Because here is what the Filipina diary taught me: Love stories are not just about who holds you. They are about who sees you. And for too long, I have been invisible to the people I gave my visibility to.
That question destroyed me. Because the truth is, I had never believed it. Growing up Filipina meant learning that love was sacrifice. My mother gave up her teaching career for my father. My Lola raised seven children alone after Lolo found a younger woman. The women in my family loved like martyrs. I was just following the recipe.
But the real fracture came when I found the messages. Not another woman—worse. A group chat with his expat friends where he called Filipinas “practical” and said our relationships were “good ROI if you play the long game.” ROI. Return on investment. He was talking about me.
I started writing a different kind of diary entry: Filipina Sex Diary Rebecka And May Full Video
Then I blocked him.
I packed a bag. He didn’t stop me. He said, “You’ll be back. You have nowhere else to go.”
So this is not a sad ending. This is a reckoning. I am not leaving Matteo. I am leaving the version of myself who thought love meant bleeding quietly. Because here is what the Filipina diary taught
That was the first night I thought about leaving. Enter Jamie. Not a lover—not yet. Jamie is my best friend from college. She runs a small bookshop in Quezon City and has never apologized for taking up space. She is plus-sized, loud, opinionated, and married to a woman named Dina who paints murals of anitos (ancestral spirits). They have been together for nine years.
— Rebecka M. Santos Las Piñas, Philippines October 2024
“What if I stopped auditioning for a love that doesn’t exist? What if I wrote my own ending?” Last week, I finally told Matteo I was unhappy. We sat in our condo—his name on the lease, my money on the furniture—and I read him a letter. Not a dramatic one. Just facts. That question destroyed me
He didn’t deny it. He said, “You’re too sensitive. It was a joke.”
I am back in Cavite, sitting on Lola’s bamboo sofa. The diary is closed, but the story isn’t. I started a small design co-op with two other women. Jamie and Dina come over for Sunday lunch. My mother still asks about marriage, but now she adds, “Basta masaya ka” (as long as you’re happy).
I don’t know where I’m going. Jamie’s couch, probably. Then a bedspace in Mandaluyong. Then—who knows? Maybe a studio of my own. Maybe a cat. Maybe a year of no romance at all.
And Matteo? He texted last month. “I’ve changed. Can we try again?”
“You called our relationship an ROI,” I said. “You mock my family. You make me feel like I am too much and not enough at the same time.”