Loneliness Together

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The heart is a raging furnace in which true alchemy takes place:

turning pain into love. Loss of worlds. Birth of stars.

Jeff Foster.

Many friends were jealous of a simple village girl Olesya. Wow, she married for love, and even so successfully. My husband is a promising graduate student from an intelligent family, my mother is a doctor, and my father is a professor. For each holiday - gifts, no clarification of the relationship. Olesya will come home from college, and there, with the caring hands of her mother-in-law, dinner has already been prepared and the floor has been washed. But her mother-in-law - Lydia Pavlovna - has a sick heart, but despite this, she manages to live for two houses: she looks after her husband, and helps her son and daughter-in-law. He calls every day, worries.

Of course, this does not go unnoticed for his son, and he sometimes sadly shares his feelings with his wife that today, for two hours with you and me, she put things in order here for two hours, washed the windows, and now she lies with a pill under her tongue, not for her health. load. It seems that no one reproached Olesya, but for some reason she was ashamed. She tried, sometimes she even left classes to do something at home, but where, can you get ahead of Lydia Pavlovna ?!

If husband Igor said in the evening, we haven't had dumplings for a long time. Olesya comes the next day with the cherries bought for the dumplings, and they are already frozen in the freezer: the mother-in-law took care of it and put her hands on until midnight, and the father-in-law brought it in in the morning and put it in the refrigerator. Sometimes Olesya thought that it would be better if they scolded her than, indirectly, they show what a sluggish mistress she is. How can she make it ?!

Igor was somehow amazed at Olesya's displeasure: “What's wrong with that that my mother takes care of you like her daughter, helps, tries ?!” Even more Olesya began to feel her inferiority, she never considered herself ungrateful, but then it turned out that this was not so. And she's a lousy mistress. Emotions gradually faded as well. Igor comes home from the university, Olesya jumps on his neck, and he stops her with his hand - the coat is wet, he ought to wash first, she has a clean robe, her face is fresh …

Apparently Olesya lacks upbringing to restrain herself. What to take with a country girl ?! Meeting friends is also a torment for her. They are all doctors, and she is still studying to be a nurse, whether she will be able to enter a university, another question. Is it really necessary? “I chose a loaf too tough,” my mother complained. There are no people without flaws - Olesya understood, but she had much more of them than Igor. He's so perfect. And his parents constantly forgive her for all the flaws, and every day she more and more feels somehow inferior.

Once passing by the railway ticket office, under the influence of a momentary impulse, I went in, bought a ticket for the next train and left for my mother. Such a commotion began in the ideal family. Made it worse, but nothing can be fixed. Apparently divorce is the only way out of this situation, Olesya decided, but Igor insisted on visiting a family psychologist. He hoped that the psychologist would "put in place" Olesya.

And here they are at the reception. A squeezed girl, ready to cry every minute and an offended young man, emphatically polite and frankly not understanding how one can be “so ungrateful”. And my first question was addressed to Igor: "When will you divorce your mother?" Igor was simply perplexed: “In what sense? What do you have in mind? Yes, how dare you ?! " etc.

Olesya suddenly perked up and looked at me with interest as at the last opportunity to save their crumbling marriage. The consultation lasted two hours. Igor was angry, of course, for the first time to hear a reasoned opinion from the outside about the intricacies of relationships within their family, it is unpleasant. But in the end, the family was saved. The mother-in-law gradually lost her influence on her son's family, which was not easy for her. But that's another story.

What really happened in the family Olesya and Igor? Igor is the only son, he is used to living in comfort. It was very convenient for him that all problems were still solved by his parents. There is no need to strain: dad will always throw some money, mom goes to the store and cooks a habitually delicious lunch, and the fact that Olesya feels untenable is her choice. It was convenient for Igor not to grow up. And Igor's parents were pleased to live in the illusion that their daughter-in-law was not a household one.

Emphasized cold politeness, reproachful smiles of parents - only one of the ways to shift the blame onto a negligent wife, trying not to notice the son's lack of independence. After all, if Igor, like a real man, forbade his parents to interfere in his family life, then he would most likely have to help his wife with household chores. But then…

What about mom? Her selfless concern would be unnecessary, so what should she do then? And you yourself would have to spend your precious time not on reading books and talking with friends, but on shopping trips, you would have to peel potatoes. Dad would have rebelled: how can his son go to such hard labor ?!

It was much more convenient to present the matter as that the loser wife is to blame for all the problems … And the divorce is her fault: she chose a husband not on her own, and even turned out to be ungrateful! It was very convenient for Igor, his parents, and the "evil psychologist" destroyed their well-built illusion.

Husband and wife should talk to each other about everything, not repelling, tactfully and on an emotional level. And not just by understanding each other's feelings, but by sharing them.

I have a simple exercise where I ask the spouses to play the Psychic game. To do this, they divide a piece of paper into two columns. In the left column, they write complaints against each other, all of which have accumulated, and in the right column, how they show their partner that they do not like it. Then they fold the sheets in half and exchange them, and from the right column you have to guess what exactly the partner does not like about you. And you know, it is rare when it turns out to guess, and to guess everything - never.

So it is in life. The spouses show by their behavior is not at all what they feel.

And how then can two people understand each other ?! Learning to explain and express your feelings is very important, but being honest with yourself is even more important. Getting out of your comfort zone for the sake of another, in order to light a star in his heart, is a task worthy of every person.