Jane’s story

WHERE I come from, extra-marital affairs are rampant. Every second person I know is doing the jiggy with someone other than their spouse. Half of my uncles have kept mistresses at some stage in their lives. Perhaps it is something in the water. Or is it a generational thing?

My parents’ generation is stuck in limbo. My grandfather was a Chinese businessman who had two wives who lived peacefully together under one roof. So my parents had one foot in the archaic Chinese culture of men having many wives and the other in modern society where monogamy was the civilised choice.

When my father started his affair with a divorcee 15 years ago (I was nine then), my world turned upside down. My parents would get into vicious fights. As an only child, I had no one to share my pain with. I couldn’t tell my friends in school and my cousins didn’t understand.

Page 2 >> 3 >> 4