DEAR CHRISTINE, I want to let you know how much I like you and the answers you give to people. I don’t really have a problem any longer but I would be pleased if you could print my letter for those women who think that when a man lets them down, the only answer is to kill themselves.
For the years I have been reading your column, I have never come across a letter in which a man says he is going to kill himself because his wife or girlfriend let him down. So why should we women feel that this is the answer?
A year ago, I met this fellow whom I thought was the only man on earth for me. He was my first boyfriend. I loved him with my whole heart. Everything he asked me to do I did. He even told me that if he is to know how much I love him, I’d have to go to bed with him, which I did.
For a while things were going good. Then a few months ago he stopped coming by me as before. I asked him why he used to come almost every day and then came only two times a week. He said he did not want me to get tired of seeing him. He then started to come once every fortnight.
At that time, my mother told me that she heard he had another girl. When he came the next week, I asked him if this was true and he said “no”. He said he loved me and would never leave me for another girl. Christine, I believed him.
The next month I did not see him at all when the news came that the same girl he said he did not have, was pregnant for him. I could not believe it. I had to see him and so I decided go to his house. On the way, he passed me on a bicycle as though he never knew me.
I returned home. The only thing I could think about was killing myself. I stayed in the house for days and one day while I was looking in the mirror, I took a good look at myself and I noticed how small and ugly I had become.
It was then I said to myself, ‘He doesn’t even care about me, why should I kill myself for him? He is not worth my life’. Then each day I prayed to God to get over him and I did.
I learned two lessons from him and they are: never go to bed with any man for him to prove your love because there is no way sex could prove love, and never ever think of committing suicide for any man because no man is worth my life. They are not killing themselves for us, why should we kill ourselves for them?
– V.H.
Dear V.H.,
I am extremely grateful to you for your letter and I am sure I speak on behalf of many who are feeling pretty hopeless at the moment, when I say “thanks” on their behalf. Your letter ought to bring them back from the brink of despair.
No one, not merely any man (for men do feel despondent at times), is worth a life. It is a hasty act that achieves nothing. However down a person makes you feel, you should have just that extra bit of regard for yourself to save you throwing away something that could be good after something has gone sour.
Very few people have gone through life with just one love. If we all committed suicide after a broken love affair, there would be very few people left on earth. The thing to recognise is that it will hurt but not forever.
You’re going to miss the person but not forever. You should call to mind what they have done to you and face the fact that it was not a caring person who has done this to you. It’s often a selfish person after his or her own pleasure.
Soon you’ll find that you could no longer care for them. It’s then that you start to live again, wiser as you have become. Save your life first for yourself and then the people who care for you.
Congratulations on the courage you’ve shown and thanks again for sharing your experience in this column.
– CHRISTINE
