When I look at most of my childhood friends, I give thanks every time that I have neither children nor a husband. It may sound strange or make some people outraged, but it is true!
I have six female friends and all of them are unhappy, constantly complaining that their marriages are not working well. There is constant tension in their families, everyone is angry and dissatisfied, they are unhappy with their own children and they are struggling with financial problems.
They talk about problems all the time, they don’t see anything good in life, they complain that the man who used to “bring down the sky” now does nothing for them; they have to do every work around the house, often slaving not only for the children but also for their husbands. Three of my friends, despite being relatively recently married and having young children, are already contemplating divorce.
And the children… They are constantly sick, have colds, struggle with childhood illnesses, don’t listen to their parents, are always behind in their schoolwork, are demanding, messy and unreasonable. Unfortunately, that’s the general picture I see.
This is one of the reasons why I try to meet these friends as rarely as possible, and not listen to the endless complaints, dissatisfaction, and the many, many problems. Nothing is ever right for these women, there are problems with their husbands, their children, they are dissatisfied with the government, with their jobs, with the weather, and with their lives in general.
When I talk to my friends with families, I get the feeling that family and marriage are hell. Children are always noisy and sick, husbands don’t care about anything and there is never enough money.
Sadly, no one around me offers a picture of a happy family where wife and husband live in perfect harmony, support each other and children are not regarded as a burden. Sometimes when I hear their complaints, I think, “why did you get married and have children at all?” But of course, I can’t ask these questions, because that would be unacceptable…
Looking at these families, I can now understand why there are so many divorces: in roughly one in two families there is a constant battle raging on. The family is a battlefield, not an idyllic environment.
That’s why I am grateful that I divorced my first husband in time, when I realized that we were struggling with problems that would follow us for the rest of our lives and that we would not live together peacefully. I’m glad I was smart enough not to try to “fix” our relationship, and that I didn’t have a baby for the sake of whom I would have wanted to keep my marriage.
I made my own decision to never have children. I have always lived a carefree life, and I definitely know that I don’t want to be constantly having problems because of a bad marriage or a child!