of Starting Life Anew

Grew up in a small town down south of Peninsular. People called me Ah Beng. Rather stereotypical you'd think, but actually its my name. I had a normal childhood. My father was a policeman, my mother was a home maker and I had six other siblings. 

Like many of other people at the time, I left to KL after I finished secondary school. I worked for a while as a clerk in a bank. It was in KL that I became a Christian and first started attending church. I found myself fitting in quite naturally there. I enjoyed mixing with people, loved to talked and loved to play the guitar. Before I knew it, I was a fully serving member of the church. It was in church that I met what would be my future wife. She was a fair, beautiful and woman. Unlike me, she spoke very little and was rather shy. But I was taken in by her sweet demeanor. She seemed a bit too quite and sad sometimes. But at the time, i didn't think it was anything to worry about. We courted for a while and  got married after 2 years of dating.

Around that time, due to my zealousness for church ministry, I was offered a partial scholarship to do my Bachelors in Theology in New Zealand. I was slated to be one of the future pastors of the church it would seem. I took up the offer and flew to New Zealand with my wife, making it our home for the next for years. Over there we had our first son, we named him Samuel - meaning God with us. 

But soon, life, I discovered, wasn't always going to be so smooth sailing. 

My wife whom I loved and married, wasn't well. She suffered from mental illness; first depression then schizophrenia. What I had earlier thought to be just one off bouts of sadness turned out to be a recurring, long term state of depression. She lived with her relatives. I eventually learned that her own mother suffered some sort of mental illness, but died early at the age of 38. Her father married again and had other children. She was sent to live with relatives. There she function a lot more like a housekeeper than a member of the household. When she was 12, she witnessed the untimely death of her cousin in a road accident right in front of their house. According to her, that cousin was her only true confidant at the time. My wife did well in her studies, and went on to study nursing, specializing in psychiatry; she said she wanted to help those who had to live with a family history of mental illness just like hers. It was cruel irony to her later that as a trained psychiatric care nurse, she would end up needing psychiatric care. 

After four years of studying in New Zealand, I graduated with my Bachelors. My wife, who was meant to complete to same course of study, dropped out. Partially because we had a baby to care for, but also because of her depression. we left New Zealand came back to KL and back home, we received our second son. We named him John - meaning God is generous. I resumed my duties back at Church while my wife stayed at home, looking after the kids. But after the second birth, my wife seemed to get only worse. Over time, she became more and more aggressive. Her swings between absolute despair to uncontrollable rage became more and more pronounced. But she refused to see any psychiatrist, many of which were her former colleagues. When she did see a psychiatrist, she would not comply to medication. This would be how things were for the next 20 years of her life. 

When things started to go from back to worse at home, the church I was serving started to take notice. It was their reasoning that a person meant to lead the church, must first put his home in order. A man that cannot keep his house in order cannot be the right person to put the church in order. Eventually, when my personal circumstance at home did not improve, I asked to vacate my position. Bitter and disappointed, I left the church. I felt betrayed and abandoned when what I needed was love and support. It would become one of my most bitter memories and one of the biggest reasons I have refused to return to any church. 

Feeling disgraced, with the help of some friends, I moved my family up north, hundreds of miles away. I got a new job in the corporate world and started life anew.

But things at home did not change. My children was now in school, but my wife was not getting any better. We fought almost every night over silly issues like sweeping the floor, or the arrangement of things. She refused to take medication because medication made her numb and want to sleep all day. But without medication, she was always uptight and hostile in everything. In an attempt to keep the peace, and my sanity, I changed jobs and worked away from home, some 50 miles away. I come home only on weekends, if anything just to see the children. I loved my wife, but I simply could not stand her anymore. 

Then I met this woman at work. She was young, energetic and sweet. I fell for her. At home, all I got was hostility. I only came home because of the children. With her, I felt like a man again. I felt wanted, needed, welcomed. Perhaps it was because I felt so lonely and needed to feel the love of a woman again. We had an affair and despite it being wrong, it was the first time I started feeling loved again, in a long long time. Eventually, I just moved further and further away from home, down south, back to KL again. I had given my wife repeated ultimatums to comply to medication otherwise I'd move out, but she would not yield. The only good thing was that despite all her illnesses, she was a very protective mother. She always made sure the children were properly fed and clothed and went to school. It was when I heard that she had brought the children to sleep on the streets that I took them away from her, putting them at my sisters house in KL and leaving their mother up north. 

I eventually married the other woman. To do so I also converted to Islam. By doing so, I had also divorced my first wife by default. But I paid a hefty price for it. I was branded a black sheep for firstly abandoning my first wife and secondly, leaving the Christian faith. My siblings refused to have any further contact with me and many of my old friends turn their backs on me as well. To them, my fall from grace was now complete, from preacher to white collar, now to Muslim. There was no way anyone could understand that I was only human. There was only so much I could take. I had only so much strength. I had tried for almost ten years to live and bare with my first wife and her illness. But I wasn't strong enough. Even I have my limits, and surely, even I had a right to the pursuit of happiness right? 

I bared with the name calling and ostracizing. Despite all the nasty things said about me, I was starting life anew..... again. Life was finally alright for a while. I brought my children in to stay with me. They didn't accept my new wife, but after a few years, they too learned to live and accept her as a step mother. My second wife also did not immediately warm up to my children. There was the cultural difference, and there was also a strong notion with my children that she was the STEP mother, and step mothers were always to be treated with some doubt. But after we found out that she could not bare children of her own, she slowly changed her attitude towards my children; perhaps she decided that having step children was better than having none at all.  I left my ex-wife on her own. She seemed resourceful enough to live on her own. She was still hostile, perhaps more so now than ever before since I left her. I allowed and even encouraged my children to take an interest in the well being of their mother. Deep down I still loved her, but I just couldn't bare living that kind of life again. The one thing I could do was to ensure she got access to her children. Eventually, even my family came to terms with my decision and started talking to me again. For a good few years, life was alright. Good almost. 

If only my story ended there. 

Some years later, I started being close to another woman. She was totally unlike any other person I had ever known. She was the opposite of who I was. A single mother, quite but strong and willful. There was something enigmatic and mysterious about her, and I found myself intrigued by her. Before I had realized it, I was fully involved with this woman. I'm not sure why I did it. It wasn't like I wasn't happy with my current wife. And it wasn't like I was seduced either. Maybe it was the thrill of the chase. Maybe I just couldn't help myself. After a while, I reveal the truth to my current wife. She grudgingly gave her approval. We flew to Thailand and got married there. I was now a husband of two women. 

In hindsight, perhaps that was the biggest single mistake I have made in my life. But at the time, I could never imagine that it would turn out that way. The world went into recession just about that time, and overnight I had lost my job. To make ends meet, I decided to go into business with my second wife. We started a food business together, selling food to factory canteens. It was far different from the office work that I had been doing now for almost 10 years, but it paid the bills, and there was a certain amount of freedom in it. It wasn't all that smooth. Some months I had a surplus of cash, then there would be months where we couldn't break even. My new wife, the second one also turned out to be a lot more than I could handle. While my first wife was gentler and more accommodating, my second wife was overbearing and domineering. She control all the finances. All proceeds from our business went straight to her. She would give me money where she saw fit. In theory, I was equal partner in the business, but I on the ground, I was the one doing a lot of the work, and being paid an undefined salary. Whenever we had fights or arguments, she would simple stop giving me money. She would demand time from me, even when I was spending time with my first wife. My own family and siblings, learning that I had taken on a second (or third) wife, alienated and condemned me even more. To them, I was stupid and foolish. They said if I had a troubled life at home, it was because I was asking for it. I had no way of defending myself, because in many ways, they were right. I felt the fool, but I was a fool in love. I didn't know how to explain to them that obvious a screw up as it was, I genuinely loved both of them. I didn't wish for things to turn out this way.

In the end, it was my second wife who had enough. She gave me an ultimatum; pick me or her, but not both. If you don't leave her, then I am walking out. That night, I sat in the car with both my sons, now almost fully grown up. And for the first time in my life, I found myself expressing these inner feelings I had, and my side of the story for all that had happened for the last ten years. Somehow, I hoped that by explaining it to them, they would see their father in better light. That I am flawed, yes very flawed. But I wasn't a bad man, as they were told by others when growing up. I decided that I couldn't leave my second wife, and my first wife walked away. She moved out, started court proceedings and some months later, I no longer was a husband of two anymore. 

Later I learned that my first wife had met someone new and was ready to start a new life. She gave me a call and told me she was changing her number. She didn't want me or anyone related to me to ever contact her again. Her husband to be knew nothing of her past and she was determined to keep it that way. A fresh start. I respected her request and never contacted her since. That idea of a fresh new start was something I would eventually embrace myself. But for now, I kept with my decision to be with my second wife. By hook or by crook I was going to make it work. By now, I was in an openly lop sided relationship. If there was love before, there was none now. She treated me worse than she did the workers. She openly humiliated me and gave me no respect in front of my step children. Soon, even her children, barely 10 years of age started treating me badly. When my EPF money was due to be taken out, they pounced on it like it was their money. They wanted my money, but not me. I doubt they even cared that that money was meant for my old age. They were parasites determined to suck the life out of me. I labelled her demon lady, for the way she seemed to curve all the people who come in contact with her. Years of domestic unrest, fighting, shouting, cold wars and sarcasm had made me emotionally tired. My self confidence slowly but surely eroded over time. I felt like I was but a faint shadow of the man I used to be. It was a loveless life I live and I finally had enough of it. Eventually I walked out. 

I had no place to go, no property to call my own and not much of a career to fall back on. Both my sons were adults now, having just entered into working life. I supported them as much as I could during their college years. They took up loans from various people and corporations to fund their studies. I took up whatever job I could find, as  a security manager, as a teacher, anything decent paying jobs that would help me pay the bills. I moved in to live with my older son. They seemed more than willing to take me in and reintegrate me into the life they were slowly building for themselves. But I didn't want to be a burden. I was their father. It wasn't right if I depended on them. In most other families, it was the children whom always asked their parents for help, not the other way around. Furthermore, they were already taking care of their mother, my first wife, whom I abandoned and failed to care for in the years after. 

After finding a steady job that would pay the bills, I moved out. I lived on my own in an apartment 15 minutes away from my children. For a few years, I went wherever my job took me. I'd participate in my children's dinners and such over the weekends, but more and more I felt like they were moving on with their lives, and unless I carve something for myself, even at this late stage in my life, there would be nothing for me to wake up to every morning.

I don't know how it is that I dare say this again; but in the last 2 years, I befriended yet another woman, this time a foreigner. We started a normal friendship that slowly turned into some sort of relationship. She was a single mother in her forties, with children back in her home country of the Philippines. We talked about each others lives. I told her about my internal struggles and the mistakes I've made, she told me aboutthe poverty stricken life she and her family leads back home. Somewhere in between, with both of us being available, we started a relationship. We even started making plans for me to invest in some land and farms back in her hometown. I started giving her money to get started, with the ultimate aim that once everything was ready, I would move to the Philippines and start life there anew there. At my age, it'll probably be my last new start. 

My children are understandably apprehensive about the whole matter. Their are respectful of my decision, but remain untrusting of this woman whom I've started investing and money and time with. They don't like the idea that I'm moving to an unknown country, one that is in greater hardship than the one I'm leaving, that I have no legal status or protection while there, and I will be a the mercy of people that are neither related to me by blood. 

But that's exactly what I will be doing come end of this month. 

First timers luck didn't work out. 

Once bitten twice shy didn't turn out true for me. 

Third times the charm was a lie. 

What about the fourth? 

Perhaps it is madness trying my luck building my life with a fourth woman. But what have I got to lose? It's either I make life for myself (fourth time round) or die trying.