Killing Time

Another friend filed for divorce in Syariah Court, KL last Thursday. Before he made the decision to do so, he had dinner with us at Madam Kwan in KLCC where I could not resist but blurted, "I told you so!" and smacked him in the shoulders; to which he replied indignantly, "But I was ready [for marriage]."

He told us he has been wanting a divorce for a long time. But he held on because they have a 2-year old son. He thought, maybe, just maybe, next year things will be better. But it didn’t. So, last Thursday he sent me an sms to say the deed was done and that they would fight the [potentially ugly] custody battle in court.

He is not the first of my band of friends who decided that marriage was no longer an option. I am sure he won’t be the last. I may be laughing when I said I am expecting another divorce to happen soon. I didn’t say that to make him feel better. I can feel another divorce brewing violently in the air. That’d make it the third this year, and we are only in February. 10 more months to go. Heck, we are only 32! Way too young for a mid-life crisis. What the h*** happened to us?

Let me tell you a story. When I was in [a] boarding school, there were 3 of us who shared the same name. One of them happened to be a child of a broken marriage. A lot of people thought this was tragic and treated her with reverence and awe. That was the thing that I remembered about her. Not the fact that we shared the same name, but that of her parents being divorced. It was such a huge deal that was treated in a hush hush manner — which was ironic since she was famous for THE divorce than for anything else.

There was another girl in our batch, who was born with a hole-in-heart and was under medication all the time. We were classmates. We hung out several times, in fact we were even room mates once. There was her condition and then there was her over-eager attitude to prove that she was normal. She was athletic, perhaps too athletic at times, trying very hard to dismiss her hole-in-heart thing. It was no big deal. In a short time, we too thought that it was no big deal.  She was just another kid. We loved her, hated her, laughed with her, laughed at her. When we were in form 5, she moved to another school in Kota Bharu to be nearer to her parents (or was it relatives, I don’t remember anymore). That was the last time I ever saw her.

In 1995, on one cold hard winter’s day, she collapsed in the streets of London while waiting for the bus and passed away. The other? She is now happily married with three kids.

My point is, a child of divorce is seen as more fragile, more in need of protection and love and attention than a child who was born with a congenital condition. But that’s not true. Children are resilient. They grow up. They learn. They understand. And perhaps, in time, they forgive.

So I told this friend of mine, if you are hanging on for the sake of a child, then you’re an idiot. Better to raise a child by two separate parents where each can provide him with a loving and nurturing environment; than raising him together in a house full of hate and distrust. A child should not be allowed to grow up in a household thinking it is okay for two persons in a relationship not to talk to each other for months; or that it is okay to yell and call each other names when you don’t get your way; or that this brand of f*cked-up relationship is normal. If anything, we the so-called responsible adults owe it our children to remove them from such a poisonous place.

I view divorces with the same nonchalance that I view marriages. It is just another phase in a relationship. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. If it does - great. Just because once you loved each other very much and took an oath before men and God, it doesn’t mean the relationship could, or must be, salvaged at whatever cost. Especially true if you can no longer bear to talk or look at each other without spitting venom.

But that night, I couldn’t put my thoughts together or tell him something useful. We laughed nervously, shared desserts and then went back to our separate homes.

This is what I wished I had told him. That when the situation calls for it, cut your losses*. If you are just going to lose more and more, stop and remove yourself from the situation. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you can recoup this. You never can. Learn from the accountants. They may be geeks, but they know a thing or two about losses and gains.

[*from Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms: cut your losses: to stop wasting time or money on something by ending your connection to it. E.g. when a project is failing, you've got to learn to cut your losses and move on.

from MSN Encarta: cut your losses to withdraw from a situation in which there is no possibility of winning]

On a less depressing news (or is that more depressing news?), Siti and hubby left for LA today to attend the Grammys. If you remember my last post, that hideous, beaded mermaid dress that she wore to some event won her a best-dressed contest and the prize was the red carpet walk at the Grammy’s. Unbelieveable. I know.

On this 20th Anniversary of  batch ‘87, my thoughts and prayers go out to the late Shahriza Shaharun (rest in peace, room mate), Saiful Amri my bro in Damai and one of the earliest faces I got to know in school, and Hanaz Hazlin, who was my classmate for 2 straight years  — all of whom I knew personally and had been close to, at some point of our lives. It’s been many years, but I can still recall your faces without having to open up the old photo album. May all of you rest peacefully under the grace of God.

And to Emi, I got your back. I always do.

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