Chapter 18 Chapter Seventeen The Cowardly Man

Couples who are married after passionate love will gradually feel bored and become inert in their joint life after marriage.This kind of change may be said to be the unavoidable fate of marriage, large or small.The problem in this respect is that those unnoticed shortcomings of the other party gradually become apparent when they are in love.Once you notice the shortcomings of the other party, there will be a rift between husband and wife, and these are the ingredients that do not understand each other.This rift is fine if it stays on a small scale, but if it expands to a large scale, it will eventually lead to couples wearing masks.

If this kind of thing happens to a couple in their thirties, once they find out that they have become a couple wearing a mask, they will try their best to change this situation, hoping that the relationship between the two parties will improve.To this end, they communicate with each other, sometimes quarreling with each other, and sometimes violent conflicts.The end result is that some couples normalize their relationship, and some couples go to the extreme of parting ways. But if this happens to couples in the forty-five to fifty age group, then they will admit that they are a couple wearing a mask.Still, quite a few of these couples don't intend to change it.Because they no longer have the strength to fight to improve the relationship between each other.They decided that marriage was what it was, and that they had become accustomed to a life of inertness.

In Japan, such couples are not uncommon.It can be said that there are quite a few people in middle-aged and old age who maintain this kind of formal relationship between husband and wife. When the relationship between husband and wife is cold and tends to be a masked relationship, most wives will be anxious: Can the relationship between husband and wife continue like this?What's the point of continuing this marriage?The result: Most of them are forced to accept the status quo and officially enter the period of experiencing troubles. Admittedly, the degree of entanglement that arises varies with personality and feelings.Some people are sensitive to couples and the relationship between men and women, while others are not;In short, the difference between people is considerable.For example, the same thing is not a big deal for woman A, but it is a top priority for woman B, and sometimes even divorces because of it.In a word, there are very few wives who do not question or think about the proper relationship between husband and wife.

Men, by contrast, have little doubt about a couple wearing a mask, or they accept it easily.Because most men think that marriage is what it is. One of the reasons is that the starting point of a man's life is social life.In other words, for men, work is the center of life, and family is the lining that supports that life.If they don't feel good about their family, they'll work harder or socialize more with their friends.Because doing so can go home later and reduce the chance of contact with his wife. Of course, the purpose is to avoid causing disturbances. People are born with the words of putting on the show and telling the truth, and men take it for granted that they believe in it.Because if men want to survive in society, they have to be good at putting on show and telling the truth, respectively.Therefore, although some people show favor to their wives on the surface, they secretly have affairs with other women; on the surface they pretend to obey their wives, but in fact they turn a deaf ear.

That's it, men's character is perfunctory, and they are good at using pretense and truth respectively, so they seldom think deeply about the emotional differences between husband and wife like wives.On the contrary, they think it is very troublesome to get too attached to that kind of thing.So as long as the wife brings up such topics, they will prevaricate with words such as I am tired and want to sleep. Regardless of whether the things discussed are good or bad, as long as men do this, they can avoid the focus, divert the topic, and continue the form of marriage. From this, we can think of the divorce between Kanda Masaki and Matsuda Seiko.At the divorce press conference held by the two, Shengzi answered the reporter in this way: Due to frequent colds, we stayed at home all month, so our husband and wife had time to talk slowly, so we divorced.It's funny to hear that: if they hadn't had time to talk slowly, they might have remained a masked couple to this day.

Thinking about it carefully, avoiding the really big problems, in a sense, may be the wisdom of human beings.At least it can be said that the reason why men avoid the essence of husband and wife issues and believe that silence is golden is because if they themselves seriously think about the meaning of a couple and confront wives with the truth, then it may lead to decisive disputes. Split. This situation is not limited to marital problems.For example, if you just think about it: why do you survive?What is life?Some people might commit suicide.Likewise, if a candidate has doubts about why an exam is being taken, then maybe he will quit the exam.Leaving aside whether the things in question are good or bad, just avoiding the substance of things is a good way to live lightly.In the same way, as long as the mask is not lifted between husband and wife, the marriage may continue;

Therefore, whether it is a wife or a husband, as long as they do not have the ability and courage to divorce, it can be said that avoiding reality and emptiness can be said to be a good wisdom for survival. In reality, there are quite a few couples who maintain their marriage relationship with the strategy of avoiding the truth and avoiding the truth. In this sense, the so-called masked couples are accomplices who knowingly commit crimes. As long as it is a couple, there is a hidden possibility of becoming a masked couple.If this kind of thing is placed in the United States and other countries, the situation will be different.In some countries such as the United States, people generally believe that if there is no love, they should divorce; maintaining a masked relationship between husband and wife is artificial.Therefore, many people in those countries will divorce and remarry many times.

In contrast, Japan's social tolerance for divorce is still very low, coupled with strong family values, so it does not have a high divorce rate like the United States.Moreover, the lack of independent economic rights between husband and wife is also one of the factors restricting divorce. In the United States, husbands and wives have independent economic rights, and both husband and wife carry out economic activities within their respective capabilities.If the wife is a full-time housewife, the husband is generally in charge of the money and handed over to the wife as needed. However, in Japan, wives mostly run the household economy, which is a major obstacle to freedom of movement for men.The wives are full-time wage earners, and most of them give all their income to their wives, and then ask for pocket money from their wives.It is the current situation in Japan that the money earned by oneself cannot be used freely.In this situation, men are like having their hands and feet cut off. No matter how difficult the relationship with their wives is, they are powerless to take the next step in the direction of divorce.This is one of the reasons why Japanese men do not tend to divorce.

It is true that the United States and Japan cannot say which is better or worse.In the United States, couples have divorced and remarried many times, which has caused psychological trauma to children, which has become a serious social problem.In addition, tension and anxiety are common, and some suffer from psychosis due to the fear of losing the love of the other person. From this point of view, masked couples have their own advantages as masked couples.Sharing peace with people who are both familiar and close to one's own will give order to life and a sense of relief that one does not have to be nervous about each other.

In short, the relationship between husband and wife loses its sense of urgency as the years pass.Whether it is a marriage through introduction or a love marriage, there will be no difference after thirty years.The key question is how to view the masked couple. If it is negatively viewed, people will feel sad; on the contrary, if viewed positively, people will feel relieved. Having said that, it does not mean that there are no couples in the world who are not destined for masks and who are truly connected with each other. In addition, there are also couples who have gone through the era of masks and are connected with each other again after they get older.

The background of the latter is: with the growth of age, both husband and wife lose energy and weaken their hearts, and feel that the other party is the pillar of their own survival. For example, the typical image of an old Japanese couple is that they are sitting together on the porch, drinking tea and affirming each other: It is better to stay with you, and they do this to support each other and spend the rest of their lives together.However, looking at it from another angle, it can also be said that they came together precisely because they both lost their attractiveness. From this point of view, the so-called masked couple can be said to be a shortcut in maintaining the relationship between husband and wife.Are you determined to maintain the husband and wife relationship in the form of a masked couple, or would you rather divorce and bear economic and social burdens than a masked couple?Or would you rather continue to pursue a relationship that truly connects with each other?This is determined by personal opinion, and it cannot be generalized to say which is right and which is wrong. The age at which men begin to feel they are approaching old age varies, but generally begins around age forty-five.Before the age of forty-five, I still feel like a man in my prime. I think that I am in my prime as a man. Although men will gradually age physically with age, but due to the rising social status of men, generally speaking , In fact, they feel that they are older than the woman.As for the appearance, men will also age before the age of fifty, but it is not so serious, and some people become more attractive and moister with age.As a result, they feel very differently than women do when they feel their age is over. However, at the age of fifty, men also feel aging immediately.At this time, physical strength has already begun to decline, and their social status has also undergone subtle changes. Therefore, for men, fifty years old is the biggest turning point in life.When they are about to turn 50, they will sigh: I will finally be 50. During this period, people in this age group have been divided into two groups within the company.One group is likely to be promoted to director by minister or bureau chief; the other group can be promoted to minister or branch manager at most.Most of the latter are those who lost in the competition.They are sometimes even demoted and transferred, becoming a card in the hands of others.In other words, when a person is forty-five years old, he will have a sense of fear, because he can foresee his future life path. Men who are defeated from the front line of competition will suddenly feel lonely, some people are even extremely uncomfortable, and some people are careless about work because they feel hopeless about the future.At this time, if the children have grown up, the housing loan has been paid off, the relationship with his wife is harmonious, and the family is happy, he will not feel strongly confused and lonely; It’s not good, if there are many unfavorable factors hidden in the family, then various emotions such as anxiety, depression, and confusion will be entangled in him, and sometimes he will be insane and affect his health. While undergoing these changes mentally, they will also lose confidence in the body and become what people call uncles. At the same time, their image as males will be greatly reduced.As mentioned earlier, a man's sexual desire has a close relationship with the brain.Feelings of superiority and social fulfillment, as well as high-quality life values, all have a major impact on sexual function, so once they realize that they have lost, sexual function also declines drastically. Once the fifty-year-old step has been jumped, men will panic, but when they realize that it will not help, they will give up; on the other hand, they will soon usher in a stable period in their lives, gradually adapting to five More than ten years old this age group.The reason for saying this is that the sense of age is often based on a step of ten years, and people will feel confused before they are about to step on the next step.In short, men in the last few years of their fifties undergo a sudden change in their attitudes towards life and are able to adapt to a period of stability. For men, the second turning point in life is when they face the sixty-year-old step, although there is not as much confusion at this time as at forty-five.People usually refer to sixty as the year of sixtieth birthday or the year of welcoming the calendar. That is to say, at this age, people have the feeling that this life is about to end and return to zero; During the period, the mood was intense and turbulent, and some people were even emotionally unstable. For men, retirement means the end of their social life.Originally social animals, they retire with a sense of nothingness that seems to negate their existence.Although they themselves still want to be active in society, the company unit cuts off this way and thinks that they are no longer useful people.For men, there is probably nothing more cruel than this.Therefore, when they are approaching retirement, they are either reluctant to stay at home, or close their doors, and become a little nervous in spirit. That's it, once retired most men will feel lonely.Most of men's interpersonal relationships are related to their social status. Once they stop working, their interpersonal relationships will become narrow.There are fewer New Year's cards, and fewer social activities at the end of the year; friends are fewer, and the subordinates who originally catered to them are also alienated from them. They suddenly wake up and look back: their surroundings are empty.In addition, once the retirement income is naturally reduced, it is no longer possible to control the financial power at home. Indeed, for men, retirement means loss of status, loss of relationships, loss of financial power, if not all that they once had.It is unimaginable for women that retirement brings such a great mental blow to men. In addition, in terms of physicality, men who are approaching retirement tend to have a sharp decline in libido.Its specific manifestations generally begin at the age of fifty-five, and from one to sixty years old, many people have sexual failure caused by the sense of spiritual loss.That is, for men, sixty to seventy years old can be said to be the sunset of life in a sense. However, not everyone will have this experience.Among the people who can still maintain the momentum of prosperity after the age of sixty are artists, people in the entertainment industry, etc., as well as successful people in freelance work and powerful factory directors and managers. They all have strength in terms of society and economy. .But such people are rare after all. In real life, most men will decline sharply in both spirit and body when they reach the age of sixty. In this way, men who have lost everything and fell into loneliness will return to their wives as soon as they rise from the blow.Because after all, there is a sense of reassurance and security around my wife.Afterwards, they began to look for hobbies other than work and explore new life values: playing Go, cultivating orchids, turning fields, obsessed with photography, developing the habit of collecting objects, and so on.In addition, some people seek spiritual sustenance in the family by pampering their grandchildren. In this way, on the surface, it seems that men are getting closer and closer to their families, but deep down they have a dissatisfaction that is at a loss.They are full of thoughts of wanting to do something, of trying to break out of the situation.For a man who has been in the corporate office, there is no greater stress than when every day is Sunday.Until they get used to the situation, some people feel idle, bored, and anxious, which in turn alienates them from their families.Many of them maintain the habit of working in the company before, and they have to go somewhere when they wake up in the morning, otherwise they will be bored.They either go to the store or the go court, or buy a monthly pass to go to the parks and libraries in the center of the city.They will eventually get used to the fact that every day is Sunday, but it usually takes at least two to three years. Living in a society based on seniority, men are used to the way of life where superiors give orders to subordinates. When they return home after retirement, they also habitually use the tone of subordinates to their wives. At this time, they will be refuted by their wives: Why do you use this way? Tone? It can be seen that husbands who have lost their financial strength while retiring have a lower status than their wives at home, and some people even cannot escape the fate of being treated as so-called bulky garbage. Of course, the husbands also have certain responsibilities for this situation.They used to be busy with work or hanging out with their male colleagues, leaving the family to their wives and not caring what their wives were thinking or feeling. As soon as his wife wanted to talk to him about the children and in-laws, he would say: Those things are up to you, or I'm tired, so don't talk about those annoying things.If his wife criticizes him for his attitude, he will say: I am working for you, and sometimes even brazenly say: Who is feeding you and so on.Desperate for her husband, the wife seeks out female friends to enrich her life, unknowingly becoming a stranger to her husband and closing herself off in the world she has built. So wives will feel depressed when they think that their husbands will stay at home every day after retirement.However, at the same time, the husbands have been neglecting housework for a long time and are used to being hands-off, so they can't do anything at home except complain about making tea, not having enough snacks, and so on. However, at this time and at that time, the wives have to go out frequently because they want to study and participate in public welfare activities.In this way, if the husbands stay at home all day, they will feel uncomfortable.Husbands, too, are jealous of wives who are strenuously engaged in social activities, and whenever their wives are ready to go out, they have to say something grumpy and where is it?Don't come back late or something like that.Husbands living in vertical societies can neither socialize well with their neighbors nor expand their social circles from now on, so they become more and more dependent on their wives, which makes the problem even worse. Here is a story told to me by an acquaintance: He worked late every day during his office hours, or went to Ginza for entertainment.However, since he retired, he has nothing to do and doesn't know how to spend every day.Sweep the garden in the morning, then go for a jog, eat lunch when you come back, go swimming in the afternoon, then take a nap, drink beer and watch sumo on TV after waking up.This is how he spends every day.However, due to his harmonious relationship with his wife, his wife very much welcomes him to stay at home.Both running and swimming are performed by couples. Perhaps this kind of life can be regarded as a stable and prosperous life in their later years. However, if there is a lack of love between husband and wife, then the husband will stay at home all day and pester her, and the wives will feel depressed. In this way, they will have no choice but to increase their dislike for their husbands. This kind of tragedy between couples may be rooted in the fact that both parties have different conceptions of marriage since they got married. Later, this difference in conception has not been eliminated, and it has accumulated over time, eventually causing discord in old age. As an office worker, the husband always thinks that he is working for the family when he is young and strong, but never thinks that his wife is tasting alienation and loneliness at this moment.That is, the husband only pays attention to maintaining the form of marriage and bears financial responsibility, while neglecting the wife.Because what they pay attention to is the essence of marriage, the quality of marriage, and the content of the relationship that both parties should build. Of course, the husbands will also think in their hearts: they seldom spend time with their wives during working hours, and they should spend more time with their wives as compensation after retirement.They also firmly believe that their wives will be willing to accept themselves at that time, and they will travel together and spend the good time in their later years together.In fact, it is not too late to think this way. Although it is a little late to realize it, as long as the wife accepts it, tolerates it, and implements it, the elderly couple may experience the happiness of marriage again.