The Atlantic had an interesting article - a man ruminating on his divorce.
For a long time after his divorce Mathew Fray would say:My wife left me because sometimes I leave dishes by the sink.
He left dishes by the sink and it drove his wife crazy. It took Fray a long time to realize it wasn't about the dishes. He could have easily not left dishes by the sink and his wife could have easily not cared that he did. It was just their way of expressing an ever deepening alienation with each other.
I find the story interesting because I am one of those people who does not leave dishes lying around. But when others do it does not bother me - I just put them away. I always thought of it as building karma and a what would Jesus do type of action. I rarely get upset about little things.
When people get upset by little things I do, I just don't do those things anymore. Unfortunately, that sometimes causes me to miss that it isn't the little thing that upsets the person, it is something deeper.
Sometimes people get together for the wrong reason, or one person believes the other is different than they really are, or thinks they can change the other person, or the other person does change but not in a good way. Every failed relationship is different. Sometimes broke can't be fixed. Sometime it shouldn't be fixed.
Even long after Spring lost interest in me as anything other than a source of money, I tried to keep the marriage together. I failed to realize it was well beyond fixing. Maybe I would have realized this if I had paid more attention to the little things.
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