By Gao Hui
There is no lifetime romance but only lifetime companionship. I slipped up and fell into a trap of romantic love, but only through seeking did I came to realize that I had lost my direction …
I was weaving my dream of possessing a romantic love.
I was an ordinary and romantic girl, and romance series were my favorite. Whenever I saw male protagonists surprising female ones or on Valentine’s Day giving them a bouquet of roses and saying the vows to love them for all eternity, my heart would be touched and I would look forward to my future partner being able to often bring me surprise and romance like a “charming prince on a white horse” in the romances. I believed that only this kind of marriage was the happiest in the world.
I met my current husband through a mutual acquaintance. When I saw him the first time, he was tall, glowing and good-looking with big eyes, and was wearing a pair of jeans and pair of sneakers. I was attracted immediately and he was exactly the knight on the white horse in my heart. Soon after, we were engaged.
At the end of that same year, we got married and had our own little family. I had great expectation for my married life and hoped that he could take care of me and show great concern for me in our life, that after dinner we could take a stroll in the moonlight hand in hand, and that before bedtime we could have a long conversation about our lifelong love sitting at the head of our bed …
Making my husband romantic caused great harm to me.
However, after we lived together for a period of time, I didn’t realize my dream. I found out that my husband was introverted, inarticulate and not romantic. He fell far short of my demands and standards, and such a “knight on the white horse” came short of what I had expected.
One day when my neighbor Xiaotao saw me, she, with a glowing, happy smile on her face, delightedly showed me a message from her husband, which said, “Honey, go home and you’ll find a hair-grip in our bedside table. I bought it specifically for you. Happy birthday to you!” Her husband was so romantic, and this made me envious and jealous. After returning home, I unpleasantly complained about my husband, “Look at Xiaotao’s husband. He is better than you. He bought a hair-grip as a birthday present for Xiaotao and gave her a nice surprise. However, you have never gotten me a birthday gift.” After hearing this, my husband said with disdain, “Why do I need to buy a hair-grip? Don’t you have one?” As soon as he had spoken, I hurriedly said to him, “You are a fool! It’s not a question of whether I have it or not. A gift is a token from a woman’s husband!” I was expecting that, through my saying this, on my birthday my husband would give me a surprise; however, he didn’t understand what I was thinking at all and after that he still didn’t buy any gift for me. Because of this, I grieved and cried alone …
One day in winter, when our entire family were eating hotpot together, my brother-in-law added food to his wife’s bowl from time to time, and seeing them loving each other made me endlessly envious. At this time, my husband’s sister saw that I couldn’t reach some food and so asked my husband to add some to my bowl. Although I said, “No, it’s ok,” in my heart I was very much looking forward to my husband being able to do so. However, he only paid attention to eating himself. I felt bad and thought, “You and your brother were born to the same mother, but why are you not the same with him? Even if you don’t know how to do this, can’t you learn it from others?” Instantly I felt distressed and was totally in a bad mood.
When we returned home after the dinner, I couldn’t hold back the feeling of grievance in my heart anymore, and reproached my husband, “Do you know what you did?” However, he asked me, “What did I do wrong??” Seeing him looking like wood, I said angrily, “Your sister asked you to add food to my bowl, did you not hear?” Unexpectedly, he said nonchalantly, “Didn’t you say that it was ok?” “Didn’t you see your brother do that for his wife?” I again told him about what I was thinking. But he said resolutely, “He is him, and I’m me. I don’t like to do that.” Hearing him say this, I said angrily, “You are simply like a wooden chicken! Do you really not understand?” Following that, I poured out to him all the grievance I had restrained in my heart for so long, “You’re unromantic, unemotional, and don’t understand what I’m thinking. You’re not good with sweet words either….” I was venting all of my dissatisfaction, and then I turned around and found that my husband was already asleep. This vexed me and made me feel disheartened and disappointed, my tears of grievance involuntarily flowed down my face, and I thought, “Others’ husbands know to be considerate of their wives but why does mine not know to be considerate of me?”
Facing such a marriage, I really wanted to leave home. But my daughter was so young still and I couldn’t bring myself to abandon her. I had planned that I would go to my parents’ home with my daughter and stay there for ten days or more and that when my husband went to pick me up, I wouldn’t come back with him until he softened and said nice things to me. But then when I thought of my husband’s conduct and of how he was not romantic at all, I gave up my plan. It’s because I was worried that, if he insisted on refusing to pick me up, then I would be embarrassed. The more I thought about it, the more grieved I was. I was so sentimental, so I could only find spiritual sustenance from romance series. Sometimes, I dragged my husband to watch them together with me, wanting him to learn something from them, but he said impatiently, “These TV series are all lies.” I knew they were all lies too, but I liked romance. The marriage in which there was no romance made me feel sad and bored, and I always got angry for no reason and vented my dissatisfaction with my husband. When I was quarreling with him, he seldom answered back, but I was still unwilling to live with such a man who was not romantic in the slightest.
It turned out that I had fallen into a trap of pursuing romantic love.
Just as I was feeling worried and lost, God’s gospel of kingdom befell upon me and I found the root of my pain in the word of God. God’s words say, “For example, if you were watching a television show, what sort of things in it could change your view? Would what the performers said, the words themselves, be able to corrupt people? (No.) What sort of things would corrupt people? It would be the core thoughts and content of the show, which would represent the director’s views, and the information carried in these views could sway people’s hearts and minds. Is that right?” “Satan uses this method to invent, fabricate and play out some stories, and it especially deceives these simple-minded, brainless adolescents. Have you been influenced at all? (Yes.) Is it then easy to remove and cleanse yourselves of this poison? Once you have been influenced, these things enter your thoughts and become a kind of poison. You only need to fail to see through this poison and you will then be unable to give it up completely; if you are influenced by it for one day, you will be disturbed and controlled by it for that one day.”
God’s words allowed me to understand that it is Satan using the thoughts and views conveyed by television shows to harm people. It uses some fictional stories to attract us, and causes us to unwittingly accept its thoughts, then follow them in our lives, and thus fall into its traps and be controlled and harmed by it. I thought that, the reason why I had longed for the so-called romantic love was because I was influenced by the romantic TV series. I liked the romantic life led by the male and female protagonists, and whenever I saw the male protagonists spoil the female ones and try every means to create romance for them, I was consumed with envy. In my heart I was deeply certain that only a romantic marriage would make me happy. This thought bound me just like shackles and made me unable to throw it off. In life, I hoped that my husband could show great concern for me, create romance for me, surprise me, and add food to my bowl so that I could enjoy the feeling of being petted. Although I knew my husband was an honest man and didn’t like using some external practices to please me, I still forced him into something he didn’t want to do, and tried everything to guide him to be a romantic man. When he didn’t do things according to my intentions, I was disgusted with him and complained about him, and I always made trouble out of nothing. All this caused my husband to feel agitated and thus ignore me, and I also frequently felt so wronged that I wept bitterly and even wanted to leave him and give up on this marriage to find the romantic love that I had dreamed about. It was the erroneous thoughts Satan had steeped me in through romance series that resulted in me not being able to correctly treat my marriage. In real life, there are many spouses just like me. Because their husbands or wives are not romantic, they have a bad relationship and constant quarrels with their spouses, even to the point that they want to get divorced. This is all caused because they have accepted Satan’s erroneous views on love, then pursue the unrealistic romantic love and thus are led around by the nose by Satan. I finally saw clearly that pursuing the so-called romantic love is actually a trap laid for people by Satan.
I said farewell to romantic love and happiness was right before my eyes.
Later, I read in the word of God: “Though in this evil age people are constantly bombarded with distorted messages about marriage, which create even more additional requirements and give people all sorts of baggage and strange attitudes, any person who has experienced marriage knows that no matter how one understands it, no matter what one’s attitude toward it is, marriage is not a matter of individual choice.”
“When you repeatedly investigate and carefully dissect the various goals of life that people pursue and their various different ways of living, you will find that not one of them fits the Creator’s original intention when He created humanity. All of them draw people away from the Creator’s sovereignty and care; they are all pits into which humanity falls, and which lead them to hell. After you recognize this, your task is to lay aside your old view of life, stay far from various traps, let God take charge of your life and make arrangements for you, try only to submit to God’s orchestrations and guidance, to have no choice, and to become a person who worships God.”
From God’s words, I understood that everyone’s marriage is predestined by God and is something that we cannot choose ourselves. Because we live in this evil society and accept Satan’s ideas and views, we attach many extra conditions to marriage. But no matter what our attitudes toward and demands of the marriage are, they can’t change the marriage God has determined for us. All the suffering that I had experienced in order to pursue the romantic love I had dreamed about was all Satan’s affliction and trickery. If I wanted to come out from my pain, all I could do was let go of the erroneous ideas of what to pursue from Satan and obey the marriage God had determined for me, and only in this way could I feel happier and happier. God’s words gave me a path of practice. I was willing to turn away from my own mistaken viewpoints, accept the marriage God had arranged for me and obey God’s orchestration and arrangements.
I also thought: In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve and arranged for them to live together. God wanted them to listen to God’s words, live in harmony with each other, be tolerant and patient with each other, understand and forgive each other, live in a world of freedom and enjoy the guidance of God’s love rather than to find faults with the other or ask the other to satisfy themselves. Only when I reevaluated my marriage did I realize that though my husband couldn’t create a romantic environment for me or bring me a surprise, he had been building our family with me in a realistic, down-to-earth manner, and had never indulged in debauchery outside. And I also found that he had always forgiven and endured me when I was unreasonable and that what he had brought to me was peace and assuredness. It turned out that the marriage God had arranged for me was happy; it was just that I was hoodwinked by Satan, so I had always pursued romantic love and been choosy with my husband. At the thought of this, in my heart I was willing to let go of the unreasonable demands I was making to my husband.
One day on the street, I saw that a woman, with a big smile, told her companions, “On Valentine’s Day my husband bought a necklace specifically for me as a souvenir….” Hearing this, her companions were very envious. At that moment, I felt a little turbulence in my heart: “My husband is just like a wooden chicken. He is not romantic at all and simply didn’t know to give me a present on Valentine’s Day.” Then, I remembered a passage from God’s word, “These things enter your thoughts and become a kind of poison. You only need to fail to see through this poison and you will then be unable to give it up completely; if you are influenced by it for one day, you will be disturbed and controlled by it for that one day.” I realized that Satan again seized on my weakness to attack me and caused me to feel dissatisfied with my husband. Therefore I hurriedly prayed to God and asked Him to protect my heart so that I could let go of my desire, no longer expect my husband to do something romantic to me, but instead live a realistic and normal life with him. Thank God! Because of the guidance of God’s words, gradually I was able to take the correct approach to my marriage.
Later, my husband also accepted God’s work of the last days, and so we speak the same language and share the same goals of life. We usually read God’s words together and speak from the heart with each other. We have silent understanding in spirit and our life becomes full and happy. Saying farewell to romantic love, I have had a truly happy marriage.
