The Modern Day Canadian Woman: Leaving Behind a Kingdom

As I sit here on a rainy afternoon somewhere in a quiet tree-lined Ontarian neighborhood with Britney Spears singing about finding a new love and contemplating ordering a bubble-tea from UberEats before my evening class, I feel like there's nothing missing. Notice I said *nothing*, not SOMETHING. No matter what social media and Britney Spears says, I don't need a man or someone to love me. All of my friends who I have known in the last 2.5 decades are either single, separated, divorced or considering divorce. There are a few who have remained married but no one hears from them, or has even seen them in years. I hope they're okay and just busy making apple-pies for their husbands, and not what happened to an old acquitance. She was planning to leave her husband from Saudi Arabia but then disappeared. No one knew what happened or heard from her, except that she suffered some sort of accident. Daisy of Stepford Wives, we miss you and your writing. I wish nothing but the best for her and hope she is okay.

Unfortanately, knowing about Western women who have divorced and left their husbands abroad in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became quite the phenomanen after COVID. While I was in Canada arranging things for our life outside of Saudi Arabia, I returned to all of the Canadian and American wives gone from our little city. One of my former colleagues, an American teacher at an international school, told me that when the travel bans were lifted, everyone vanished. Not even a farewell party for their expatriation (which is what I always do before my annual repat back to Canada) or a final coffee. It was just so... sudden. Perhaps I'm thought as one of them, judging by the monthly lurkings on my Facebook Story and Saved posts on my Tiktok from other North American wives of Saudis. I don't think they know that we can see who views our Story when Professional Mode is activated, or Saves our posts even if their Tiktok profile is on private ;-)

Well dear readers & lurkers, theres nothing scandalous about my exit from the Kingdom. My little villa and car is still there, along with my children's toys and clothes. I could never leave Saudi Arabia entirely, but live more as some kind of non-resident Resident. We go back 3x a year with short stays in Abu Dhabi and Europe. I still have my Saudi driver's license and if it weren't for my new course schedule, we would be back this summer just like we have been for the last 5 years. There, that's it. I know there were a few rumours on the secret Facebook groups for Western wives of Saudis that I was "banned/deported" and if that were so, I'd have to wonder about the highly advanced border security and technology on letting me travel in and out across the Saudi borders. But don't worry, I haven't been banned from any nation (that I know of). Many thanks to the Admins who quickly deleted the posts because they know the cyber-bullying laws over there, and no one likes getting sued for 75,000SAR for online slander.