Did My Husband Change - Or Did I Just Not See It?

A person falls in love with someone who is kind, sweet, polite, someone who becomes the love of their life. Then, as the years go by, the situation often changes, and the person becomes unbearable. Suddenly, it turns out that the other person isn’t really as kind, as chivalrous, etc., as we once thought. Or is there something else wrong with them? Or maybe there’s nothing wrong at all? “My husband has changed so much,” says a friend of mine. “You wouldn’t know, but when we first met, he was so different: kind, considerate, a true gentleman. And now? There’s no trace of that man who used to be. He’s insufferable and impossible. I have no idea what happened to him; I think it’s his friends influencing him.” “What about the relationship before him?” I ask. “That one was just as foolish too,” she replies. “Then maybe,” I say, “it’s not just them. It could also be that you made a poor choice—that you picked the same type again.” “No!” she says firmly. “My second husband was completely normal when we met. He only became foolish during our marriage. I don’t know when or how, but at the beginning, he was different.” "I’m just saying,” I say cautiously, “consider the possibility that, in some way, your husband’s current self was already in him from the start.” A week passes, and my friend calls me.

She met her husband’s friends and they talked about old times, about the years when she first met her second husband, she recounts. It didn’t take long before she brought up the thought that her husband had changed terribly. From the decent, normal man he had once been, he had become a complete idiot, she said, and then began listing her husband’s faults at length. The group looked on in shock, unable to understand why she was so upset, because, they insisted emphatically, he had always been exactly like that—even when she first met him, and even before that. He certainly hadn’t changed at all since they had known him; that was just his style… “How can this be?” she turned to me. “As I said,” I replied, “this man was your choice.” “But why did I choose such a fool?” she asked. “That, I cannot tell you,” I said. “You have to ask yourself, not anyone else. And also: why didn’t you want to see it until now? And why didn’t you want to see it back when you chose him?” — Agatha Seymour /This piece was written years ago. As I return, it finds its place here once again, unchanged./