One night, when this man got home from work, his wife was just serving dinner.
He held her hand and told her they needed to talk. The woman sat down and ate in silence. Her husband could almost feel the pain in her eyes.
The man suddenly froze, and he felt like he couldn’t say a word. But he knew he had to let his wife know he was considering a divorce. The husband calmly raised the topic. Although this wasn’t a pleasant subject for both of them, the woman didn’t seem to be annoyed by her man’s words. Instead, she softly asked him why he was thinking about separation.
Rather than answering, the man ignored her question. This made his wife angry, and she threw away the chopsticks she was eating with. She furiously shouted: “You are not a man!”
That night they didn’t talk to each other. The woman was weeping all night long. She couldn’t understand why her husband was putting an end to their marriage. Anyway, he could hardly give her a fair answer. The truth is, he fell for another woman.
With a deep sense of guilt, the man drafted a divorce agreement, which stated that she could own their house, their car, and 30% of her husbands’ company.
The woman glanced at it and then tore it to pieces.
After ten years of marriage, they have become just strangers living together.
Even though the man was the one asking for divorce, he was feeling sorry for his wife’s wasted time, resources, and energy. Unfortunately, he couldn’t take his words back. He loved someone else now.
Finally, the sad wife poured her eyes out in front of her husband. This was the reaction he was expecting from the beginning. That’s why seeing his soon to be ex-wife crying was a release for him.
The next day, the man came home late and found his wife writing something at the table. He didn’t really pay attention, and he went straight to sleep. He fell asleep quickly, after having an eventful day with the other woman. When he woke up, his wife was still at the table writing.
Later that morning, his wife presented her divorce conditions.
She didn’t want anything from her husband, but she needed a month’s notice before the divorce. Her request was that in this one month, they need to try to live as normal as possible together. She pointed out that their son had his exams in a month, and she didn’t want to disrupt him with their broken marriage.
Her conditions weren’t a problem for the man. What was kind of odd was her next request. She asked her husband to recall how he had carried her into their bridal room on their wedding day.
What’s more, she wanted him to carry her out of their bedroom to the front door every morning for the month’s duration. The man simply thought she was going crazy, but he accepted her request anyway, just to make their last days together bearable.
He shared his wife’s divorce conditions with the woman he was in love with now.
Not surprisingly, she thought all of this was absurd. She stated that no matter what tricks his wife uses, in the end, she will have to face the divorce.
Since the man’s divorce intentions were explicitly expressed, he and his wife hadn’t had any physical contact. That’s why when he carried out on the first day, they both appeared a bit clumsy. Their son was happy to see his parents like that. He clapped behind them, joyfully shouting: “Daddy is holding Mommy in his arms.”
The boy’s words brought his father a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the living room and to the door, he walked over ten meters with his wife in his arms. She gently closed her eyes and asked her husband not to tell their child about the divorce. The man agreed, feeling somewhat upset. He put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus. He drove to his office alone.
On the next day, both of them felt much more comfortable. The woman leaned on her husband’s chest. She was so close, he could smell the fragrance of her blouse. At that moment, he realized he hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time.
He noticed she wasn’t the same anymore. She had fine wrinkles on her face and grey highlights in her hair. Their marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute, the man wondered what he had done to her.
When the man lifted his wife on the fourth day, he felt a sense of intimacy returning. After all, he was holding the woman who had given ten years of her life to him. On the following days, the man realized that their sense of intimacy was growing. He didn’t tell the other woman about this.
As the month slipped by, it became much easier for the man to hold his wife.
He thought the everyday workout made him stronger.
One morning, as his wife was choosing what to wear, she tried on quite a few dresses, but could not find a suitable one. She then sighted that all of her dresses have grown bigger, and the man noticed she had lost a lot of weight. Maybe this was the reason he could carry her so easily.
Suddenly, the man realized how much pain and bitterness the woman had buried in her heart. He subconsciously reached out and touched her head.
At that moment, their son walked in the room and said: “Dad, it’s time to carry mom out.”
To their child, this morning ritual had become an essential part of his life. His mom gestured to him to come closer and hugged him tightly. His father then held her in his arms, walking from the bedroom through the living room and to the hallway. The woman’s hand surrounded her husband’s neck softly and naturally. He held her body tightly, just like on their wedding day. Her much lighter weight made him sad.
On the last day of their one-month agreement, when he was holding his wife in his arms, he could hardly move a step. Their son had gone to school. While the man was holding tightly his spouse, he shared with her that he hadn’t noticed that their life lacked intimacy.
Later on, the man drove to the office. He jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. He was afraid any delay would make him change his mind. He walked upstairs.
The other woman, the one he thought he was in love with, opened the door. He didn’t hesitate and told her he didn’t want the divorce anymore. She looked at him, astonished, and then touched his forehead. At first, she didn’t believe what she heard, so she asked him humorously: “Do you have a fever?”
The man moved her hand off his head.
He was confident and serious with his words. He apologized to her and confirmed that he won’t divorce. He shared with her that his marriage life was boring probably because he and his wife didn’t value the details of their lives, not because they didn’t love each other anymore. He added that he has finally realized that since he carried her into his home on their wedding day, he is supposed to hold her until death do them apart.
The other woman seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave the man a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. He walked downstairs and drove away. At the floral shop on the way, he ordered a bouquet of flowers for his wife. The saleswoman asked him what to write on the card. The man smiled and wrote: “I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.”
That evening he arrived home, flowers in his hands, a smile on his face. He ran up the stairs, only to find his wife in the bed – dead. His spouse had been fighting cancer for months, but he was too busy with the new woman to even notice. His wife knew that she would die soon, and wanted to save her husband from any negative reaction from their son, in case they push through with the divorce. At least, in the eyes of their child, the man is still a loving husband.
This story shows us that the little things in our lives are what really matters. At the end of your life, the mansion, the car, and the money in the bank won’t be there for you. These things only create an environment where happiness would be easily achieved, but they don’t give us happiness themselves.
What you need to do is appreciate every single person in your life while you still can, because, in the end, it would be too late.
Put enough effort into building trust and intimacy with your loved one for your life together to be happy, wholesome, and fulfilled.