Part III — Fear of Losing You Forever

And now, my dear, you are asking for a divorce.

Again, the old song of Htee Sai echoes painfully inside my heart:

“If you wish to stay, then stay according to your own decision.
But if you truly no longer wish to remain with me, then go.
I will not force you to stay.
You need not even ask permission from me.
If you believe someone else can care for you better than I can,
if someone else loves you more,
or can make you happier than I ever could,
then go ahead.”

Those words now feel unbearably real.

Yet what saddens me even more are the rumours that, even before our separation is finalized, you are already considering another marriage.

Perhaps those are only rumours. Or perhaps you merely wish to make me jealous, hoping I would kneel before you and beg you to stay.

If one day you must live alone, I hope you will still remember the Wai Sansara Jataka that we once read together. Do you remember how Madi Devi pleaded to follow her husband, King Wai Sansara, into exile? Her words were deeply practical as well as emotional. She understood how vulnerable a separated woman could become in an unforgiving world.

I worry about you, dear.

And I worry even more about our daughter, who wishes to follow you.

If you choose to marry your distant cousins — U Thak Sin, U Thai, or U Laos — I fear our daughter may one day suffer under unfamiliar stepfathers. There is an old saying: “Better the devil you know than the angel you do not.”

As for U Laos, his household remains isolated and landlocked, cut off from the wider waterways of the world. He is still poor, underdeveloped, and deeply attached to old communist habits. Sometimes I feel you are trying to travel backward through time, returning to the harsh socialist era of Daw Ne Win. Surely you have already tasted enough bitterness from those failed experiments.

And U Thak Sin?

Please forgive me if my words sound emotional or unfair. Perhaps love itself is making me irrational.

But I fear that even within his own household he has not always treated his family equally. I have heard troubling stories — how some of his ethnic minority relatives suffered greatly, how many daughters from poorer communities were driven into desperate lives, and how wealth accumulated unevenly around him.

His family has become the richest in the region, yet many villagers accuse him of gaining power through harsh and ruthless methods. Some even whisper about deadly crackdowns and armed squads that brought suffering to thousands in both the north and south of his territory.

And then there is U Ta Yoke.

If you marry him, would you truly become an equal partner? Or merely one more minor wife among many others?

He already carries responsibility for numerous children from many households. Have you forgotten how he drove U Dalai Lama into exile and absorbed Daw Tibet into his own domain? More recently he embraced the wealthy and beautiful Ma Hong Kong, while still pressuring Ma Tai Wan to join him as well. Ma Ma Cao is already among his prized companions.

So where would your place truly be, my dear?

I fear you would not become a respected partner, but only another neglected concubine in a very crowded palace.