After watching The Polygamist, I couldn't stop thinking about the women. 🤍
I finished watching The Polygamist on Netflix, and I don't know if I was angry, sad, or just tired.
Maybe all three.
Because beneath all the wealth, beautiful homes, and powerful people, I saw something painfully familiar.
Women loving.
Women waiting.
Women hoping.
And women breaking.
Joyce broke my heart.
Not because she was perfect.
Not because she always made the right decisions.
But because I understood her.
I understood loving someone for years.
I understood building a life with someone.
I understood what it means to invest your youth, your dreams, your loyalty, and your family into one person.
And then one day, you wake up and realize that while you were protecting the marriage, someone else was busy destroying it.
That pain is difficult to explain.
Infidelity does something strange to women.
People think it's about sex.
It isn't.
It's about grief.
It's about looking at your entire relationship and wondering which parts were real.
It's about questioning yourself.
Wondering whether you missed something.
Whether you weren't enough.
Whether you became too comfortable.
Too busy.
Too forgiving.
Too available.
And watching Joyce, I kept wishing someone would hug her and tell her, "None of this was your fault."
Because women carry blame that doesn't belong to them.
A man cheats, and somehow the wife starts questioning herself.
Her body.
Her age.
Her beauty.
Her femininity.
As though faithfulness was something she could have earned if only she had tried harder.
And honestly, that's one of the cruelest things about betrayal.
It makes innocent people feel guilty.
Then there was Essie.
Oh, Essie.
There was something deeply sad about her.
Because I didn't see a wicked woman.
I saw a lonely woman.
A woman who wanted to be loved.
Wanted to be chosen.
Wanted to feel important.
And haven't we all wanted that at some point?
But I think women sometimes confuse being wanted with being valued.
Those are not the same thing.
A man can desire you and still not respect you.
He can miss you and still betray you.
He can say beautiful things and still leave destruction behind.
And poor Essie.
I think she kept hoping she would become the exception.
But women are not rehabilitation centers.
We cannot love men into becoming different people.
Then there was Matipa.
And God.
Watching her made me realize something.
Being chosen by a man who betrays other women isn't the prize some people think it is.
Because eventually, you start wondering.
If he lied to her, what makes me different?
If he cheated on her, why wouldn't he cheat on me?
How do you sleep peacefully beside a man you know cannot be trusted?
I think that kind of love must be exhausting.
Always beautiful on the outside.
Always anxious on the inside.
And what saddened me most was watching women direct so much anger at each other.
Because I kept thinking:
Ladies, you're not each other's problem.
You're bleeding over a wound one man created.
Meanwhile, Jonasi keeps moving.
Because that's what selfish people do.
They create storms and then act surprised when everyone else is drowning.
And Jonasi frustrated me.
Not because he loved many women.
No.
What disturbed me was how easily he consumed them.
Joyce's loyalty.
Essie's devotion.
Matipa's admiration.
He took and took and took.
And somehow expected gratitude in return.
Nothing was enough.
Not one woman.
Not success.
Not wealth.
Not family.
Nothing.
And men like that are dangerous.
Not because they're evil.
But because they are empty.
And empty people can spend a lifetime searching for things that no woman can give them.
I also couldn't stop thinking about his daughters.
Because children always know.
Always.
They hear the arguments.
They feel the tension.
They see the tears.
And one day they grow up and carry those memories into their own relationships.
That's the thing about betrayal.
It rarely affects just two people.
Its roots go everywhere.
And perhaps that's why I found the series so heartbreaking.
Because nobody really won.
Not Joyce.
Not Essie.
Not Matipa.
Not even Jonasi.
Everyone lost something.
Trust.
Peace.
Time.
Dignity.
And perhaps that's what infidelity does.
It steals things you cannot get back.
Years.
Security.
Innocence.
Confidence.
Sometimes even the ability to love the same way again.
And maybe that's why Joyce stayed with me the most.
Not because she was weak.
Not because she stayed.
Not because she endured.
But because I saw a woman mourning someone who was still alive.
And if you've ever been betrayed, you understand that kind of grief.
The person who hurt you is still here.
Still breathing.
Still smiling.
Still eating dinner.
But the version of them you loved?
The version you trusted?
The version you thought you married?
She's mourning that person.
And that's a very lonely kind of pain.
By the end of The Polygamist, I wasn't thinking about polygamy.
I was thinking about women.
About how much we carry.
How much we forgive.
How much we survive.
And how often we mistake suffering for love.
Maybe that's why the story lingered with me.
Because beneath all the drama, I saw women trying to hold onto men who had already let go of themselves.
And honestly?
There's no amount of love in this world that can save a man who doesn't want to be saved.
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