Yury Gurkov - Note: To read before the wedding

If only most girls and boys from childhood, from Sashen’ka's age had lessons in this issue – about boys, about how she understands them. Why does she fall in love with one or the other? I am sure that most readers had not such education. It was only slightly or not at all. Parents teach their child everything they consider important: to be honest, to respect their elders, to express themselves correctly and accurately, to behave in society, not to deceive, to be accurate, to achieve goals and to perform well at school. School has also many disciplines, including some important for the life ones. For example, there are such lessons as basics of life safety, arts and crafts, physical education.

There are no places (no special schools, courses) where young men and women (those who are ready for the marriage) can be enriched with knowledge of how to build the ‘right’ relationships, how to understand who they love, what family life really consists of and how to avoid mistakes when choosing a husband/ wife? There is no whole layer of education and training, even no one teaches basic knowledge of preparing a family, happy relationship in marriage.

How much time do you have? Maybe you are just preparing for a wedding and you are still reading, trying to find out whether you did everything right? Or you already live in a marriage and you have chosen your companion years ago. You have chosen him because of his beauty or sense of humor; maybe you liked him for fidelity or for a beautiful back. This also happens. You are not alone. There are plenty of similar stories. And some of them are collected in this book. Perhaps some of the readers all that is left to do is to educate their children that way, because their choice was made long time ago. They want their child to be more pragmatic in order not to repeat the mistakes of mom, dad, friends or relatives.

A simple analysis of the reasons for his actions, some life experience and facts surrounding us and also a desire to help at least a few people to learn and not to make rash steps before the wedding (steps which are based only on feelings, on the concupiscence) make me put letters into words in this book.

This issue is very extensive. There are many factors and components. It is difficult to conclude all the concepts and conditions within one or more sentences, or even one book. Therefore, I will try to tell you about the clearest, the most logical and most important things. This is not an axiom or a final conclusion in terms of the book. This cannot be taught. This cannot change all or many of those who read it. But even if a few people can think and contemplate afterwards, and one person does not make a rash choice of his/ her second half or somebody teaches his/ her children to be happier, then this work is not in vain.

This education must begin with the alphabet and cooked semolina for breakfast.

Our relationships are based on love, on the desire to be close, to stand together, especially at the stage of preparation and formation of a family, before the wedding. This is the euphoria of falling in love, when it seems that you just cannot breathe without this person, you cannot help thinking about him in delightful colors. You cannot concentrate on things you are doing, always distracting from everything else but him or her very easily. And vice versa, it is very difficult for you to return to other thoughts.

Unfortunately, experience has proven that all these feelings have an anti-mirror effect. It happens when the couple does their first steps in the family life. You do not look at your husband or wife and do not want to see him/ her, do not want to breathe near this person and cannot stop thinking about him/ her with irritation. You try to get away from these thoughts. You try to distract yourself with all known ways – drinking wine, having a new crush or a combination of these two. For somebody work is a way to escape the reality.

Between these poles, from the hot «love» to the icy «hate», our relationship crosses many life meridians. And it seems like both of them loved each other, as they say, but they divorced (about 60 marriages out of every hundred).

Did they love each other well? Was the love strong? And how is it – to love somebody? When can a couple's relationship be called love? With what kind of love can you get a happy marriage, a happy family life, being with him side by side, raising children and earning daily bread, falling asleep on the same bed?

The first step of love during the rose and candy stage is the sweetest period, it is all about honey with a tiny nigger in the woodpile. And even though it has to warn about something, it always remains unheard. Nothing of the kind! Passion, bodies vibrate from hormones, sometimes to a precollaptoid state. And your head is full of dreams. We will have this little things and those, everything will be very good, peaceful, affectionate, mindful, colorful – says the excited mind.

Everyone knows about rose – colored spectacles, but when it begins to happen to him/ her, the chances of those who are close to them to reach out and say that the glasses should be removed are minuscule. And as soon as the romance is gone, the rose – colored spectacles fall off like leaves drop off in the autumn. A newly married couple faces the first difficulties, the tests of the relationship. Both of them were sure then that the love had passed.

The stage of saturation or oversaturation of each other comes after the wedding, especially if you rushed and flew into the marriage as cars fly at speed on the "Formula 1", so that they can change the wheels in a few seconds. Race cars will not be able to continue the race without this – the wheels will blow out. What will burst if you are in a hurry to get married today? Those who got married at speed were not really ready to live together; maybe they were not even going to. Well, it happened. One thing, another, and they got already used to each other, and why do you have to send each other endless messages when you can live together?

This period at the beginning of family life is ostrobogulous. Both of the newly married couple is relaxed. They start to show their individual self with all disadvantages, which were either well covered or dressed in tight jeans for strategic purposes – so as not to crumb the wedding. Love begins to drop from the boiling point to the first ice. After 1–2 years, 16 % of marriages burst, apparently “they did not get along”.

What did they both look at when they checked compatibility? There is no real concern for each other in such a short marriage. We can say that in such marriages there was no love, because they did not have time to look out for each other and to pay attention to each other. And you have to know that already 27 % of divorced women will not get married again. They will never have a chance to care about somebody in family relations! Don't you worry that it might be you? That it can be you who mistakenly got married and then remain alone. The first marriage is bound to be a flop and then you can remain alone for life. The price of the mistake in choosing a husband is huge. It is absolutely impossible to get married in a hurry, remember, especially the “first term”.

THE FIRST MARRIAGE IS BOUND TO BE A FLOP AND THEN YOU CAN REMAIN ALONE FOR LIFE. THE PRICE OF THE MISTAKE IN CHOOSING A HUSBAND IS HUGE.

The most “interesting” in the third stage is – disgust towards the shortcomings of the spouse, quarrels, impatience. The competition for power in the family is heating up. This is where marriages start to crumble like dry crackers. Love can be torn up like an unwanted piece of paper in an office paper shredder. Where is the love? It has gone. And this happens more often than we think. It ran away because one of the two in the couple was not prepared for the difficulties or simply overlooked when signed the important document in the registry office. Those who run into a new relationship and a new marriage immediately, without analyzing, without making "error correction", will again get "bad luck" at the same stage, only with another person. At this stage, divorce statistic is the highest – about 25–30 %. For all those people who are still going to get married, it is worth remembering that a couple of million potential bachelors are drug addicts, more than 10 million have been drinking alcohol heavily. And do not forget about prisoners, psychopaths, patients with uncontrolled jealousy. Most likely, you will have to put up with those who remained. This means that you will have to endure and find compromises much more than you could imagine. It is a real hard work on yourself, sometimes it is a kind of back-breaking toil.

Asking a divorced woman who is about 40 years old, I heard another “classic” answer to my question: "Where is the husband? I do not see the wedding ring? Where is he and how did you choose him, according to what criteria?".

The woman stared at me with round eyes and with a question in soaring intonation: “What? To make a choice? There are not plenty. It is necessary to take the first halfway normal!” There is a reasonable share in her words – it is not necessary to go over and dig in the grooms, but also to marry the “first comer”. To start living with him in a civil marriage is not the smartest choice also.

Therefore, it is good to choose in your youth, while there is someone to choose from, but do not delay the case after 35.

Those people, who are thinking and working on themselves with their life's «scratches» and «abrasions» from broken relationships live on, try, get acquainted on dating sites, where they polish their patience. Now they understand more. They know that quarrels, different views on the routine and obvious manifestations of selfishness are an absolutely normal part of a relationship. It is the same as brushing your teeth every day or cooking. Two always different people with different habits, character buildings and different everything else are getting used to each other. Here the sparks are as great as sharpness of the principles and character of each of them.

The wiser of the two becomes softer in order to preserve relationships and family. The wiser irons out the differences for the sake of love, “for both me and my love”. This can be called the greatest wisdom in family relationships. Love begins to warm up again. It heats up when a person with a promising set of characteristics is next to you. You cannot make anything with an indifferent egoist. He is cold to any gentleness. And you cannot forget about others who are shallow – hearted, those who do not know how to appreciate their relatives and live for them and do something for them.

In the development of such family wisdom the spouses are already thinking not about what he or she owes to the partner, but what he/ she can do for the other. As a rule, these are the most common actions, nothing special but the desire to do something for your beloved gives birth to love. The real desire turns into actions, it does not go astray in thoughts.

Just cover the sleeping spouse with a blanket, make no noise and let him sleep for another hour, vacuum instead of him, go to the dry cleaner, and turn on his favorite music, light a fragrant candle in the room. This is the peak of true love in terms of temperature and actions.

To give more than you get in return is the true expression of love. It is about clear and simple care. Giving your energy, time, and talents caring about your loved one every day – is true love. Receiving care and doing nothing in return, trying only to command, reproach, ridicule, suppress by knowledge of the topic or education in something, put ultimatums, using not “beautiful words” or yelling, live for yourself and your pleasures in marriage – this is hardly can be called ‘love’, this is selfishness with your own servant. What of this have you already seen in your life? What drives you wild?