How our feelings and love change over time

Stereotypes aren’t just bad. This is an infection that does not allow the young brain to break out of the silly norm and leads to the most terrible consequences. The Soviet years have done their job – now everyone knows how to live, who to sleep with, when to have children. And God forbid deviating from the incomprehensibly invented plan. Even you and I, modern women, are also deeply stuck in these strange rules, firmly involved in endless compromises. Take, for example, the argument so beloved by mothers and grandmothers that a woman should not live alone. Like, loners or fools, or female dogs. What if everything is fine with you, and the husband with whom you lived for a good ten years not only left, but also kicked you out of the apartment? Perhaps the fact is that in pursuit of a dubious standard, you quickly connected the life of a person about whom you knew nothing. Were you happy? Or maybe you just did what was expected of you?

I am 37 years old. I am an ex-wife. I am 69 years old. I am an ex-wife. I am 25. I am an ex-wife. You hear it online, with friends, at work. And the saddest of these stories is not the divorce. Wives leave on their own, because there comes a time when they no longer understand why they have to go to bed with a stranger every night. At the beginning of a relationship, we all want to look better, we hold each other back as much as possible, sometimes it drags on for many years, until at some point our true essence breaks through. And now it’s time to get to know each other again. Women endure because they can admit something is wrong in the family only after the whole world has yelled at them. The same thing happens with the opposite sex, but with the only amendment: a single man is more likely to evoke sympathy and admiration. Poor, forced to dry clean his shirts, while he spent his evenings playing poker with friends, giving presents to his mother and his driver. Hug and cry!

And it turns out that you got married after a short stormy romance with fantastic sex, you have a Labrador, you bought a house, mom and dad are throwing money, you’re in no hurry with children, because you will live for yourself. What do you know of your husband? How will it be if there are no funds? Why are you sure he doesn’t have a mistress? Isn’t it like that? People change with age and you will begin to relate more calmly to betrayal. He came back, so he likes. Well, with whom it does not happen, do you think, stirring borscht. You can crack with a girlfriend: “I will never forgive that!” And only at that moment when a guilty bad husband and emptiness are on the scales (read: a painful search for a new partner), you will of course remember him. And it will be the same compromise in the name of the norm, which, alas, does not make anyone happier and, probably, with a bad and unexpected ending.

My friend is a man of rare spiritual qualities. Smart Well by yourself. With a confident social package, say, – cars, apartments, watches … What else is there? For twelve years he has lived with a woman he has never really loved. I started dating her at institute, because “the previous one was terrible”. Ten years later, he married because “she was worried”. He saw love as a factor in global instability, so he didn’t go beyond quick sex with former secretaries. How was his family different from the usual? Nothing. There was no closeness or chatter before going to bed. General life, holidays. And then he met his Natasha. He stopped sleeping, was late for meetings, was extremely restless, happy and unhappy. Gathering the remains of his mind, he realized that missing this woman is like flushing his life down the toilet. He hid Natasha’s presence at home. He said he did not feel guilty, because nothing connects him to his wife, only life, and here is love and real life. I didn’t want a divorce, I was afraid of tears and conversations. But when Natasha got pregnant, he quietly picked up the toothbrush and left. But this story is not about him, but about his wife. She was beside herself. Offended, humiliated and, above all, in complete shock. How? 12 years together, and it was still good! She couldn’t think that anything was wrong with her. Yes, he himself did not know until he saw how it happened. Trying to explain the reasons for her departure, my suddenly enlightened friend spoke of happiness – with a common cause, mutual friends, theaters and cinemas, predicted that she would soon find a real life again. His wife looked at him like he was an idiot and didn’t understand what he was talking about. Although you and I fully understand what is going on here, don’t we?

Billionaire Vladimir Potanin’s ex-wife Natalya lived with him for more than 30 years. She was everywhere and always near graduation exams, gave him three children. One fine day, he brutally drove out of the house, leaving penniless. They didn’t have a prenup – they used to trust each other. “The divorce petition was a shock to me. I still don’t know why it happened. I woke up with a complete stranger! – we read in GQ with horror and bewilderment.

The loudest premiere of 2014 is David Fincher’s Gone Girl. Do you really think everyone left the room in such shock just because Rosamund Pike so gracefully doused someone else’s blood during sex? Amy and Nick are two strangers in the same bed. And neither the film nor the marriage ends in divorce – after many years together, they get to know each other: an unfaithful liar and a psychopathic killer are happy together.
I don’t want to teach you. And more – to call to get to know your own husband better by drilling and cutting things. I just don’t want you, like me, to be surprised at some point that next to you is not the person you married at all. Think about it right away and leave if it’s not your dream. You’re smart enough to invent your own life, even if it doesn’t work out the first time.