(This story explores betrayal, deep emotional pain, and suicidal thoughts and may be difficult or triggering for some readers)

To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication – Bell Hooks

It was 2 am. Medha got shocked. She already knows Prem cheated on her. With a woman, almost in a year. Medha felt her arms tremble. She can’t sleep until morning. She had no idea what to do.

Medha felt as though her world had fallen apart. There was no hope left. Perhaps this was the end of her life. 

She began to question herself. Was she not enough? Had she not been patient enough? Again and again, Medha asked herself what she had done wrong to make Prem treat her this way.

Medha felt as though she had no future. At one point, she even thought about ending her life. There were moments when Medha thought about throwing herself from a height. Sometimes, even the sight of a kitchen knife was enough to send her mind to dark places. She felt as though she no longer mattered—as though she had lost all sense of her own worth.

She lost weight, and her body seemed to wither away. For days, she barely slept. She kept going back to her psychologist because, deep down, she knew she needed help.

In Medha’s mind, the scenes kept playing over and over. Prem’s photographs with another woman. Their messages. She could still remember the woman’s face so clearly—the face of the woman standing beside Prem in those photographs. The memories made her nauseous, sometimes so much that she threw up. But she couldn’t make them stop. No matter how hard she tried, the images kept coming back, again and again.

Months went by. Medha felt like nothing more than a body moving through the days. Her spirit was gone.

Medha understood very well that it was unfair to blame another woman solely by calling her a “seductress” in the context of infidelity, as women have so often been conditioned to do by a social construct imposed upon them.

That was where her heart struggled. She had always learned to believe in “women supporting women.” But when it happened to her, Medha felt like someone who knew nothing at all. Again and again, she wanted to contact that woman—but she never did. She knew that the problem lay with Prem. The man she had made her home for more than a decade.

Medha came to understand that she was carrying a wound. She learned to accept it, to feel the pain, and to acknowledge her own vulnerability. For so long, she had always wanted to appear strong. But feeling sad was never a sign of weakness.

Medha knew that choosing herself was not an act of selfishness. She knew that, in the end, she was the only one who could save herself. She was also the only one who could truly recognize and honor her own worth. She deserved more than to be someone’s option.

Amidst all the pain she was going through, Medha realized that home was no longer about the person she loved—it was about herself. About knowing her own worth and not losing herself along the way.

Medha still cried alone most nights. But she knew that God was preparing something good for her. She believed that God would always lead her closer to what was good. The pain she was going through was part of growing into who she was meant to become.

(Andi Faizah)