Do You Want to Replace or Erase Her?

It was my fourth video on the ‘Brennay and Tim Montague drama’ on TikTok. The story follows a woman accused (and frankly guilty) of stealing her friend's husband. Normally, drama like this would leave me as swiftly as I learned of it, but for some reason it didn’t. I thought more about the dialogue this drama sparked and realised this was indicative of something bigger—who knew my gender studies degree and 10+ hours doomscrolling on TikTok would work together so seamlessly? This example of personal conflict turned public fodder demonstrates how women are socially and systematically erased.

In reference to the Brennay drama, many YouTubers used some pseudospiritual terminology to describe the situation: “destiny-swapping.” From my understanding, destiny swapping is when a person (in our case, a woman) takes and claims facets of another’s life as their own. Brennay takes her friend, Akira's husband, then tries to take her home, and her kids. While laid out, it appears Brennay wishes to replace Akira, to be Akira. I would contest. Brennay’s actions are of a woman who wishes to disinfect, to destroy callbacks to another lover, mother, and person. She wants to erase her, not simply replace her. 

To someone like Brennay, the object of their envy is akin to the original door in an old home. An item that signals there was another. Someone with a different style and ideology. A person who wishes to replace simply swaps; they do not remove all remnants of the previous object. You hang a painting over a scuff on the wall. You don’t buy 100+ dollars of paint unless you want to pretend something never existed. Brennay did not just rip the door off its hinges. She painted over the holes, applied plaster, and smoothed it. She did any and everything so that passerbyers, including the home’s residents, would forget there ever was a door to begin with. The issue is, the home flipper knows that the door was there, the house itself remembers. The lines, the subtle colour changes, all markers of a past fighting to remain. And after some time, the house will forget its owners. It forgets the scratches made by a door slammed too hard by a person no longer there. The echo of their voices dissipating, their fingerprints wiped off. 

There is a sense of grief in erasure. Denying the dead any remnants, any artifacts, is cathartic but upsetting. Doing such a thing to a living person is evermore horrifying. I fear that those I once deemed loved ones will delete my pictures or switch homes to forget me while I live. Although I think this is more extreme for mothers. In motherhood, you are made to reinvent yourself. It is a necessity to spray over the details of your firsts to start anew. All that was must disappear. In that sense, you become a Brennay to yourself. You bear your child’s name as your mother bore yours. No longer are you Anita; you are Paige’s mom. As you wondered what your mother’s favourite colour was and whether she really “lived” before you, your children will wonder the same. Such an instantaneous switch can cause whiplash, an indescribable grief. But losing that will hurt even more.

Age or an underdeveloped personality determines how deeply losing that newfound identity will feel. That couple that married at twenty or the marriage that lasted fifty years, cannot visualise a world without their counterparts. For mothers, it is not just time or age. Imagine long, unbearable hours of labour. Envision the time and effort spent tailoring this newfound title and status, because motherhood is a status. Those appointed with it are viewed valiantly. The pinnacle of selflessness; Madonna’s second coming. You get the accessibility chairs. If not, you have the social pardon to scowl and scoff publicly. That is a status few are afforded.

Understanding the efforts, the difficulties, you can almost taste the disgust, the pain of words held back as the father’s new partner insists, “we are both mothers.” How dare she equate bloodshed on tables with weekend custody arrangements? She did not need to re-establish herself. Your children are adornments on her walls. She simply incorporates them into her pre-existing world. Thus, she erases, and worse, undermines you. She yanks that old toaster from the outlet, that door of its hinges. But the last pull is always the hardest, you don’t want to let go. You fought too hard to be there, and you would rather the walls fall before she gets rid of you, before society is rid of you. But your efforts are taken for granted

With all the glory and adoration motherhood receives, mothers remain marginalised. Their value depleted with age. With their primary purpose fulfilled, what use do they bring now? The fear that this latest fickle sense of self will wither guides the contempt many mothers feel for single women and new girlfriends. It explains Akira’s reaction to Brennay telling Akira’s children to call her mom. Akira’s children are under the age of ten. A time when there is nothing more malleable than their brains. Calling another woman mother could completely alter how they feel about that title. Does it weaken the moniker? Is it stripped of its prestige when applied to more than one woman? 

So Akira files a restraining order against Brennay, for herself and her children. Brennay may take Akira’s title as wife, but not as mother. That title, that identity, is hers and hers alone. 

This story and the morals we draw from it extend past the personal. It reveals the fragility of wife and mother as statuses. It illustrates how easily we lose ourselves; the lax way society erases mothers and their efforts once they outgrow their purpose. The story of Brennay and Akira isn’t special. Many women recount loss of livelihood following their partners’ abandoning them. For wealth or another woman? The reason does not matter. These instances restate how a ring will not protect you. The marital institution was never built with your best interest at heart.