Love Advice

A couple days ago, I watched on YouTube an interview between Ellen Degeneres and Will Smith on one of The Ellen Degeneres Shows. You can check the interview by these links Will Smith on Ellen Part1 and Will Smith on Ellen Part2 . (Personally I like Will Smith a lot as an actor).

In this full-of-fun interview, he talks about many things from his movies to his personal experiences about this and that. Of all the points about which he talked, I was really interested in what he said ‘remove the divorce option’.

Ellen asked him about his relationship status with his spouse ‘Jada Pinkett Smith’ with whom he has been married for more than a decade. I believe you can actually infer from the interview that Will gave a fascinating response by saying his wife and he deleted the divorce option so as to be able to happily live with one another.

As Will said in the interview, couples may find a reason to make divorce happen one day if they have the option available. The reason sometimes may not be even logical, yet it could drive the couples crazy, thus ending up in divorce. Just like people never want to quit but end up quitting because they have the quit option, most people tend to quit on their relationship because they have the option.

Personally I relate a lot to Will’s comment since his is exactly what I have been doing with my finance. Over the last 4 years, I’ve got to admit that Pagna and I have had countless arguments and disagreements whether in terms of preferences or ideas. Many times, some of them were so serious that they almost led us to breakup. Yet, we just could not have broken up because we together decided to delete the option so early at the start of our relationship.

Is deleting the divorce option really Unfair to women?

Honestly, I literally talked to my baby about the interview after I watched it, and was kind of surprised to hear her comments. She said, and I quote “deleting the divorce option actually favors men because they can have an affair with another girl and still feel confident that his wife will never divorce him”.

For female readers, are you satisfied with her response? Personally, I understood her point very well because those words were coming from a girl or lady born and raised in Cambodia, a country somehow not much influenced by the concept of feminism yet.

Traditionally speaking, Cambodian men have more power than women in the family because men work in the society and earn money to support the family while women stay at home and look after the children. Even though the wind has changed and more and more Cambodian women are employed, the number of male workers is still more than that of female ones, thus making the current society of Cambodia male-dominant.

You know what happens when a society is dominated by any group of people, right?  The group is able to do anything without worrying much of being punished. For example, some Cambodian men have affair(s) with other girls without being scared of getting kicked out of the house because they know that their wife could never do that to them.

Reading this article, most guys will think that I am getting stupid now because I’m a guy and should not be revealing men’s secret to women since they might want to hide it so that they are able to take advantage of their girls such as by having affairs, and etc.

However I think it’s high time men knew that women are no longer submissive or say stupid. Personally to all guys reading this, girls, ladies or women nowadays choose to stay with you because they love you and think you love them too; having said that, they can also choose to stay away from you if you play too much or hard till they think or feel that you aren’t in love with them anymore.

To say that men or specifically Cambodian men might take advantage of Cambodian women when the divorce option is deleted in the relationship could be a mistake because women who used to be the victims in relationships have transformed themselves to victors.

Thanks to education and media, more and more women now get access to information related to their rights as a human being, become educated, work in the society, feed themselves and/or other members of the family, and do many things that men can do and that women were not believed to be capable of doing at all. This has allowed women to fight against the confinement of their life and demand what they deserve.

Just in Cambodia alone, I’ve seen, heard or read about cases of a woman dumping their husband in order to be with someone else or a woman using domestic violence against their husband. The world has really changed, and a woman now could cost as many troubles as a man could possibly do.

It is not about domination, but happiness.

That I mentioned quite a lot about domination of men or women is not to trigger your sense of domination. Yet, my intention is to point out to you that it’s no good to dominate and that it’s almost always better to be equal. Domination leads to destruction rather than happiness.

Personally, I strongly believe that for any relationship to prosper, it takes two sides, man and woman. The absence of cooperation from any stakeholder could cause damage to the happiness of the relationship.

Even though men and women are made to be different, it doesn’t necessarily mean that one group should take advantage of another. To be better, the two groups should join hands and combine their unique strengths together. For instance, generally speaking men are physically stronger than women while women are more sensitive than men. So, instead of hitting, men should use force to protect women while women should use their sensitiveness to understand rather cheat men.

They say ‘two heads are better than one’. I think they are better only when the two compromise and/or cooperate well with one another.

So, for two people to live happily together, they should first learn to live with each other, and as for learning, making mistake(s) is almost always a common phenomenon and might happen very often. When it happens so often, it surely affects the feelings of people involved and makes either one or both of them want to quit on the pursuit of living with one another, thus leading to what most people in relationship call ‘end road’.

Reaching the end road, most couples who have the divorce option will certainly split up. However, for those like Will and Jada who don’t have the divorce option because they unanimously decide to remove it, the divorce is just not possible.

What happens when there is no divorce option?

When there is no divorce option, pessimistic people might view it as a bad thing since two people have to live with one another even though they can’t do it or don’t necessarily have to because there are billions of choices out there.

However, optimistic people would view it as a good thing since two people have a wide range of opportunities to learn to live with one another even though they are now having problems.

I don’t know for you, but the latter applies to me much more appropriately because I’m a very optimistic person in life and relationship. I want to get better in it, so I’d rather solve the problems than escape from them. Let’s be frank. Problems sometimes happen from our side, thus making our changing of other people irrelevant to the solving of the problems. To solve the problems, we should learn to change ourselves.

I believe it usually takes time for two people to be able to happily live as couples or find happiness in their relationship. The time may be short or long depending on the efforts and/or commitment of the individuals involved.

What can Students Learn from This Personal Development Lesson?

Nowadays, students especially those in high school and university are very active in forming relationships. Unlike those in the past eras, many contemporary students are brave and absolutely not conservative when it comes to relationship issue. They are confident to express themselves out to their partner(s).

Yet, that they are confident or brave in forming relationship doesn’t necessarily mean that they are able to hand their relationship well. Some of them might take quick actions. For example, they choose their partners based on the first sight or without knowing much about them. So, when problems arise, they tend to break up by admitting that they were not serious enough from the beginning.

So, my suggestion as a Personal Development lesson for students is: if you want to form a relationship with anyone, choose your partner carefully and/or slowly if possible. By slowly, I refer to a couple of years spent together with them to understand and learn as much as possible from them.

Then, when you decide to get serious with the relationship, ask your partner to agree and together delete the ‘Divorce’ or ‘Breakup’ option.

Relationship is a very complicated thing, I believe. There is no absolute, correct how-to(s) that can be applied to all relationships. Your relationship is surely different from mine. Yet, what I’ve shared with you is just something I want you to know that it works for me in my relationship. Of course, I’m not sure it will work for you. You’ve got to test it and see the results by yourself, and I believe it doesn’t cost you that much to try something that others have personally used and experienced as effective in your relationship so that your partner and you could live in happiness too.

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