Across the street lived Megan Pienaar and her husband, Owen. Megan was a real estate agent, and Owen worked as a soccer coach for the local school in the area. The two had been married for seven years, but their marriage had been on the rocks for quite some time. Day by day, Megan felt her husband drifting away from her.

“Ek sal jou later sien,” he whispered into the phone.

“Who was that?” she asked, suddenly behind him.

“God, Megan! Do you always have to sneak up on me?”

“Answer me, Owen. Was that her?”

“Who?”

“Don’t think I’m stupid. Jy jol. I’m not an idiot!”

“Ag,” he said, walking out.

She felt numb. She was losing her husband. He was losing her. Seven years of marriage, giving herself completely to one man, and yet now feeling alone.

Megan and Owen fell in love 10 years ago. They met at the local gym. He was fit, and that body showed it. She on the other hand, was trying to be fit. In her eyes she was fat; in his eyes she was what they’d call ‘dikkelicious’. He would admire her from afar, until he eventually spoke to her. The two of them instantly fell in love.

Her family never liked him.

“He is too old for you, Megan,” they would say.

“What do you know about this man anyway?” her mother would ask.

“Hy soek net een ding my kind,” her ouma would warn.

It would hurt her at times: their words, their negativity. But he shocked the family when, after three years, he got down on one knee and proposed to her.

“Megan van Rooi,
jy is tog te mooi!
You melt me inside,
please be my true guide.
I love you more than I can explain,
please will you be my main?
To have you as a wife
will be the best thing in my life,” he rapped.

She laughed with so much joy, tears of joy, as she said, “Ag jy is te corny! But yes, baby! I will marry you!”

Back then they did everything together, and with time her family loved him too. He was the one. They truly were inseparable. He was her best friend.

She would never have imagined that, 10 years down the line, the love of her life would become nothing but a stranger to her. There were often times that he now looked at her in disgust; as if he did not find her attractive anymore.

“You need to start gymming again, hey,” he had said, the other day.

She felt that. Since when did he care about her body being toned? Was she not the ‘dikkelicious’ woman he fell in love with 10 years ago? Why now, all of a sudden, did she need to go gymming again? She suspected there was someone else, because he never looked at her the way he did before. He would arrive late from work with no explanation, and many times he would ignore her and be buried in his cellphone. Although all the signs were there, she had hoped she was wrong.

But her suspicions and instincts weren’t wrong – they never were. Catching him talking to the woman on the phone made her heart sink, yet she had expected it.

Was this love worth the fight, or had she long lost the battle, she wondered?

Tell us: Do you think Megan should fight for her marriage to survive?