Eyes On You
“If your boyfriend is good looking you have to be watchful of other women”, is the advice I was given by a victim of domestic violence recently.
It was at the end of the interview; she held both my hands tightly in hers, her eyes tired and glazed with tears locked with my eyes and after an ominous pause she imparted one of life’s lessons that she had learnt the hard way.
The lady, we shall henceforth refer to her as Joyce, told me that her husband is very good looking and was consequently seduced by another woman. The other woman had poisoned his mind against Joyce and that’s when he began to physically abuse her. Joyce, who still loves her husband, believes that he’s an innocent victim of the other woman’s selfish and manipulative ways and is determined to stay with her husband.
Getting back to her advice, while she meant well, it doesn’t fit into my tenets of sorts. If someone’s boyfriend or husband was seduced by another woman (let alone physically abuse their partner as well), he obviously doesn’t care about her all that much. And so the right thing to do would be to leave him, instead of being watchful.
I think the problem with most Sri Lankan women is that they lack self-esteem. They don’t realise that they deserved to be treated better than that. It could be our cultural values…
As I type this post I’ve been relating the bizarre bit of advice I was given to a friend of mine (a sports journalist who let’s call… Banduka). Sharing this testosterone motivated views, Banduka is completely averse to my reasoning.
He says that he understands where she’s coming from; if your good looking you will be sought after by the opposite sex. Which I disputed saying, even if the guy is good looking and women were throwing themselves at him if he really cared about his girlfriend/wife he wouldn’t cheat on her.
Banduka rebuttals, “if I was in a relationship and hot women were throwing themselves at me, I would [have a fling]“. “Though I would put up some resistance”, he quickly reassures, “because I’d still love my girlfriend”.
He goes on to quote Paulo Coelho ‘love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us [...]‘.
And with that he justifies infidelity.
I took that opportunity to reverse the tables on him. Would he still feel the same way if it were his girlfriend who was cheating on him?
He adamantly says he would be fine with it, “I’d first ask her why? And if she says it was in one of those moments of weakness, I’d say okay and will accept that. If she keeps coming back to you, there’s love there”.
And with that I figured he had to be bluffing in a desperate attempt to keep his lard-filled argument from sinking into briny depths where only prehistoric micro-organisms dwell (yeah, I know… got bit carried away there 
). ‘Cause really… How many times will you allow your partner or girlfriend/boyfriend to cheat on you before you decide to make an exit from the relationship? And wouldn’t you get hurt when they cheat on you? If they really cared about you they wouldn’t want to hurt you…
Note: ‘Joyce’ is a victim of domestic violence and has been through very traumatic experiences. I am by no means making light of her situation in this post.
Oh that’s retarded and if the situation wasn’t hypothetical, he would be singing a different tune.
I agree with the self-esteem bit. It doesn’t matter how good-looking the woman herself is, if the boyfriend is a little above average looks-wise, our women tend to have the ”but but they might be taken away from me’ hmmm probably our narrow minded view on not only ourselves but society itself (also probably the number of divorce cases due to infidelity around us too).
Completely agree with you though, if the man loves you enough…no matter how serious the advances of a smoking hot woman, it just won’t happen. If you won’t do it, neither would they.
(Feeling like a bit of a hypocrite typing this because I have succumbed to my insecurities time and again but the point is that when one is not blinded by a jealous rage, this is the bigger picture)
Hmm… also it’s a case of “leave him? what will the neighbors think!?”
Sighs…
ur totally right about women here lack the self esteem in fear of ‘society’ and like Dee put it yeah ‘neighbor’ or either we are just too possessive or we depend on the men folk too much. ho hum
“joyce” and “banduka”? really??
u make a good point, there are women who stick around and make silly excuses like “my husband is very good looking” etc, and stay in relationships that are abusive when they shouldnt.. im one of those people who think like u about cheating, but ive also come to realise that sometimes we can’t be that harsh on the rules so to speak.. people do make one-off mistakes that dont turn into a string of lies etc, but thats more the exception to the rule i suppose..
this sounds like the stevo. dont confuse that ever so slightly misogynistic arrogance for testosrterone. that is the buggers self defense mechanism for not having balls among other things
I agree with the other comments in that it’s a combination of low self-esteem and societal pressure. If a marriage falls apart, a significant part of our society will blame “the woman’s inability to keep her husband from straying”…and our women lack the self-esteem to stand up and resist that blame. In our male-dominated society, we seem to accept the notion that men can’t keep it in their pants – it’s just one item in a long list of bad behaviour that we excuse in men (but not in women). I’m inclined to impart some blame on the boy’s parents…a lot of Asian mothers would rather blame everyone else in the world than criticise their son.
I don’t know if the domestic violence issue can be put in the same category though. The way women react to domestic violence appears to be the same regardless of the social environment, and that tells me that it’s more a self-esteem issue than anything else.
Women need to start thinking of the men in their lives as equals, not gifts from the heavens.
Sabbyaz- Yeah, I’m sure he wasn’t really putting himself in a situation in which he was being cheated on.
Dee, GGPurple and PR- How it would reflect on society would only be considered by married women. There are several cases in which girls get treated like crap by their boyfriends, because they don’t have the self-esteem to realise they not deserve to be treated that way.
PR- Couldn’t agree with you more on men using it as an excuse cheat. It’s mental conditioning that’s got them believing they are inclined to be that way.
Gehan- I like making the names very…local
Well, over all it’s inexcusable… Just wish more Sri Lankan women would realise that…
Hoblet- Really? Well that’s good to know… I was under the impression majority of men share his views.
Cheating = Bad nuff said..
No justification can be made for it otherwise..
Now if both parties knew what was going on well that’s a totally different thing
and also domestic violence? and that was the justification PFFFT!! that bugger deserves to be locked up.
and yes you are right if you love someone enough you wont cheat on them no matter how many pretty women throw themselves at them.
When society is so accepting of a man’s infidelity (and so harsh towards a woman doing the same thing), stuff like this end up happening. You can’t blame her for wanting to hang on, coz like Dee said, our screwed up society would blame her for a broken marriage.
And the whole “if a hot woman threw herself at you, you’d have a fling” thing is ridiculous. Do people not understand what “commitment” means?
Hisham- Huh? I never mentioned anything about the husband justifying his infidelity with domestic violence… And the post is about Sri Lanka women not realising they deserve to be treated better, not domestic violence.
Well it’s good to know that some men see things this way… I was a bit disillusioned after that conversation with Banduka.
Chavie- It might be difficult but society shouldn’t dictate how people live their lives. But I guess that is the case… though women should be stronger and not be governed by what society thinks.
Nice sketch! and as for the problem of that lady, i don’t think you can attribute it to the woman who seduced her husband as much as to a seriously morally decrepit husband. Or maybe the woman was not telling you the full story.
@Whacko- Nice sketch? What happened to praising it to the clouds?
Of course it’s the husband’s fault. But I don’t think the other woman should have tried to seduce him… she’s married too and she knew he was married… Do people not have moral compasses?
Before judging the woman for staying faithful to the cheating husband, you also have to look at Sri Lankan society. In most instances, the woman has no options open to her. Her family will scorn her as a woman who couldn’t keep him happy, even many of her friends will unconsciously judge her as a failure and let’s not even bother talking about the neighbourhood gossip! Our society needs to have a support system in place for women in situations like these, without that there’ll be many more ‘Joyces’ out there for years to come.
@Suresh- Yeah, well that would still be our archaic cultural values influencing society as a whole, wouldn’t it? Though I suppose this might be the case in India as well, as a friend pointed out… But yeah, if we work on it we might be able to change how society thinks… Possibly through write blog post or books, make TV shows or plays…
Nice blog.
That’s a sad situation, Joyce is in.
I have to disagree with your basis for inferring that more men do the cheating thing than women. Just because you may have not seen it, does not mean it’s valid to conclude that men are the bigger culprits.
Leave alone that, cheating is wrong whoever does it.
In my experience, these traits we find in our society, in this gorgeous island of ours, does not end between man and woman, and can pour its polluted self onto children.
My father did this to my mother and I know growing up in such an environment has left me burdened to this day. I have trust issues with the women I go out with, without any facts my mind takes seemingly normal behaviour and creates scenarios, hurtful scenarios which in turn creates animosity between me and my object of affection.
I wonder if this stuff was any different way back, way way back, say before we were colonised and our culture was different. I read on Serendib about the Vanniya Aththo, where in their tribes abuse, cheating and polygamy is unheard. It’s inspiring, those simple people, especially for me, growing up with this sort of thing all around and then coming out into society as a young man, only to find the same.
Is this Banduka a tall, broad-shouldered, slightly stocky, easy going kinda guy?
@Rangouk- Of course it extends to the children… Well, I think there’s a certain degree of depravity in humans… For us to have reached this state someone at some point would have to have started it… There has to have been the first man to abuse his spouse, whether we came from Adam or evolved from monkeys.
@Himal- Well of course you know who he is!
When I was in school the girls I knew were very head strong and had most of the guys on a pretty short leash.(Luckily I was much taller & bigger than them
) Fast forward to the present and I find myself having a chat with a friend who says she doesn’t expect the guy she marries to be faithful to her bcoz shes not ‘pretty’ enough??? Where have all those confident women gone? Sigh 
@Dr. T- Good to see you again, I do enjoy reading your comments
Well, maybe girls from mixed schools are more confident. I think this “inferior” thinking is rampant among Sri Lankan women in general… probably part of their culture and up bringing. Something should be done to empower these women and inspire them to cultivate self-worth.
And how about adding some more images? No offence, site is really great. But according to the scientists visitors acquire info much more efficient when they see certain useful pics.
Stacy Swift
jamming mobile
This helps me underrstand a little more why a woman would stick around after physical abuse.
Sam
I just found your blog.
One reason why it’s so hard to get away from an abusive relationship is that the abuser slowly and subtly isolates the victim from her support system of family and friends. Because she has no one else to confide in, she ends up thinking that the abuser is the only one who can understand her. Sometimes, the abuser even makes her believe that the abuse didn’t happen, especially in cases of emotional and verbal abuse.
Also, it’s not only married women who are reluctant to leave their partners- girls are often pressured not to have “too many boyfriends” or they will “look slutty”, so they try their best to “make a relationship work”, which in these cases translates to “try not to create conflict and upset the man.” I’ve seen it happen even among my friends. :-/
I agree that more exposure should be given to this issue. It’s alarming how very few people are in strong, healthy relationships in this country…
Yeah, and I guess a bit of what everyone else has mentioned as well.
I am an American and I am married to a Sri Lankan lady and sadly, my marriage is about to end. I read this with great interest. The main problem with my marriage is that my Sri Lankan wife thinks there is a woman under every rock and around every corner that is waiting to sleep with me. She acts out and accused me of having affairs-despite not finding any evidence of this (because I haven’t cheated on her). She has stolen or destroyed important documents that I neede for jobs an other things. She has tried to keep me from going to work because she is afraid I will see another woman. She is also very upset about the impending divorce because her family and friends will make fun of her. The sad part about this is that I do not want the divorce (neither does she), but I have to have it because she allows her jealous to be out of control. She doesn’t coooperate with me on anything. I will also add that I caught her in the act of emailing other guys and planning to meet them after I married her. She contacts other men and yet acts like she can’t live without me. I think she is insecure.
Yeah, I guess there are instances where that might be the case… I guess it’s also to do with people and their personalities. While it’s clear to see that she is being abused by her husband (bruises), I will reserve my judgements about the other woman until I’ve had the opportunity to speak to her.
I’m sorry about your marriage and that your wife’s insecurities are manipulating her judgements. It’s sad that the both of you are getting divorced when you still love each other very much… You should consider marital counselling… it might help.
I tried to get help with counselling, but she lied to the doctor. She is very concerned about her self-image, but she isn’t smart enough to know that accepting responsibility will help fix the problems.