Marriage Life

"Will you marry me?"
(Screaming and jumping towards the man on the other side of the table, the girl exclaimed) "YES, YES YES, I WILL!"

Not long after the couple walked side by side down a white-lilies-covered aisle heading to the preacher who would take their marriage vows.

And they lived happily ever after.

---

That's what most romance novels write.
That's what most girls expect.
That's what most parents want their children to experience.
That's what most people long for.
That's what most soap operas bluff about.

But do the average married couple have the same thing? I don't think so.
Is the number of divorced/separated couples big or small? I suppose small.
Even if they're in one marriage institution, does it make them all happy? No, not all surely.
How many children suffer from the divorced families? A LOT!
Why am I being so negative? I'm not!!! I'm just stating the truth!

April might not be a good month for relationships or marriages. At almost the same time I witnessed both my sisters had a big big problem in their marriage. It tore me into pieces when they cried. It burnt my heart when I heard about their husbands' betrayals. And it boiled my emotion up when they screamed for happiness, but failed to get it. Instead, they are stuck with a child and in a dilemma whether they should fight for their love or give it up for the sake of their dignity.

Cynthia is my older step sister. She's about ten years older than I am and has a sixteen-year-old daughter called Reta. She and her husband had a son a few years ago but he died of some disease they did not know. Anyway.. Cynthia and Rendy, her husband, live and work in Jakarta (they adore the hustling bustling city, I don't know why). While Reta stays with her grand parents in Surabaya. Sometimes (OK, a lot of times) she stays and sleeps at my house and leaves many stocks of her clothings at our home. Her parents don't come back here often to visit her but once a year in Hari Raya. So it surprised me when in one hot day last month, I found Cynthia in my room, red eyed, talking with my mother in such an emotional tone.
I discovered what went wrong no sooner than a couple of minutes that Rendy cheated on her, again. She repeated the story for me again while weeping every now and then and asked for a solution on her case. I was stunned and had not yet answered the question properly when Ita, my direct younger sister burst in and revealed her own nasty story with A Lung, her husband, who is now in Tarakan.

In Cynthia's case, both husband and wife work. But apparently she makes more money than Rendy and it seems that he gets disappointed and "ashamed" of it. Second reason, they work at different hours. When Cynthia leaves for work, Rendy is still sound asleep. When she gets home, tired and drained, she directly goes to bed and hardly talks to her husband. With the condition of the traffic in Jakarta, one should go to work as early as possible and leave work as late as possible when the streets are not busy. This is one of those factors that prevents them to often meet, share feelings and affection and communicate to each other.
This seemed to be the biggest reason why Rendy started flirting with a cashier woman in his work place.
In an odd way, Cynthia found it out from Rendy's other workmates that called her about her husband's behaviour. Rendy was going to Surabaya to celebrate Reta's birthday (he said). But instead of doing that, he went to his mistress in Magelang and was almost ready to marry her. [He was about to claim a divorce]

While Ita has always been a rude girl in her past twenty three years living in this world. In early meetings with someone, though, she can be too sweet and "charming". She declared A Lung as her boyfriend three or four years ago and decided to get into tying herself up to him in a marriage. It was a sad one, though. The bureaucracy in Surabaya was so annoying that it made it way too difficult for the couple to get their papers.

Reason: A Lung is not a Surabayan.
Another reason: He's Chinese.
Yet another reason: "Feed us some money, please. And we'll take care of your papers."

No wonder this country never succeeds in anything. Cheats are everyday's consumes, also in the government. Especially in the government!
So Ita booked a plane ticket to A Lung's hometown, Bangka island, and got married there. My mother was asked to come and be there as well, but she refused. She was very negative with A Lung at that time and she didn't give her and him a blessing for the wedding. She didn't even attend Michelle's birth. She didn't seem to care about it. And that was already a bad start.
First marriage in the family, and nobody in her side attended it. I was so sorry for Ita.

Now, as Michelle grows up as a soooo beautiful and active and fat baby, everybody is in love with her. But to make the family's condition better, A Lung's tried his luck in Tarakan, a small city in Kalimantan island. He appeared to be more successful there that he had to go there back and forth for business matter. At one certain point, he decided to stay there longer than usual, to save the money for the tickets. Ok, that was quite a reason. So Ita stayed at my house for a month, they promised.

It became two months.
Three months.
Four months.
Five months.

Would he ever be going back?
Ita got depressed and insisted to go after him. He then sent her two tickets for her and Michelle and so flew the mother and daughter to Tarakan.

The visit turned out to be a filthy discovery. Ita said she fought with A Lung all the time (I've always been so concerned about it, since Ita seemed to never realise and control her own hurtful words towards people. And she also does it to her man). So he left her and went back at 4 or 5 in the morning. When she asked him where he was, he said he went to a discotheque. When she asked him if he took a drug, he said yes. When she asked him if she played with another woman, he said he did, for he was flying. Ita cried and went back to Surabaya with Michelle.

Things are going worse for both Cynthia and Ita. I don't know when it will end.. but I've been trying to encourage my little sister to not look at the past, but to plan the future. I've taught her some of the most important and wellknown Carla's wisdoms and I hope she'll be able to stand up and be on her own soon. Independent. Like me.

Ita and Cynthia told me: "DON'T ever get married, Carla! Cause you'll suffer like us. Stay single, and you'll be always happy like you are now."

But I don't believe it. I will never believe it. It is love that makes me smile. It is love that makes me laugh. It is love that makes me alive. It is love that makes me happy.
So it brings sadness once in a while -- there are indeed the words of "betrayal", "cheat on", "unfaithful" etc in the dictionary, you know. Cause love also brings us deep heavy tears. Cause that's the sign! You're NOT in love if you don't feel insecured sometimes. It is not a love when you never feel sad, jealous, angry and mad at your partner sometimes.

So yeah, I'll take the risk! I don't want to become one of those cynical hypocrite people who claim that they don't need love in their life. Cause that's bullshit! Everyone needs love. And so are you. And so am I. And I'm going to get it. Sooner or later. That must be someone for me out there, despite of the bad relationships in this world. I'd like to think there is.

There is.