Finally, divorce?

Several of my childhood friends saw their families broken. They had a common reaction to their parents’ separation: sadness, but also relief. For children, the toxicity in a broken marriage turns the home into hell in a very small place.

One of them, while grieving over their broken family, wished her parents would find happiness again, whether through reconciliation or with new partners.

It was easy for her father to find new women. Yes, plural; years later, when he and his estranged wife were back to being on civil terms, he told her he had slept with dozens of women. His chronic philandering led to the separation.

The mother found another man, but he was married, and she couldn’t remarry anyway. They often rode a motorbike together to the shrine of St. Jude Thaddeus, patron saint of the impossible, beside Malacañang, to plead for relief in their situation.

It never came; one day the guy died of a heart attack. The heartbroken mother no longer found another love; she feared being ostracized for promiscuity. She busied herself working for her children’s education. There was no financial support from her estranged husband, who died when she was in her 60s.

Such stories aren’t rare in this country.

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At least the mother was never physically abused by her husband. I know women even from my supposedly gender-liberated generation who endure regular beatings by their husbands. These are financially independent women, educated and with solid upbringing. Their social status, however, makes them too embarrassed to admit being battered women and prevents them from seeking help and protection from the state.

Some years ago, one of them often went to work with visible bruises. She endured the beatings for the sake of their son, and because her religion taught her that there’s a special place in heaven for those who endure suffering; that when someone slaps you on the cheek, you can offer the other cheek.

Despite all the tough laws protecting women and their children from domestic violence, many women in this country continue to suffer from physical, psychological and other forms of abuse at the hands of men. The problem cuts across income groups, although