne by whatever meg’s mom could get from work she did at home. times were difficult. but they survived, with erratic pocket money coming in from their dad and meg’s mom’s measly income.

when meg was eighteen years old, a row broke out between her paternal grandmother and meg’s elder sisters. her dad happened to be home at the time. probably the stress was too great on him and he finally snapped. her dad threw all of them out of the house and told them never to come back. meg recalled the unexpected phone call from her sister in school and going home to hurriedly pack all her books and belongings that night. meg’s youngest aunt was kind enough to take in her sister (meg’s mom) and the six kids under her roof, with their belongings and all. this was followed by months of constant moving from one home to another. it was very unsettling for meg and her fourth sister, as they were sitting for their national examinations that very year.

when i spoke to meg, she shared that she could not fathom how a father could be so cruel and unfeeling to evict his own children. even if there is no real love between he and his kids, there should still be some compassion shown. for a long time, she was unable to forgive her dad for what he did to them and they had no contact with him since that day. all these events compounded to make her disillusioned about men and marriage. meg found it difficult to believe that marriage is forever. up to this day, even though she is seeing someone now, she finds it hard to entrust her life’s happiness into the hands of a man, because there is this fear of rejection and disappointment. the fear of losing her partner because of infidelity is strong and it has shaken the confidence she has in man-woman relationships. any argument between her boyfriend and her causes the fear to arise. she get overly suspicious, though she hides it well. she is aware that it is not healthy. but it is so deeply ingrained in her that it would take a great deal of reassurance from her boyfriend to help her get past this fear. not many men would be so patient. i don’t think her boyfriend knows about this. hmm.. he is not very patient in this area, so i doubt he would do anything about it, even if he is aware.

if you see meg, you would never have guessed. she exudes the air of a very confident, self-assured career woman, decisive in decision making. she is well-liked by her friends, dishes out sound advice to her married friends and she has a special way with children. in fact, you can even say she is the maternal sort. but with her experience, she shared that she would be hesitant about bringing any child into this world, when love relationship between two people married to each other can be here today and gone tomorrow.

meg is already passing a marriageable age. in fact, she is all prepared to remain single for the rest of her life. the last i know, she has started to look into saving money to see her through her old age, since she does not have children to look after her. such is her practicality, her skepticism with regard to marriage.

here is one woman who would make a good wife. many who know her, men and women alike, all agree she is an asset, a blessing to any man. (one male friend of ours has once said meg is a “beautiful woman” in character and person, a jewel to be beheld by the man who is fortunate to marry her.) but her experiences are casting a huge shadow over her for the longest of times. would she finally get to marry her current boyfriend and live a happy life they both deserve, till death do they part? i do not know. it would take a miracle to even see a wedding in the horizon. she needs a great deal of convincing to even agree, if he proposes at all.

such is the impact of childhood experiences on the lives of adults. those of us with children would have be very careful to leave a positive imprint on our children, so that they would grow up with healthy concepts of marriage and life.