It’s been almost six months, I think (I’ve stopped counting). There are days when I feel OK, like I am finally moving on with my life, but there are times I still feel both sad and angry with the way things turned out. Sometimes I think this is all just a bad dream, but then I look at my daughter and I remember her father, what he did to us, how he betrayed us and left us when we needed him most. I remember it all.

I now understand why some people drink themselves to death. They need to forget. They need to sleep forever and not think about tomorrow. They need to ease whatever physical and emotional aches they are going through because it really is painful. I really can’t explain it. I can’t comprehend the tragic reality that my less than one-year-old marriage is nothing but a sham.

What happened? Why did it happen? How could he have let it happen? How could I have let it happen? There are so many questions, not one answerable by a simple yes or no. None of the questions matters though because the reality is staring at me in the face. The pictures, letters and my husband’s admission all but prove one thing: I never should have bothered asking why. Now that it’s over, the specifics don’t matter anymore.

My mother says it took her six months to recover after my father left us. She tells me that I am luckier because when I discovered the awful truth, we had been married for less than a year. It would have hurt more if I had not found out early, she says.

Maybe she is right. Maybe everyone is correct when they tell me I should be glad I got out this early. But that doesn’t stop the hurt one bit. Whether we separated too soon or a little later, I would still be going through this pain. And believe me it hurts like hell.

When you’re 27, married for only 10 months, eight months pregnant, and your husband suddenly and without warning leaves you and tells you he doesn’t love you anymore, what are you to do?

The first few months were the hardest. I knew I was suffering post-partum depression but I hid it very well. It was only normal, I told myself. After all that happened it was not at all surprising. Two weeks before I gave birth to my daughter, I often thought about ending my life. I blamed my pregnant state for not knowing sooner, for not being able to do anything to save my marriage.

Soon after my daughter was born, I went back to work earlier than scheduled. But going back to work meant living in the dorm (I stayed with my mother in the province after the separation). I had to face the inevitable questions: “Why are you here?” “Where is your husband?” “Why are you not with your baby?”

At first I tried to evade these questions but apparently word got around and I had to admit honestly that my marriage was over. At first, people thought I was joking, but as weeks and months went by, they finally believed it.

Sometimes I cannot believe that I have gone this far and be OK. I don’t cry as often as I used to anymore. But I admit that there are still moments when I feel sorry for myself. The reality sometimes hits me in the middle of a report or when I come across something that reminds me of him. I still love my husband and I often have to fight the urge to text him to say I miss him. Sometimes, I do it anyway. But he always answers back to say that things have changed and I should just move on.

I must admit that I haven’t fully recovered both from the physical wounds brought about by my pregnancy and the emotional wounds from the separation, but I am moving on. The process is a bit slow, but I am getting there. I never thought my marriage would become just another statistic, but it has. I would like to believe that it was my destiny, and that God decided to intervene and rescue me from what might have been a lifetime of misery in the company of my husband.

My daughter is growing up fast and it’s only a matter of time before she starts asking me where her father is and why he is not with us. If some day she asks me to forgive him, I probably will because I will do everything for her, even swallow my pride.

They said life is like a movie. I could have easily messed up my life like Britney Spears did when she and Kevin Federline divorced. Or I could have chosen to check out early, like Heath Ledger. But I am hanging on because more than anything else, my daughter needs me.

Here I am, almost six months later, older, slimmer and wiser. I have realized that no matter how painful it may be, people do not die of a broken heart, that even though it seems like the world has already ended, the world will not stop to keep me company in my grief. Most importantly, I have learned to love myself more.

I allowed myself to grieve for a few months but made sure that when I came back, I would be a new person, one who is better physically, and stronger emotionally. Now, people marvel at my transformation. I tell them I can go on looking like a loser so people will feel sorry for me or I can look like a winner and let people know that I am a survivor.

I cannot bring back what has happened. I cannot force a happy ending to this story. I vowed to love him forever, stick with him through thick and thin, for richer or for poorer until I breathed my last, but my husband apparently has other plans. As painful as it sounds, he chose to live his life away from us. And the “I do’s” which so rang true and made me teary eyed on our wedding day have already lost their meaning.

Maria Marinela G. Rios-Tandoc, 27, is a Master of Public Administration graduate of the University of Santo Tomas and works in a government hospital.