“Did you marry him for love?”

Maybe I had no luck with those who were to answer my question. Every time I received the negative reply.

“Did you love him when you decided to marry him?”

“Certainly not!”

After the exclamation of utter astonishment that accompanied the word “certainly” an amazed woman’s look followed. As if I was a little silly, who had failed to understand that one had to contract a marriage without love, undoubtedly.

“Who was your beloved?” I asked.

The woman sighed and rolled her eyes. Then a heavy silence ensued. Having sighed once more, she began telling the story of her true love….

“Why did you walk out on him?”

“His stubbornness was the real reason,” she replied. “He didn’t want to become the one I wanted him to be. He didn’t want to change himself.”

So, stubbornness is the motive that animates persons in love to say farewell to each other. Really?

“Why on earth did you marry him?” I asked, alluding to her actual husband.

“I had made a mature reflection and I decided I would be happy with him. He was loaded, rather handsome, his demerits seemed possible to correct. But he, the monster, doesn’t want to be corrected!”

Every time during such conversations I couldn’t have understood why the woman wanted her man to change himself.

How a person falls in love?

Among the huge crowd a person glimpses another one and…falls in love with him, sometimes immediately, sometimes gradually. For example, a man suddenly came across to a woman as a very extraordinary person. She starts touching him with her thoughts, automatically recollecting only his merits. However, she doesn’t understand the inward life of the man; she doesn’t see his view of the world as a whole. Having created the man’s image, she starts to give accent to aspects or characteristics of it which she thinks to be really come-hither or which seem prestigious to her (money, power, beautiful body, mind, etc.); and she prolongs such a cultivation of the image. At the same time her heart is deaf. In the process of creation of the image of her beloved only her mind is in a ferment.

Thus, passion comes into existence—torrid, swift or gradually inflaming—it doesn’t matter. Affection, possessiveness and jealousy make their appearance.

But there is no love. There is no even its phantom.

So, a woman falls in love with the created scheme—the man’s image. But the image is lifeless!

Well, they begin to rub shoulders with each other, and then the most interesting period of their relationship starts. Both of them become a salesman and a customer, simultaneously. They launch a mutual campaign, trying to remake each other in accordance with the schemes that have already settled down in their brains. And, God forbid, if such campaign of transformation is condemned to failure, and the beloved is far from the invented ideal!

In this case, the phrase "I like you" means "I find you quite suitable, but you have to be modified. Right now I should change you a bit so that the process of loving you will be easier for me.” Or, for example, it means "My ex was a chronic idiot! But I think your nature is more plastic, so I’m going to perfect my skills of creator with your help and to revenge myself upon my ex who didn’t appreciate me.”

And then the process becomes even more exciting.

How do a salesman and a customer communicate with each other? The salesman has to meet the requirements of the customer. In the present case the salesman must offer the properties of his body and soul in a beautiful wrapping to satisfy the customer’s desires. Once the customer receives the precious gift from the salesman, he shouldn’t forget the salesman will demand something in return. The salesman believes the customer is obliged to make himself useful—to pay dividends. Otherwise, what will he gain by that?

Love turns into trade negotiations between two demanding businessmen who are eager to maximize their advantages.

Both lovers transform each other into dummies. Thanks to the mutual remaking, they gradually forget who they really are.

So, what’s the reason?

If you want to change a person, to make him convenient for you, you don’t love him. You customize him according to your dream to satisfy your own ambitions. After all, when he is improved, he won’t annoy you, he will have a pleasant way. To put it briefly, he will turn into a nice article that deserves to be demonstrated; and if he bores you stiff, you will remove him out of sight at any time.

Such love is either tiresome or is able to evoke hatred or revenge, addressed to the lover who is past reclaim. Sometimes such love drives somebody to the grave….

The person who you are in love with, he was born not to cater for your needs, he lives not for you. He just lives. If you really love him, you won’t try to make him change himself. Your love is unselfish; it is from the bottom of your heart. It will bring luck to you both. And the more true love you give the more perfect and strong you become.

You have to choose: love out of revenge or as a status symbol; or you are in love with a person just because he exists in this world….

However, not everyone is ready to listen to himself and his partner. Fortunately, straight talks sometimes help people to improve relations between the members of their families.

Those ones who prefer to put on blinders and earmuffs, they stick to their opinions. They are not ready to hear.

So now, when such a chronic bitter-ender asks me again what to do with her hateful husband, I give her a curt answer.

“I’m fed up with him!” She shouts.

“Divorce him!” I reply.

“But I want him to agree with me that I’m right!”

I’m speechless.

“If I divorce him, I’ll have to go to work to pay my expenses!”

“Don’t divorce him,” I say indifferently and receive her goggle.

Well, it can’t be helped! That's beyond my brain. Every person isn’t so clever to comprehend such a paradoxical love.