2015.11.15
只要是我所喜欢的东西，不管是吃的穿的用的，先生永远都是支持我的，他只嫌我买得不够多。当然我想是因为本身我就很节约，从来都不会乱花钱，为自己买什么都是坚持只买“需要的”，而不是“想要的”，所以先生放心我花出去的每一个子儿，不怕我浪费，只怕我太亏待自己……这样，家里的这些事情呢，他总是同意我做出的一切决定，从来也不会有什么意见不一致。
只要是我想做的事，他也总是支持。他说如果我不向往豪车豪宅，那么他工作赚钱养家就可以，我呢就随便做自己想做的事情，多做一些以前必须要赚钱的时候想做却没有办法做的事。我去做义工，写文章，做录音，这些他都非常支持，在我软弱、疲累、泄气的时候，他总是一直给我打气。
有时我说我天天也是忙忙忙，可是金钱上对家庭一点贡献都没有，觉得很愧疚。他说他是在赚地上的钱，我却是在往天上的银行存款，他说他最大的骄傲就是有能力可以支持我做这些不赚钱的事。他还说他只是在赚钱，而我做的事却能感动人心，让世界有所不同……嘿嘿，好得安慰呀。所以，在这方面他都是给积极的意见，解答我的问题，给我推荐好故事好音乐，在我不敢开车的时候做司机接送病友，在我流泪的时候借他的肩膀给我靠一靠，我完全没有理由不接纳这些意见和帮助呀。
想来，其实我的任何事情他都一直说yes，可是反过来，我却是经常给他反对意见。只不过，我的态度基本还算是温和的。总是要他吃得更健康，要他锻炼更多一些，睡眠更多一些，工作少一点，花钱注意一点……大多数时候他尽力听我的，少部分时候我宽容一些，比如放纵他吃点甜品，买些我觉得太贵的东西。他不管做什么也是要问我的意见，不管是yes或者no我都会表达我的看法，但我将决定权都留给他，很少说“不管怎样我就是要这样”。
记得最近的一次，他问我可不可以买几本书。他是一个书虫，不断地从Amazon上面买书，一两天就看完一本。这种事情一般我没时间过问，一个月看一次账户，频率太高了就警告他一下而已。但那次他开口后，我说买书不用问我意见呀，他说这次不同，因为很贵。我问有多贵，他支支吾吾说，三本书要好几百美金。我气血上涌，马上说Noooooooo! 但他说是在搜藏一个作家的所有作品，几十本都买了便宜的旧书，但是最后几本绝版了，所以要高价买进。又说是他父母和他妹妹也都喜爱的书，也想分享给他们看……总之说了一大堆，我说换作我是绝对不会这样花钱的，不过他可以买，如果他觉得和上帝能说得通。最后，他告诉我，说通了，因为他从来不乱花钱买奢侈品，不要名牌衣服啊，鞋啊，包，西服啊，不打高尔夫，不泡酒吧，上帝不会怪他把钱用来买一个非常正派的基督徒作家的书，而且这辈子也许就此一次。我自己都不相信，我最后竟然真让他买了。我想，最终还是因为我爱他，喜欢看到他开心的样子，再说也真是难得这样的奢侈。我想，若是我要买件一千美金的大衣，他肯定是毫不犹豫说Yes。（写到这里，去问他，他果真没有一秒钟的犹豫就说好呢。我说，你求我买，我都不会买！哈哈）
夫妻之间真是该做什么都有商有量，而且要从对方的角度出发去考虑问题，要多多换位思考，多多体谅对方。本来两人就是从不同家庭或是文化背景出来的，思维方式和行事习惯肯定有所不同。
如果一方总是霸气地说：“我觉得不需要，我觉得没必要，以前我在我爸妈家的习惯是这样这样……”言下之意什么都必须遵照他/她的惯有方式，却不听对方的理由、对方的需求，这样的自我中心真是很伤感情的。如果总是看重到底是听了谁的主张，总要争出一个你错我对，哪怕伤了对方的心都无所谓，最后是没有一个赢家的。
先生：Kenny，60后，美国人，咨询公司主管
当年Helen嫁给我的时候，我是这样的一个美国人：
我在奥克拉荷马州长大，是“红脖子”乡下人，小时候受过洗，又做了好多年“不可知论者”，然后又重新拾回基督信仰。我在普林斯顿大学修了古典文学。然后娶了一个美国女孩，不幸她有精神方面的问题，我花了十七年想使婚姻好起来，最后还是经历了冗长的痛苦不堪的离婚。我曾经是专业的期货交易员，然后又做旅游咨询。我与前妻有四个孩子，又从哈萨克斯坦收养了四个孩子。我收养的大女儿（她只讲俄文）嫁给了一个也是从哈萨克斯坦来的讲俄文的男孩，他们使我有了一个外孙女儿，他们一家三口当时还与我住在一起。另外还有一个寄养在我家的十几岁的女孩，她基本也是只讲俄文。
那是一个非常复杂的家庭，有很多的问题，但都没有一个很清楚的解决办法，也面临很多选择，却也不知道怎样的选择才是正确的。
然后我娶了Helen。那时她的状况是这样：
虽然在国际贸易领域她曾经在上海和香港为韩国、意大利的公司工作过，可她一直是在中国长大的。自然，在她这一代，她是没有见过超出三个孩子的家庭，更不要说多于八个的了。她最想要的是一个简单的有安全感的生活。儿子一岁多的时候她的婚姻破裂，然后她成了一个基督徒。她在父母帮助照看儿子的情况下，努力工作，给自己和儿子营造了一个稳定的家。可，然后她嫁给了我，她放弃了简单稳定的上海生活，带着她七岁的、当时还不会讲英文的儿子搬到美国的休斯顿，与她同住在一个屋檐下的还有我、我的孩子、加上我收养的孩子和外孙女。
如此，你可以想象了吧，在我和Helen的婚姻中，我们一直都能清醒意识到两点，也是很重要的两点：
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第一，很多的事情，我们一定都会从不同的角度去看。所以我们需要很努力，而且可能需要努力很长时间，去找到让我们双方都满意的答案。
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第二，我们俩都能教对方很多，也能从对方那里学到很多，只要我们都能用真诚、谦卑、耐心去对待对方，我们绝对有希望在一起做出更好的决定，而且是凭我们自己无法做出的好决定。
第二点也可以这样说：一起做决定比我们单独做决定是要困难一些，但我们为共同决策去努力，这会让我们俩都更得益处。
你能看到，对我俩来说，“炼爱”的功课体现了一些我们从婚姻的起初就非常重视的东西。这也不是说我们是多么有智慧、多么神圣的人。如果我娶了一个奥克拉荷马州的女人，从开头我们对很多事情看法都会相同，那就有可能会忽视努力听取对方意见、做出共同决定有多重要。但对我和Helen来说，从一开始我们就很明白，如果我们不拿出团队精神来做共同决策，那我们的婚姻很快就会玩完了。
我想，可以这么说，如果你看看我们一起所做过的决策，我和她都能指着一个长长的清单告诉你说：“如果我还是单身的话，我才不会做出那个选择。”但我们都相信，作为夫妻和一个复杂的大家庭的头儿，我们的决策总体来说做得还不错，还是找到了满好的出路。对夫妻而言，这真是重中之重，如果我们两个不努力定睛在这点上的话，都不能想象我们的婚姻会怎样。
When Helen married me, I was an American who:
•Had grown up as an Oklahoma redneck as a Baptist, spent years as an agnostic, back to be a Christian again.
•Had gone off to Princeton University and gotten a degree in classics.
•Had married an American girl who unfortunately turned out to have mental problems, and had spent seventeen years trying to make the marriage work before it ended in a painful and drawn-out divorce.
•Had taken on a professional career as a futures trader and then as a traveling consultant.
•Had had four children with the American wife.
•Had acquired four more adopted children from Kazakhstan, and then had additionally acquired a Russian-speaking son-in-law (also from Kazakhstan) married to my oldest, Russian-speaking-only daughter, the two of whom had presented me with a granddaughter…and all three were still living in my house, along with a primarily Russian-speaking teenaged foster daughter.
That is a very complicated family that poses many problems without very obvious solutions, and many difficult choices with no clear way to tell which choices are the correct ones. Then I married Helen, who:
•Had lived her entire life in the PRC, though she had worked in international business in Shanghai and HK with Korean and Italian companies.
•As a natural consequence of growing up in the PRC, had never seen a family from her generation with more than three children, let alone with eight-plus.
•Likes above all things to have a simple and secure life.
•Had herself, when her son was one year old, been divorced by her husband.
•Had become a Christian.
•Had put her life back together after her divorce and built a secure home for herself and her son, with her parents’ help in watching Kai while Helen worked.
•Had to give up her stable and secure and above all simple Shanghai life, and had to move herself and her seven-year-old son (who did not speak English) to Houston to take up residence with me and my collection of children and foster children and grandchild.
So you can imagine that Helen and I have been very much aware, throughout our marriage, of two very important things. The first was that there were going to be some areas where we were going to see things from VERY different perspectives and would have to work VERY hard, and perhaps for a very long time, to find answers that would ultimately satisfy us both. The second was that each of us a lot to teach the other and a lot to learn from the other, and if we could just deal with other in honesty and humility and patience, we had every reason to hope that together we would wind up making better decisions together than either of us would have been able to make on his/her own.
The second point could be put a different way: it would be harder to make decisions together than it would have been for each of us to make decisions alone, but we would both be better off for having made the effort.
For us, you see, this dare represents something we have worked very hard on since the beginning of our marriage. But that’s not because we are such godly and wise people. If I had married another American girl from Oklahoma, then we might have gotten away with ignoring the importance of working together for awhile, because we would probably have agreed on most things to begin with. But for Helen and I, from the very beginning, it was patently obvious that if we did not concentrate on making decisions as a team, our marriage would fail right out of the gate.
So, I think it is safe to say that if you look at what we have chosen to do together, each of us can point at a long list of decisions we’ve made and lived with, and say, “If I had still been single I would NOT have made that choice” — but each of us (I think I can speak for Helen here as well as myself) believes that we have done a generally good job of finding the way forward for us as a couple and as the leaders of a large and very complex family. And neither of us is, I think, under any illusions about what would happen to our marriage if we were to stop focusing on this as one of the greatest points of emphasis as a couple.
