Husband and Wife -:

Understanding each other

Lionel Wijesiri

Recently, one of the young executives known to me sought my help to find a good lawyer specialising in divorce cases. She was a good looking young lady, married for 3 years but without children. As a talkative and joyful girl she was quite popular in the office.

Her request took me by surprise. I have met her husband only in a couple of office events and outwardly, he looked a decent young man. “Something terrible would have gone wrong,” I thought myself.

Next day, I took her to a known lady lawyer. She wanted me to stay with her when she began to tell her story. She said her husband is a person who tends to shrink from social contacts and to become preoccupied with his own thoughts. Although he didn’t mistreat her, he never really understood her. Just after a year of the marriage, they began to have verbal confrontations and now after three years both of them have decided to go ahead with a divorce.

Story

After listening to her story, the lawyer told her another story - one of her own experiences. It was a story worth sharing.

“One day, a couple around the age of 60, walked into my office to file a divorce. This couple had been not happy all their 30 over years of marriage with nothing ever seemed to go right. They hung on because of their children, afraid that it might affect their up-bringing. Now, since their children were married, there was nothing else the couple have to worry about and both agreed on a divorce.

I was having a hard time trying to get the papers done, because I couldn’t understand why after 30 years of marriage the couple still wanted a divorce.

While waiting for the papers, the wife told the husband. “Honestly, I really like you, but I can’t carry on anymore, I’m sorry”. The husband replied,”

“It’s OK, I understand.” I wasn’t feeling comfortable. To gain a little more time, I suggested a lunch together, just three of us and they accepted the offer. At the dining table, there was a silence of awkwardness.

The first dish was roasted drumsticks. Immediately, the husband took one for his wife.

“Take this, it’s your favourite” Looking on, I thought maybe there’s still a chance, but the wife was frowning when she answered. “This is always the problem, you always think so highly of yourself, never thought about how I feel. Don’t you know that I hate drumsticks?”

With this little gesture, I began to understand what has gone wrong between them. She could not understand that over the years, her husband had been trying to please her. She didn’t care to find out that drumsticks were his favourite! At the same token, he didn’t care to find out that she hates drumsticks even though all he wanted was the best for her.

After dinner, they parted silently to two different destinations. Late that night the husband phoned me. He said he couldn’t take it anymore and wanted to call her to say he was sorry.

I said, “Go ahead.”

Later, I came to know that she was also sad and couldn’t fathom why after all these years, he still couldn’t understand her at all. “What’s the point of calling him now when it’s all over?”She thought. She pulled out the cord off the phone, switched off her mobile and went to sleep.

The next morning, she received news that he had passed away. The neighbours told her that his body was lying on the couch still holding on to the phone. He had a heart attack when he was still trying to get through her phone line.

A week later, she began clearing his belongings. When she was looking through the drawers, she saw an insurance policy, dated from the day they got married, beneficiary was her. Together in that file there was a short note. “To my dear wife, by the time you are reading this, I’m sure I’m no longer around, I bought this policy for you. I want you to know I will always be around, by your side.”

Postscript

This couple was one of many cases where gradually husband and wife have grown apart without there ever having taken place any serious conflict. So was the couple I introduced to the lawyer.

When we talk of divorces, we think immediately of the cases of couples in violent disputes. But there are many others which deserve our attention because their marriages are no loss or failure: they live side by side, without hurting one another, but poles apart because of no real understanding of one another.

Many people live for years together without understanding, without even seeking it. This we see even in cultured and intelligent families, people of the highest order and learned men and women. They appear unaware of something that is missing in their life, wonderful as it may be in other ways.

Most couples enter into conjugal life with a high ideal for marriage. How many of them can say, a dozen years later, that their home has become what they expected of it? All too few! This is the problem we are confronted today.

Every person whose hopes are not fulfilled is naturally inclined towards blaming others for his (or her) setback: it’s the other fellow’s fault. It is much easier than seeking out the inner fault, but it is absolutely sterile. This road leads only to spite, bitterness, inner revolt that marital partners continually make. Or else they blame fate. Some call it karma.

Marriage is above all what we make of it from day to day. It is a work of art. What really matters is working out together of marital happiness. It is a goal to strive after, not a privilege gained at the outset. And to work it out, the ability to understand each other is essential.