I quickly divorced my ex-husband, then married a PhD at the age of 40. Two days after the wedding, I regretted my stupid decision…
In the past, I married Marco – a gentle, hard-working man who loved his wife and children. But because of his patriarchal personality, he wanted to decide everything: from meals to money. I was sometimes suffocated. After endless arguments, I quickly decided to divorce, and confidently said:

— “I will marry someone a hundred times better than you, so I can know what happiness is.”

A few months later, I met Dr. Adrian Villanueva – 10 years older than me, PhD, working at BGC, Taguig. The wedding was lavish in Makati, I held my head high thinking my life had turned a new page.

But just two days after the wedding, I tasted enough bitterness. The first meal as a daughter-in-law, Doña Carmen – mother-in-law – frowned: I don’t know how to cook. Adrian was cold, not only did not defend me but also said directly:

— “Marry me, you must know your place. I do not like women who talk too much.”

The words were like a knife. I swallowed my rice while tears filled my bowl. It hurt even more when I realized: compared to the “patriarchal” before, my new husband was a hundred times more harsh and indifferent.

In humiliation, my hands trembling, I secretly dialed Marco’s number. He listened silently, then suddenly appeared that night. His raincoat was still wet, he put down a stack of money on the table – about ₱600,000 – in a hoarse voice:

— “You like money, you like fame, I will give it all to you. But from now on, don’t call me anymore.”

He turned away. I collapsed in the middle of the house, tears streaming down my face, hugging the stack of money tightly as if I was hugging something broken in my heart.

But who would have thought…

The next morning, the whole neighborhood in Quezon City was in chaos: the funeral was filled with trumpets and drums. I ran after the crowd and was stunned… the man who had just left last night, now lay motionless in the coffin, the white mourning cloth covering the yard. It turned out that he had an accident on Commonwealth Avenue on his way back. The wad of money he threw at me was still intact on the altar, lying next to his portrait with a gentle smile.

I fell to my knees, crying and slapping myself:

— “You can be a patriarch… as long as you’re still alive! Why is God so cruel…”

I regretted it all my life. But it was too late.

— Forty Days, an Apology, and the Road Back

Nine nights of novena prayers passed in the steady murmur of voices and the fading scent of sampaguita before Marco’s portrait. I stood at the back of the house in Quezon City, under a thin shower of rain, not daring to sit with the relatives. Marco’s mother—Nanay Lita—saw me. Her eyes were rimmed with fatigue; she didn’t scold, only nodded.
I placed the ₱600,000 envelope back in front of the frame.
“I’m returning this. It should have been here from the start.”

Nanay squeezed my hand. “Money runs out. What remains is how we live.” She went back to greet the guests. I stood still, listening to the funeral drums break open in my chest.

On the third day after the funeral, Doña Carmen still sneered: “A decent woman doesn’t attend her ex-husband’s wake two days after her wedding.” Dr. Adrian set his spoon down, voice cool:
“You stay home. We don’t want any trouble sticking to us.”

That night he took my phone. “From now on, no contact with that family.”
I went numb. Marco’s “machismo” had been annoying noise; Adrian’s “authority” was a hand closing around my throat.

Near midnight I packed a few clothes and moved into a small room by the Church of the Holy Sacrifice – UP Diliman. I left a note on the kitchen table:
“I choose silence—not out of fear, but because I need to breathe.”

On the 40th day after Marco’s passing, I went to the memorial Mass. Nanay handed me a thin envelope: a handwritten note of Marco’s found in a drawer—
“If one day you lose your way, I hope you come back. Not back to me—but back to yourself.”

I cried. The anger was gone; only regret remained—heavier than a slab of concrete.

After Mass, Nanay asked me to help give out rice porridge to the relatives. I heard the whispers: “She left the kind man for a PhD—and here she is serving porridge.” I smiled and placed cups in their hands, one by one. Sometimes a timely act of kindness is the last rope that keeps you from falling.

I knocked on three doors in a single week:

The VAWC Desk at the barangay hall. I spoke about the insults and the phone control. The officer showed me RA 9262 and said, “Words can be violence, too. If you need, come back.”

The parish legal office. I asked about annulment. The priest said, “Don’t decide in the middle of pain. Come back in three months; if your will stands, the parish will write a counseling letter.”

The UP counseling center. For the first time, I spoke without being cut off. At the end, the counselor said, “Forgiving yourself isn’t erasing memory. It’s putting it back on the right shelf.”

I brought a small bouquet to Commonwealth Avenue, where the accident happened. The sun was hard and white; traffic shredded the air. A group of students were hanging a banner asking for safer crossings. I joined them. They laughed: “The more, the better.”

From that day I wrote letters to MMDA, met a district councilor, and filed a petition for flashing beacons. I closed each letter with a line from Marco’s note:
“Please help those who have lost their way find a safe way across.”

Every Friday night I went to Nanay’s. We cooked adobo extra bland—her doctor had cut the salt. Sometimes she opened the drawer for the old album: Marco young, a faded shirt, standing by a rice stall. I touched the photo and didn’t cry. It was a kind of love that had finished its job—like last night’s rain, enough to water the backyard bananas.

“Don’t sentence yourself to life,” Nanay said. “Do what you do well—stand tall and keep going.”

Adrian tried to find me: “Come home. Let’s talk rationally.”
I wrote: “I didn’t leave for lack of reason, but because I finally had enough of it. I believe in a marriage where we listen. If not, my silence will become a dead dream.”

I didn’t send it; I just kept it in my notebook. I did fill out the annulment forms and set a meeting with the lawyer. Adrian didn’t show up. I understood: some people are strong only behind their own doors. I chose to stand outside that door.

Three months later MMDA said they’d replaced the warning signs and added flashing beacons at the crossing. The students texted: “We did a little.” I hung a strand of sampaguita on the pole. The wind carried the scent wide.

That night Nanay called: “Come for lugaw. I made it thin—the way Marco liked.” I understood: sometimes grief dissolves in a warm bowl.

At a small temple near Nanay’s, a little boy slipped out of his sandal and fell. I lifted him, brushed the dust off. “Does it hurt?” He bit his lip, eyes wet. I hugged him lightly:
“You’re okay. Someone’s holding you.”

It came out as instinct. I realized the deepest lack in me wasn’t a man—it was the chance to be gentle.

When I received the interim order for living separately while the case was pending, I didn’t celebrate. I bought a hot taho, stood under a Makati awning in the rain, and texted Nanay: “I’m coming over.” A heart popped up on the screen.

That night I took out my wedding dress—not to wear, but to take apart. I unstitched the beads and sewed them onto a veil for the parish bridal bank. Beauty isn’t the dress—it’s being used in the right place.

I wrote to Marco—this time I actually sent it, tucked into the memorial book at church:
“I came back to myself—not to you. I’ll carry the best of you forward. If one day a man says ‘know your place,’ I’ll smile and walk past. Rest easy.”

No one needed to read it but me—for the days my steps would falter.

A year later I stood in a public hospital corridor, volunteering with a group that hands out milk to patient families. Doña Carmen walked by and did a double take. “Are you… alright?”
I smiled: “I know my place now—where I get to be myself.”

That night the rain came down; traffic hummed on Commonwealth. I sent Nanay a photo: the new beacon shining in the drizzle. She replied: “Good girl.”

I turned off the light and left a small candle on the sill. The flame wavered, yet warmed the room. I placed my hand on my chest and felt my heart—slow enough not to forget, fast enough to move on. And over the rain, I whispered—to the past, to whoever may come, and to myself:

“I will be happy—not a hundred times more than anyone, but many times more than the me of yesterday.”