Somebody's Somebody

Fellas I recently discovered that I had been cheated on for the last six months. I honestly did not know what to do so I sought answers and advice from trusted confidantes and allies. One of which was my big brother. I respect my brother. I admire him. I love him. He is the perfect big brother but he is a man who is not without flaws. I thought that he would be a wise person to discuss my relationship woes with since he had been there, done the bullshit and has come back from the brink and landed into a place where he thankfully puts his relationship and his woman first.

Naturally he was livid hearing about the treatment that I had been receiving. He was disappointed in my mate and encouraged me to immediately end the relationship citing him as a cancer in my life that I would certainly be in remission from once we parted ways. My brother assured me that my thoughts would become clearer and that my focus would become laser sharp again once I did not have the distraction of babysitting, spying on and negotiating with a narcissistic man-child. My brother promised me that my career would most certainly take off and that I would lose those pesky depression pounds that came from years of mounting inflicted insecurities and stress as soon as I cut ties from my beloved. He even offered to help me lose the weight with Face Time personal training.

I listened. I nodded. I absorbed. He probably was right. The pain of a breakup would eventually subside...hopefully. I would get through minutes and then hours and soon days would turn into weeks and months would turn into years and my beloved would become like many before him. He would simply be the cliché somebody that I used to know. I would look back on my love as a lesson learned and if I was lucky about thirty minutes of raw, funny and healing material for someone else on my own Netflix comedy special.

"I can't believe he would do this to my sister" my brother said. "Why not?", I asked him. "Did you not do this to someone else's sister?" My brother is always honest with me and he is never at a loss for words but he in that moment had no words for me. I asked him if the shoe was on the other foot and the woman in his life had done the things to him that he had done to her if he would have forgiven her. He said that he didn't know but probably not. I shifted my thoughts from the woe is me that had become the last two weeks of my life and began to wonder why men think that it is okay to do to women things that they would not want done to the women in their lives.

I wonder what it is about a romantic relationship that shifts women in the perceptions of men from being somebody's somebody to just nobody. As the hoopla ensued angry uncles got involved threatening physical violence. My fathers (I am blessed to have three) expressed deep concern and frustration for my well-being. Male cousins assured me that no one is good enough for me. Male friends rallied around me bringing tequila and red wine for me to drown my sorrows in and flowers to remind me that I deserved beauty in my life despite the horrors that I was plagued with. The irony of the faces filling the repass of my relationship encouraging me to immediately walk away was that each of these men has at one point or more been unfaithful to the women in their lives as well. For some reason, no reason and all the reasons they found themselves justified in their actions and as I questioned and listened to story after story they all began to sound just like my love. She doesn't understand me. She gained weight. She wanted too much. Her expectations were too high. Her standards were too high. I wasn't ready. She made me angry. She's a good girl but you know, things happen.

Don't get me wrong. My love is still a selfish asshole who needs to do a lot more than the bare minimum he has offered to repair our broken relationship. My focus is not off of that. But the conversations that I have had recently with the faithful to me but unfaithful to others men in my life really has me thinking and wishing that they and men like them would be able to see the women in their lives and protect them the same way they see me and protect me as their daughter, their friend, their cousin, and their sister because every woman no matter how much weight she gains, no matter how much she angers you and especially if she's a good girl is somebody's somebody and her happiness, well-being and peace of mind mean everything to somebody just like you.