The First Post Online Daily Magazine 上的文章。这位自称“孤独并沮丧”的女人，因在人生遭遇失落的时候，除了丈夫的一句“你是我老婆”的心灵表白以外，得不到他感性的抚慰而痛苦。看上去，这种情形要是发展下去，女人就有可能去找外遇，然后是丈夫忍无可忍，情感破裂，走向离婚也不足为奇。（是不是蛮有想像力的？:)
关于男人和女人的话题，自从人们进入文明社会开始，就不曾过时。但是，当我们忿忿不平地相互抱怨的时候，有没有想过，我们所有的憎恨、痛苦和无奈皆因相互间的爱恋、依靠和期望而起。而我们相互吸引乃是因为我们是如此的不同。如果男人和女人没有差别，彼此就将形同陌路，所有的爱恨情仇、大喜大悲也便不复存在。人生如戏，差异化才是这部戏的看点。
这位大姐结婚六年，仍然对相互间的差异感到困惑，是不是稍显木讷了？生活的routine总是让我们变得疏于沟通和思考；而没有这些，两颗灵魂又如何能够走近？
痛苦，很多时候倒是源于我们的臆想。
如果在家里少做一顿饭，能够换来优雅餐厅里2个小时的温婉对话，这个世界就会少一些孤独的灵魂，包括大人的和小孩的。
几周前，看完The Lake House，靠着吧台，啜着红酒，和LG长聊到深夜，重温了恋爱史，也分享了彼此的一点小秘密，温馨和感动自不言喻；我知道，这样的谈话，每进行一次都是在增加这个婚姻的砝码。
Dear Elizabeth,
My husband is making me miserable because he totally refuses to engage with me on any level except the superficial. My beloved father died six months ago and, since then, my husband has not once raised the subject to ask me how I feel. When he finds me in tears, he just pats me on the back and goes out of the room.
On the day I rang from the hospital to tell him my father had died, he just went silent. It has made me so unhappy that finally, the other day, I asked him how he felt about me. He shrugged and said: "You're my wife."
When I ask similar questions, he stares at me blankly. He simply refuses to drop his defences and let out his feelings. It's like he is just going through the motions.
We've been married for six years, have a son and a daughter, and he's honestly lovely in every other way. He gets up in the night to nurse our one-year-old, never takes a day off from his engineering firm, always does the washing up and never gets angry. But I need some emotion too! Am I being too demanding? Is this an unreasonable request?
Yours, Forlorn and Frustrated
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Dear Forlorn and Frustrated
What is going on here is that you are longing for empathy. Your father died six months ago. Reeling from one of the worst losses a person can face, you crave sympathy - a sense of being seen.
And you aren't. It feels like a slap in the face. It feels like a whole part of you is being shut out of the relationship. It feels like your marriage is dry and superficial, confined to the practicalities of childcare and washing up.
It's invalidating. You get angry; you get sad. Then you ask yourself forlornly: should I be this upset?
After all, this man is kind and decent. So you ask him how he feels. "You're my wife," he replies. And your soul shrivels a little more.
Is that all he can say? Is that the extent of his love - a wife-shaped hole? I have to warn you, it may be.
Stop - it's not as bad as it sounds. This problem is really one of comprehension. Or rather translation because you and your husband are talking different languages.
Yours is a language of romance that's emotional and complex; his is Anglo-Saxon, short and to the point. For him, it is enough to say he married you. He promised to stay with you till death, to protect you and cherish you, to be faithful. No doubt he has done all of that, and is doing it. To him, that says it all.
No doubt too, in his mind, he was there for you when your father died. He was on the end of the phone, when what he heard made him feel uncomfortable and uneasy. He was there when you came home. He listened. But he didn't empathise. Perhaps he couldn't. He is an engineer. He understands the mechanics of things, not their souls.
So, yes, it is absolutely reasonable to feel upset. It is only human. But to answer your deeper question: no, he may never open up.
So often in life, I've noticed, we believe that everyone has a profound emotional core: that their true self is there to be discovered, lurking beneath layers of defences.
The truth can be more prosaic. Many people are just straightforward. They have no deep emotional core.
Like a stubborn prospector, you keep trying to punch through to your husband's outer layer. But perhaps his mother lode of passion just isn't there. He is not being difficult. He just doesn't possess what you are after, poor man.
I know how hard, how isolating it is for you. But it must be tough for him too. He has no idea what it is you want. I think I can guess what he might say if you asked if he ever gets angry.
"Nope. I pretty much take things as they come."
The challenge for you, I think, is to take him in the same spirit.
Yours, Elizabeth
