Love - Persephone

Persephone is the epitome of a beautiful young wife and mother. To the outside world, she is happy and content, doing the motherly things and the wifely things that many would probably view as mundane. She has an outwardly happy personality and those that know her cordially would assume everything in her life is as close to perfect as perfect can be.

In reality, Persephone was raped by Zeus when she was three years old. Persephone only began having memories of this over the course of the last two years, when she began having psychogenic seizures while stressed that her husband might leave her. She was so afraid, because she was harboring a terrible secret from him, a secret that most men would quickly use for grounds to file a particular kind of paperwork. Persephone was wrong. Her husband is still with her, although she now worries that it's more for the sake of raising the children properly than anything else.

I would say she's right, but I haven't, as I'm simply a listener. Who am I to judge?

In any event, Persephone was born to a family that no one would otherwise view as dysfunctional. Many would view her childhood as privileged, as she can't remember a time when she did not get whatever she desired. There was always money for clothes or toys, and, later, gasoline and car insurance. It was a childhood on a silver platter with silver spoons feeding her every need and want.

Unfortunately, she did not marry a wealthy man, or a successful man, or even a handsome man. She did, in fact, marry a good man, someone she knew was safe and would never hurt her. She loves this man dearly, even, I would say, desperately, for she believes that no other man completely understands her as he does.

Perhaps this is true, perhaps not, but the awful, pathetic underside of her marriage is that, although her love for her husband is real and deep, she can't help but have sex with every man that wants her. She has a compulsion...or something. It has nothing to do with the quality or quantity of sex at home. She's trying to fill a different kind of hole, no pun intended. A hole apparently blown through her life at the age of three, when Zeus taught her she was really, really useful for a certain thing.

You can't help but feel sympathy for Persephone; that is, until she begins telling you about her most recent sexual encounter, then later lamenting the terrible guilt she's living with because of her behavior. She can't help it, she says. She just wants to feel better about herself, just for a little while.

I listen. Why would I judge her?