I saw by his expression that I’d scored a bit, but that wasn’t what I wanted. It’s not a game, and I didn’t need any extra points on some imaginary scoreboards. I simply wished he could understand.

“It’s my fault, I apologize.” He said.

Honestly, I doubted it, but I was too tired to deal with this now. So I just replied: “Apologize accepted.”

He arched one eyebrow up a bit, oh, gosh, how I hate him to do that, and continued: “Really? An honest acceptance or one of these female things where a woman tells a man she forgives him for something, but then spends all her spare time thinking up ways to make him feel guilty?”

The man really knows when to stop.

For a moment, I wanted to snap back: “Is this an honest apology or one of these male things where a man tells a woman he apologizes, but actually has every intention of doing that all over again whenever got chance?”

But what’s the point of that? Doing so I was just setting myself up for more frustrations and more pains. I could see what it would come next. He would jump into defense and he would say something to upset me even more, then felt cornered, I might haul an entire army of defensive weapons into action, and seldom any of them were wisely chosen. The mutually aggravating volleying of insults might continue for some time, until some balls hit out-of-bounds, until none of us could escape unscarred from this battlefield. No, I couldn’t deal with this right now, not when I was a mess of raw nerve endings.

“It’s over. I have every intention of letting it pass. Unless you don’t want to, so don’t push it.” I said, and I meant every word of it.

Finally he hushed.

It’s the same story as always. I really wish we could have a more noble cause to fight for. But nothing mentionalbe. We have been through a bumping period. Seven-year-itches finally knocked at our door, although two years later, still spiteful. It brought out the worst of us, and we are not quite ourselves. Look at me, I don’t like sarcasm, but my voice fairly had dripped with it before I even noticed. As far as I know, he is not a violent person. But in one of impulsive moments, he smashed our TV set. What’s the hell?

What is the marriage? The Paradise or the Hell? Perhaps the both, sometimes it’s the Paradise, sometimes it’s the Hell, but most frequently every place in between. Which way to go, it’s up to the two parties concerned. It could be a heaven, offering a refuge to escape from the worries, a shelter to let down the guards and relax. It also could be a Hell. Honestly nobody looks good in bad times. However in front the outsiders, we could plaster a smile, pretend to be tough and lock our frustrations, angers, fears, and insecurities deeply down. And then coming home, we take all the bad moods out on the person we cared most in the world. We assume we have such a right, but do we? Under the name of love, do we really have a right to expose our ugliest self—and even worse stay that way? Nobody likes to be an efficient doormat, always there, always tend to help out, by submerging his/her own needs, likes and dislikes, and mirroring back only what the other wants to see. Sorry, things don’t work that way.  

It suddenly strikes me that some battles are simply not worth fighting. What’s the point if we won a battle but loose what really matters? Just as someone once said, it’s all about adjustments.