08/20/2024
**Married or Not, You Should Read This...**
One evening, after returning home, I sat down for dinner with my wife. I took her hand, hesitated, and then finally said, "I have something to tell you." She looked at me quietly, and I could see the pain in her eyes.
I struggled to find the words, but I knew I had to say it. "I want a divorce," I said calmly. To my surprise, she didn't react with anger. Instead, she softly asked, "Why?"
I couldn't answer her question, which only made her angry. She threw her chopsticks down and shouted, "You're not a man!" That night, we didn't speak. She wept, and I knew she was trying to understand what had gone wrong. But I couldn't give her a satisfactory answer—I had fallen out of love with her, and my heart now belonged to someone else, Jane.
With a heavy heart and a sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement. I offered her our house, our car, and 30% of my company. She glanced at the paper, then tore it to pieces. The woman who had spent ten years with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for wasting her time, but I was determined—I loved Jane and couldn't take back my words. When she finally broke down and cried, I felt a strange sense of relief. It seemed to affirm my decision.
The next day, I came home late and found her writing something at the table. I ignored her and went straight to bed, too tired from spending the day with Jane to care. When I woke up, she was still there, writing. I paid her no mind and went back to sleep.
In the morning, she presented her divorce terms: she didn’t want anything from me, but she needed one month before the divorce. Her request was simple—our son had exams coming up, and she didn’t want to disrupt his studies with news of our broken marriage.
I agreed. She also asked me to carry her from our bedroom to the front door every morning, just as I had carried her into our home on our wedding day. Though it seemed strange, I accepted her request, hoping it would make our last days together more bearable.
When I told Jane about my wife's conditions, she laughed and dismissed them as absurd. "No matter what tricks she tries, she can't avoid the divorce," Jane said.
We hadn’t had physical contact since I first mentioned the divorce, so on the first day, carrying her felt awkward. Our son clapped and said, "Daddy is holding Mommy!" His words made me ache inside. From the bedroom to the living room and out the door, I carried her.
She closed her eyes and whispered, "Don’t tell our son about the divorce." I nodded, feeling a pang of guilt. I set her down outside the door, and she left for work. I drove to the office alone.
As the days passed, carrying her became easier. She leaned on my chest, and I could smell the familiar scent of her blouse. I realized I hadn’t really looked at her in a long time. Her face had aged, her hair was turning gray. The years of our marriage had taken a toll on her. I started to feel something again.
By the fourth day, a sense of intimacy was returning. This was the woman who had shared a decade of her life with me. By the fifth and sixth days, I realized that this intimacy was growing stronger. I didn’t tell Jane about this change. It became easier to carry my wife as the days went by, and I thought it might be because I was getting stronger.
One morning, she struggled to find a dress that fit. "All my clothes have become too big," she sighed. It dawned on me then—she had grown so thin. I reached out and touched her head gently, feeling the weight of her unspoken pain.
Our son entered the room just then and said, "Dad, it’s time to carry Mom!" This ritual had become an essential part of his life. My wife hugged our son tightly, and I turned away, afraid that I might change my mind.
On the last day, I held her close, barely able to move. Our son had gone to school, and I whispered, "I hadn’t noticed that our life had lost its intimacy." I left for the office in a hurry, afraid that lingering would make me reconsider the divorce.
When I reached Jane’s place, I told her, "I’m sorry, Jane, I don’t want a divorce anymore."
She looked at me, shocked, and touched my forehead. "Do you have a fever?" she asked. I removed her hand and said, "I’m sorry, Jane. I realize now that our marriage was unfulfilling because we didn’t appreciate the little things in life, not because we didn’t love each other. I see now that since the day I carried her into our home, I should have held onto her until death do us part."
Jane slapped me hard and slammed the door in tears. I left and drove away. On the way home, I stopped at a flower shop and bought a bouquet for my wife. I told the salesgirl to write on the card, "I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us part."
That evening, I arrived home, flowers in hand, and ran upstairs, only to find my wife lying in bed—lifeless. She had been battling cancer for months, and I had been too distracted by Jane to notice. She knew she was dying and wanted to save me from the pain of our son’s reaction to the divorce. At least, in his eyes, I was a loving husband.
The small details in life are what truly matter in a relationship. It’s not the mansion, the car, the money, or the material possessions. These things may create an environment for happiness, but they cannot bring happiness themselves.
Take the time to be your spouse’s friend and cherish the little things that build intimacy. Have a truly happy marriage!
If you don’t share this, nothing will happen to you. But if you do, you might just save a marriage. Many of life’s failures are due to people not realizing how close they were to success when they gave up.
