Missed Opportunities, Longed-For Beauty:
A male friend told me one day that he finally realized after his divorce that toilets need frequent cleaning; that caring for two children requires so much effort and comes with a loss of freedom! I asked him, "Is your ex-wife doing well now?"
He said, "After leaving me, she married a foreigner and is very happy." I then asked, "Hasn't she come back to see the children?" He calmly replied, "No."
"Doesn't she love children? She gave birth to them herself!" I asked, puzzled. This friend started drinking and began to recount his experiences with his ex-wife. His wife was a good woman. Although she loved to have fun before marriage, she changed completely after marriage and lived a very domestic life.
After their first child was born, he often left early and returned late, saying it was for business and social engagements. His wife understood the hardship of a man working outside and didn't complain. After their second child was born, he often came home late, sometimes even spending the night out. His wife hoped he could spend more time with her and the children, but he always used his career as an excuse and continued to do as he pleased. The mother-in-law was a conservative woman who always believed that her son's various misdeeds were due to his wife's shortcomings, and thus treated her very coldly. After eight years of marriage, his wife finally gave him an ultimatum. She said to him, "Eight years of marriage, what have you given to this family? What have you done for me?" He drunkenly replied, "I work hard every day to earn money for you, to make a living, isn't that enough?" His wife said, "Do you think that's enough? Is that all a woman wants?" He retorted, "What else do you want? To have no worries about food and clothing, to live a carefree life, to stay at home every day, to do whatever you want! How many women live better than you?" His wife said painfully, "All these years of marriage, you haven't seen my sacrifices, haven't seen my suffering. You don't know why your child suddenly grew up and became sensible, and you take everything for granted." He retorted, "I haven't sacrificed anything? Haven't I taken care of you? Who gave you money to spend? Didn't I raise the child by working hard to earn money?"
His wife fell silent, knowing that this was the moment to wake up. Finally, she filed for divorce, unconditionally, wanting neither the children nor the money, just to leave this man who wasted her life and made her unhappy.
At this point in the story, my male friend lowered his head and fell silent. I thought he'd had too much to drink, so I patted him on the back…
“You know what? Since the divorce, I've been trying to find someone to replace his mother for the sake of the children and myself. But the people I like, the children don't like.”
I asked him, “Do you just abandon someone the moment the children don't like them?” He nodded.
He started talking to himself: “I only now realize that children don't grow up on their own, that my mother is actually quite unreasonable; that housework is so heavy, that you can't go anywhere with two children, that there's a reason why the toilet is so clean.” He started to cry…
I fell into deep thought. I know some men will never learn to love a woman. Some men need women only because they lack a nanny, a maid, someone to talk to when they're lonely, or a tool to continue the family line.
My male friend couldn't believe that toilets need cleaning. It wasn't until he was cleaning the toilet that he realized how important a woman had been to him!
In life, we should learn to appreciate others; it's a form of encouragement. When a man says to you with admiration, "You're so charming!" most women would be overjoyed. People need praise, especially married women. They should be praised regularly to instill confidence and happiness, reducing complaints and nagging. Men also need encouragement through praise to motivate their drive and sense of responsibility. I've seen many unhappy marriages where mutual contempt and disdain lead to estrangement. A happy marriage is an art, an art full of appreciation, yet we often ruin it with the trivialities of life, neglecting each other's feelings, abusing each other with violence or indifference, driving the marriage further apart.
Many
unhappy marriages stem from a kind of shackle, shrouded in a false sense of responsibility, where mutual indifference and neglect lead to a degree of aesthetic fatigue. When you forget to appreciate, and when your partner no longer arouses your interest, signs of an unhappy marriage begin to appear. The main way to salvage this situation is to learn to discover your partner's strengths and then view the marriage with appreciative eyes. This is how you rekindle inner passion. Appreciation is an attitude—an attitude of yearning for a better life. When you strive to improve yourself, and when others treat you with appreciation, how can you not experience inner satisfaction and happiness?
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