Everything I do, I do it for you

While living in a foreign country, you tend to do things according to the customs and culture. If you’re lucky like I’ve been, you’ll have someone to show you what is acceptable behavior. Someone to show you the ropes and how to deal with people. You might lose part of yourself along the way. A part of you may get lost, but in its place, a new you appears. Your mind expands, and even though you are still yourself, you become a better person with new experiences and new vision. It all comes with experiencing life a foreign country.

I have never been one to change who I am in order to be accepted. People like me for who I am or they don’t like me at all. I have been able to hold on to that part of myself, by not getting too deep into what is not familiar to me.

Since I moved here, one thing I have always done with H, has been attending social gatherings together, which are very important here. For example, if H were to attend a baptism or a wedding without me, people would question him on my whereabouts. If H doesn’t have a very good excuse as why I didn’t attend, then people would come up with their own reason as to why I did not accompany him. This usually leads to gossip of some kind with people then assuming that the marriage is in trouble. Attending a social function alone, if married, is not widely acceptable.

Like today, I really didn’t feel like attending a baptism of a cousin’s child, but I went for appearance sake. H was not in a very good mood, but I tried hard to not let it get to me. I let his short personal attacks move past me, as though I were in the way of a spitting contest. From where I was sitting, he looked like a child spitting; only the spit wasn’t reaching me.

As the day progressed, we had a short conversation. Over the last several weeks, H has been asking me why I came to this country in the first place – as if he didn’t already know the answer. So he asked me again. I should have told him it was because he cried for me while telling me how much he loved me, and used every sweet word imaginable to a woman to get her to move half way around the world to be with him. But instead, I told him I was in love with him, which is true. He knows that we were in love and wanted to make a life together. He knows that is the reason why I moved here. How quickly could he have forgotten?

I came to this country because I followed my heart, which leads here to him. My story is much more than that of infidelity. It’s all I gave up to be with him. It’s all I’ve been through during my time here. It’s the sacrifices I’ve made for him. He knows that everything I did for him and still do for him is only for him, and no one else.