Divorce

- Hey Đức, when did you get divorced?

• I only divorced at the end of last year.
  Phát laughed and said:
• Looks like you divorced the latest of all our classmates, after ten years. The others all broke up after six or seven.
  Tuấn chipped in:
• I hold the record for the earliest break-up: the day before we were to go and register the marriage, we had a row and split up on the spot.
  Phát grew thoughtful again and said:
• Why is it that our grandparents and parents lived together until their hair turned white and their teeth fell out, but our generation's marriages break up so fast?
  Tuấn said:
• Where I live, an old couple in their seventies have just filed for divorce.
  Phát said:
• They must have caught the terrible divorce plague from us.
  Each of them held a coffee cup, gazing into space and thinking. Everyone was sad that the love they had sworn at the start had not been kept.
  Suddenly Tuấn's phone rang; the contact photo that appeared was an elephant. Tuấn hesitated, not wanting to answer. Phát, mischievous, reached out and pressed the button to take the call on speaker. A woman's voice hissed from the other end:
• Either you drag your carcass back right now and take me to the supermarket, or come home some day and sign the divorce papers, take your pick.
  Tuấn reached out to end the call and sat there stunned. Đức said, as if to himself:
• Disagreements with no place to stop, reproaches and nagging with no end, make the mind tense. Going to work to earn money is already under so much pressure, and you come home and find no understanding. The family is not a warm nest but a seething pot of boiling water. At this age, if I divorce yet again, who will I grow old with? It's agony. 🤦‍♂️

Most of the reasons given in court for divorce are that there are so many disagreements that they cannot be reconciled. They choose divorce so as not to make each other suffer any more. But after divorcing, the sorrow is also very painful.

The husband wants to go towards A, the wife wants to go towards B. The husband wants to spend on this, the wife on that. If one gives up their own opinion to go along with the other's wishes, things are temporarily quiet. But the other, relying on that, keeps pushing and overriding, causing the first to feel stifled. At some point war breaks out again. The root of the disagreement has still not been resolved at its root.

Then the attitude in expressing disagreement also has many levels. A tactful person smiles, gently shakes their head and explains in detail. A tactless one scowls and snaps. A coarse one swears loudly and throws things around. A foolish one takes the family's affairs outside, tells them and slanders and accuses their own spouse.

When a family breaks up in divorce, the ones to be pitied most are the children, innocent and helpless. After their parents divorce, they have to live without enough loving care. Then they have to accept living with a stepfather or stepmother. Dangers may appear somewhere.

To cure this plague of divorce there is only the ethics of non-self. Each person must look for what makes them cling so tightly to their opinion, to the point of madness. Is my ego bigger than the happiness of everyone around me? Am I willing to let everyone suffer so that my wounded pride can be satisfied?

Think the other way: if I temporarily give in to my wife or husband first, then, when the time is convenient, we gently and courteously work out together the most reasonable way to do it. I should not think that I am more right than anyone else, and I should ask my wife or husband not to claim the right either. Listen to each other. Who knows, analysed carefully, we may find that we are both wrong, and the most correct solution is our parents' advice.

But why was it so easy for us to go along with each other in the past, and now we cannot bear with each other? Why has my self become so big now, so big that I no longer recognise the gentle, sweet, modest person I once was?

Properly speaking, anyone who wants to start a family should first practise settling the mind and non-self together. Once they have a family, they should cultivate morality even more. What surprises us most is why, once people have a family, they stop cultivating their morality. To build a lasting, happy family, people must cultivate their morality a great deal. Food, clothes, rice and money are needed, but morality is just as important.