Publications
Partners
It’s midday in the park and the sun is still warm even as Joburg heads into winter. Most of the autumn leaves have fallen, but late rain has kept the grass green and the roses in bloom. My friends and I catch up while the dogs play. A friend’s mother calls unexpectedly. What follows is a story that could not have been made up.
My friend, let’s call her K, goes off to speak privately. After about half an hour, she comes back and, with her face drained of blood, says that her parents had just split up. Stunned, we ask what happened.
That morning, K’s father said to his wife of more than 40 years that he thought he’d met someone who could become “a girlfriend”. He presented this as if he and K’s mother had agreed that they were in a polyamorous relationship. K’s mother asked what the hell he was talking about and he said, “you know, from the conversation we had last year”. “What conversation?” K’s mum asked, angry and confused.
READ: The hidden cost of divorce
He’d even set a date for his first hook-up with his girlfriend (this guy is, like, in his late sixties).
A week or so later, I met up with K for coffee. She was devastated. The father she had known (thought she knew) and admired and loved and looked up to all her life had just torn her family apart. Her mother was destroyed. Her brother was shattered. Her cheating, lying father continued with his plans to meet up with his new girlfriend (who, he assured his family, “he was not going to walk off into the sunset with”).
When he gladly got the divorce process under way, K realised he was actually pleased that her mother had asked for the divorce. He was too much of a coward to ask for it himself because he didn’t want to be “the bad guy”. Instead, he became the victim.
This is how, in big and small ways every single day, women across the world are gaslit by the men in their lives; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. You never really know anyone, but you think you know at least some.
READ: Personal Finance | Life partner will have same right as spouse
At the end of the day, it all comes down to trust. But finding trust in a world full of lies is a tall order, especially if the one person you trusted with all your heart turns into someone you could not be more disappointed in.
K is holding her chosen family close. Her father will soon be on to girlfriend number two, but the three people he should have chosen are gone.
