Picture this situation. A woman, who you may or may not know very well, just got out of a long-term bad relationship. Actually, it might have even been borderline abusive. What’s your reaction?
The obvious answer here is “overjoyed” because, honestly, any other response will make you sound like a moron. Who wouldn’t be happy that a person got out of a bad situation before it was too late?
But here’s the thing — sometimes when that woman in question is famous like Ragaa Hussein, who left a bad marriage after a whooping 51 years, reactions can be something like this:
Yeah. “Yikes” doesn’t cover it. But this is just what happened. After Ragaa Hussein’s latest stint on El-Setat Mabye3rafoosh Yekdebo, where she revealed she left her husband, actor Seif Abdelrahman, after 51 years of marriage, people were divided.
Now obviously, a great big chunk of people are supporting Hussein because, well, they have a conscience and no one should stay in a relationship that was that horrible.
Others, however, didn’t think about it like that. They thought it was a joke and that she’s “acting like she’s young” (get it? Because only young people get to leave bad marriages). And if they didn’t think that, then they thought it was “too late” and she “should have just stuck out whatever was left from her life“.
And the thing is, Ragaa Hussein did already do that. She did stick it out because of society’s golden mottos of “you can’t ruin a home — think about the children” and “a good woman at least tries“.
She said it herself too. The one reason she agreed to remain in a marriage like that, despite the cheating and humiliation (and reported abuse) and other things that the actress didn’t mention, was that she had both her kids.
After her son, Karim, was killed in the army, though, she just couldn’t take it anymore.
“Of course I cried,” Hussein said in the interview, right after she was asked if she ever felt horrible or cried during the earlier years of her marriage. “But a good woman…”
So, here’s the thing. This whole notion has to go out the window and it’s about time it did.
Sure, more people are getting out of bad marriages and abusive relationships now and people are more vocal about abuse but the stigmas associated to divorce and abuse are still very much intact.
Just think about the reactions to Ragaa Hussein’s divorce. If we were fully rid of archaic ideas like “a woman has nothing except her home and husband“, would anyone tell her that divorce wasn’t worth it?
Everyone, regardless of age or gender or whatever people think doesn’t make a victim “victim-y enough“, should get out of bad and abusive relationships the minute they can. And we should help them do so by understanding and lending support.
It’s never okay and no one should think it’s ever okay because they’d been raised on a societal concept that told them they didn’t matter and only their children did or because they’re now too old and ‘helpless‘ so they have to put up with humiliation.
