Last week, on my way home in one of my colleague’s car, another colleague teased him to date our other colleague.
“Jendi!” (slang for divorcee/widower) was his immediate response.
Stunned, I just had to dig deeper… “What’s wrong with being a divorcee?” The guy fell silent for a few seconds before quickly saying “Oh, nothing…” but if you were there you’d know that it’s far from nothing.
I can tell he was embarrassed when I told him I’ll become a divorcee myself soon.
You see this is the kind of way of thinking or reactions shadowing plenty of Indonesians. Yes, they would say that divorce is so common now. Local celebrities done it, common people went through it. But then what’s with the negativity?
Many people still thinks that just because someone is a divorcee then they will immediately seduce your husband’s/boyfriends – wait, this sounds like the old Indonesian movies from the 80s, right? Many still put the blame on the women for choosing to break free from whatever real situations she’s having in her marriage. Whether people like to admit it or not, divorced women are still seen as a bad thing, shameful, a disgrace.
Being mostly patriarchy, for men to be divorced or have more than one wife are considered normal. Double standards, much?
In a country where a lot of women suffers in silence and put up with whatever conditions their husbands put them through just to avoid the shame of carrying that title as ‘divorcee’. It is upsetting to see these kinds of stereotypes albeit not everyone have such a narrow mind set but facts is this is not the 1950s anymore and I’ve known some really awesome strong, smart, sweet women who went through divorces before.
These days most of the people at my office already know about my status and to be honest, I don’t care anymore. It’s none of their beeswax in the first place. My skins still have to grow thicker to ignore those unwanted marital advices from “Apa nggak sayang punya anak cakep gitu?” (Aren’t you sorry for your handsome son?) downright to “Why can’t you give it another try?”.
Uhm…excuse me?!
Those are the times where I pull my wall up and gave them an empty smile before diverting the conversation to something else or I’ll walk away.
First of, it’s none of their beeswax for sure. I did not air my ‘drama’ in the office. These people found out somehow about my status and so be it.
Secondly, I do not owe any of them any explanation in the first place. No one…really knows for sure but me and I don’t need to justify myself.
Luckily, my family and close friends are all very supportive and to them I would still be me…Maybe I’ll bear the scars for awhile but I can already feel that I am a much stronger person now than before.
As I’m sailing through this whole process of being a divorcee, I still have much to learn, I might stumble and fall along the way or weep my eyes off but again, what doesn’t kill me will only makes me stronger!
What do you think/feel about a divorcee?
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