Reborn Through Betrayal

Aug 3 , 2025
By Eden Sahle

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Last week, my new house helper, only twenty-two years old, shared a story that left me breathless. I found her crumpled on the stairs, sobbing with the rawness of someone who had just buried a future she spent seven years building. Her tears spoke of deep love, immeasurable sacrifice, and a heartbreak rooted in one of society's most painful truths. Women, especially those with little power, are too often expected to give everything and receive nothing in return.

She was just in Grade Ten when her parents decided she was ready to get married. The marriage was arranged, as is still common in many rural areas of the regional states. But she did not want the husband, the life, or the loss of her future. So, she chose to run.

With her high school sweetheart by her side, she left behind her family, her village, and a life planned by others. They fled to Addis Abeba, driven by hope and youthful defiance. But like many love stories born of rebellion, theirs soon collided with reality. They had no money, no support, no safety; just each other and a shared dream.

One of them had to work so the other could study. She was the one who chose to work. At sixteen, she became a housekeeper, earning just enough to cover his tuition, a bed in a shared room, and daily expenses. Every Birr she made went to him.

For seven years, she worked in silence, never once returning to her education. She gave up her future so that he could build his. She watched him pass exams and rise, all while standing still herself. Her love was not transactional; it was loyal, fierce, and rooted in belief.

They had a plan: once he graduated, they would marry. Then it would be her turn, he would work, and she would go back to school. She held onto that hope every day for seven years. It was her anchor, her light, and her purpose.

But the girl who once refused a forced marriage had unknowingly stepped into another kind of erasure. As a teenager, she worked herself into exhaustion for a man who quietly stopped seeing her as his equal. The moment she became his foundation, she ceased being his partner. He graduated with a degree and left her behind.

She believed this was their turning point, the moment their shared dream would finally bloom. Instead, he saw her only as "just a housekeeper." He told her they were no longer "on the same level." Just like that, he walked away from seven years of her life.

There are few betrayals crueller than those that follow sacrifice.

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I didn't know how to comfort her. What do you say to someone who lost everything not through carelessness, but through love? She believed in someone more than she believed in herself. And now that belief had shattered.

The very thing she gave up, her education, was used against her. The man she built a future around now saw her as less than. There are few betrayals crueller than those that follow sacrifice. It is not just heartbreak; it is humiliation layered on loss.

Now, she has nothing; her family disowned her; she has no savings, no diploma, and no fallback. All she has is the weight of waking up to a reality she never planned for. But this story is not just about personal betrayal. It is a mirror held up to a culture that teaches girls to disappear for the sake of others.

In communities like ours, girls are praised for how much they endure. Their worth is measured by their willingness to wait, to give, to sacrifice. And often, they are left alone in the aftermath. She is one of many who are taught to pour themselves out for someone else's future.

But here is what struck me most: her instinct was not one for revenge, but for redemption.

"I want to go back to school," she whispered, her eyes swollen from crying. That sentence lit something in me because that's where healing begins, with a decision to reclaim.

She built that man's future with her hands, and now, with those same hands, she is choosing to build her own. Her story does not end with betrayal. She is not just a girl left behind. She is a woman with the courage to start again.

This is not just her burden. It is ours, too. We need education programmes for girls who left school because of poverty, early marriage, or care work. We need scholarships for women who are trying to find their way back.

We need a culture that honours strength not in silence or suffering, but in achievement and self-worth. We must stop romanticising sacrifice when it's not mutual. Love that demands erasure isn't love. Its abandonment dressed as devotion.

My house helper's story is not rare, but her strength is. She is choosing not to be defined by betrayal. And that kind of courage does not just rebuild a life. It rewrites the ending.

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PUBLISHED ON Aug 03,2025 [ VOL 26 , NO 1318]

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