MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE

Over the weekend, a friend of my sister’s came to stay for a night. She was a long time friend since my sister’s university days. Most old friends gathered in Kuala Lumpur to attend one of their good friends’ wedding.

As usual, the outstation people would bunk in some other available friends’ home and there would be long chatting sessions over the night.

This friend’s sister has a history of domestic violence. Her husband hit her a number of times throughout their few years of marriage and she didn’t lodge a police report. Till recently, it was too detrimental to be ignored. She was slashed by a parang from her face to her collar bone. The husband is now in jail, waiting for court hearing and punishment.

He wrote a number of letters to the sister to seek forgiveness. Can you forgive someone whom you had loved so much once, but yet caused you such grievous hurt?

The children were affected badly over the years. Their five year old daughter had showed signs of anger and hatred towards the father. When asked to draw your family members; she only drew a sun and a deep dark blue sea. When asked, what did the drawing signifies; she replied – "The sun is my mother – bright and shiny. I wish I could throw my daddy in the sea to drown." The teachers were shocked.

Love is a potent thing. It can make or break. Sometimes you could love a person for all the wrong reasons. It makes you think irrationally. You would do anything all in the name of love. They don’t call those madly in love – a LOVE FOOL for nothing.

That explains some friends ended up with very bad marriages – a drug addict husband, a violent husband, a husband that lived off your hard earned money, a promiscuous wife, a gambler wife, an alcoholic wife, etc.

A friend once said, I am a commitment phobic. Sometimes I wonder if this is true, when most friends surrounding me are not happy in their marriages, they sort of put me off even thinking about it.

I know, not all marriages are bad. Some are enviable – yet, we do not have the slightest inkling on the amount of effort the couples had put into their relationship; in order to make it work.

I remember Paulo Coelho wrote in one of his many loved books (something to that effect)- “in a marriage, it is not putting each other’s needs on top of the list – it is both persons, moving together towards the same goal.” Nobody thinks alike in this world; even identical twins have certain differences between them. What more, two separate individuals.

I guess, we have to exercise great caution but not overly paranoid, when it comes to selecting someone you would like to spend the rest of your life with. The marriage might or might not last. But one thing we could be sure of, at least we have tried our best to make things work. If it goes the other way round, then it is just too bad. Nobody goes into a relationship, knowing it would break.

It doesn’t pay to be committing hastily in a relationship either, just because time is running out. It would cause you more pain than it is, and gets tired if you are the only one playing dual roles to make it work, and in the end, you would wish you were still single.

As I was watching the pretentious reality show: the Bachelor last night – I totally agree with what one of the sisters said to their gullible brother in choosing his life partner – “Choose the one that you would like to change the least”.

Such a profound advice in such a dumb reality show.