The greatest warmth in returning to my hometown is being invited to relatives’ homes during the holidays. On the third day of the holiday, my mother and I went to my sister’s house for a reunion meal, with my brother-in-law as the chef.
My sister and I are twins. We were born in the same year, month, day, hour, and place, with only a 9-minute difference. Many fortune-tellers would believe that, from a destiny perspective, our fates are indistinguishable. However, before the age of 18, due to our differences in personality and talents, we performed differently in school. Despite this, in several major life exams, we always ended up with the same scores, either progressing together or failing together. No matter how we started, the outcomes were nearly identical.
After the age of 18, I left home, while my sister went to college in Fuzhou. From then on, our life paths diverged dramatically. We studied in different environments, met different people, and started families in different places. I had a son first, while she had a daughter. The biggest difference between us lies in our completely different marriages.
In her book, Yang Jiang wrote: “Marriage is two people in love, spending their days and nights together, sharing many meals, walking many roads, and solving many problems together… In short, it’s about doing many things together.”
Every effort is mutual support, and every achievement should be shared. When one partner is running hard, the other shouldn’t stand by idly but rather lend a helping hand to share the burden. Otherwise, if a woman is increasingly kind, passionate, tolerant, and compliant towards a man, that man will eventually become the one who values her the least. Over time, this will severely damage the balance of the marital relationship, making it difficult to raise children who feel secure and emotionally fulfilled.
Carnegie once said: “Loving someone requires boundaries. Preserve a little selfhood to maintain dignity, and only then will your efforts be valued.” Life is like that—constant people-pleasing and unreserved giving do not always result in the same degree of care and reciprocation.
In the popular drama Twice as Happy, Lin Shuang was once a brilliant scholar shining in academic circles. However, she gave up her personal dreams and career for her family and children, devoting herself entirely to household responsibilities. Not only did she take on all the housework, but she also wholeheartedly took care of her husband and daughter’s daily lives. From meals to early childhood education, Lin Shuang did everything herself, striving to provide her daughter with a warm and healthy environment to grow up. However, her husband not only showed no concern for her but also disregarded their daughter.
On their daughter’s birthday, he claimed he was too busy with work, but Lin Shuang and her daughter caught him on a date with his mistress. When their daughter saw her father, she ran to him but accidentally fell and got hurt. The husband, far from feeling guilty, even blamed Lin Shuang for not taking good care of their child.
He would often lecture his wife, saying:
“Before you got married, you could be yourself. Once you enter a family, it means you must take on family responsibilities and fulfill your duties as a wife and mother.“
“Do you pursue self-worth without considering your family’s feelings?“
“Sacrificing your family for yourself is not pursuing self-worth; it’s selfishness…“
This husband exhibited an extreme form of selfishness and blindness within the family. Not only did he fail to recognize his wife’s years of dedication and sacrifice, but he also mistakenly believed that his wife was living a life of “comfort” at home, while he, working hard outside, was the primary contributor to the family. This distorted perception caused him to lose the respect and gratitude he owed his wife. He even felt justified in betraying the marriage, transferring assets, and completely disregarding the feelings of his wife and child or the stability of the family. The conflict between the couple and the eventual breakdown of the family deeply affected their child, leaving her emotionally scarred and increasingly suspicious of others…
From the name to the experiences, it feels like a vivid replay of the past 20 years of me!
After walking away from this painful marriage that I could not save myself from, a brother recently asked me: “Do you really know what ‘love’ is? Do you truly know how to ‘love’?”
Love should be a balanced art, one that requires both generous giving and rational self-preservation, ensuring that every act of love is just right—nourishing others while also enriching oneself. If you can’t even grasp the balance between love and giving, if you don’t even know how to love yourself, how can you love someone else? How can you maintain the happiness of a family?
In his book Parenting Pedagogy, educator Sukhomlinsky wrote:
“I can instantly recognize a child whose parents deeply, passionately, faithfully, and mutually love each other. A child raised in such an environment is gentle, kind, calm, emotionally healthy, and sincerely believes in the goodness of people. They listen attentively to their teachers and are keenly sensitive to the subtle things that touch the soul.”
How I wish that Coco and XiaoAi could grow up to be such children, but despite my efforts, I couldn’t achieve that and ended up losing them too…
My elders all feel a deep sympathy for me. Every time they see me, they believe I live a miserable life and don’t understand why I always seem to be deeply hurt. My response is that the people who have appeared in my life, whether it’s Mr. W, Mr. C, or Mr. Y, I have given my heart and soul to them and have never wronged them. If time were to rewind and I were to live it all again, it’s very likely that the outcome would be similarly close. This is simply my fate. I always treat others with kindness, yet I can never change them. These people, destined to meet me and bring me suffering, have come to lead me toward a completely different path in life, guiding me to the other shore. Perhaps, many years from now, I might even feel grateful for the helping hand they extended.
What is fate? It is the unchangeable people and events that shape your life. Take birth and marriage, for instance—though they seem like technical choices, they were destined from the start. No matter how hard you try, you cannot change others, nor can you change the outcome.
Even if you were to live it again, you cannot force someone to cherish or not cherish; all that matters is whether it’s worth it or not.
