“Make him fall in love again — then divorce him”

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• The two sisters: one with a husband, one without

  In brief: Two Thai sisters come for counselling. The elder can't stand her Australian husband and is considering divorce ('recycling'); the younger…

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  These two Thai sisters came one day to see me. Oh, I'll never forget this. They still come to feed us every now and again, but they wanted personal counseling. And so I talked to them and the elder sister first. And the elder sister said to me, he said, "Oh, you know, I've got a husband, a Western husband, Australian guy." He said, "I can't stand him." There's so much suffering and and now I'm just really wondering should I keep working on this? Is it really salvageable or should I sort of get divorced and try again? And you all know again I don't call it divorce anymore. I sped this word around in Singapore. They really liked it. We don't call it divorce. What do we call it in Buddhism? Recycling. Yes. It's a much much more positive word. So, and she was thinking of getting divorced. And so, I gave her some nice ideas about how to solve the problems in a marriage because it's not that hard to solve problems in marriage. Even as a monk, I can do that. Like, oh, this great story which just comes to my mind. Some of these are golden oldies, but you know, they're just great stories about this because actually the lady who told me this, you know, I was uh had lunch with her yesterday in Singapore. She told me that she was a bit of a marriage counselor in her early years and she had one client who came to her Singapore lady. She couldn't stand her husband because her husband was coming home very late at night. She was certain that he had a mistress. And so she told the marriage counselor, you know, actually I don't really need counseling. I just want to get rid of the guy. I want to divorce. I want to separate. Just help me get rid of him. And a marriage counselor was a very very smart girl. She said, "Look, if you divorce him now, do you think he will be happy or he'll be miserable?" And she thought about actually it's what he wants. He'd be really happy. And in your present state, do you want him to be happy? No, I want him to be miserable. So this is the plan. Don't get divorced yet when he, you know, doesn't like you. Go out and get a really good hairstyle. Go and get your face, you know, made up. Go and learn a bit more grooming. Go and get some sexy clothes. And when he comes home, just being really nice to him. Just cuddle him and see what happens. because you fell in love once, see if you can make him fall in love with you again. And when he does fall in love with you again, then divorce him. Yeah. Yeah. What a great idea. So that's what they did. She spent a lot of money just getting sort of uh uh face done up and nice hairstyle and what they call it, a makeover. A nice makeover. So she really looked much more attractive and every week go and see the marriage counselor. He started coming home earlier and earlier and earlier. He started becoming more affectionate towards her and they'd always ask how's it going? Yeah, he's you know he's becoming much more affectionate. It's really seems to be working. He's falling in love with me again. And then she missed an appointment. And so the the counselor called her up at home said, "You missed an appointment this week. What happened?" He said, "Oh, well, he's having such a lot of time. He's fallen in love with me. I'm sure of it." "Great," said the counselor. "Now's the time to divorce him." "Oh, no. We're so much in love now." Mission accomplished. Cuz all it is that sometimes is we have a little bit of problems in life, but there's always ways we can work it out. They fall in love with you once, why not try and fall in love again? Now do something like romantic. No, don't come. Honestly, don't come to the Buddhist society if you want to have a nice romance. You know, we're going to get soon another couple of months Valentine's Day. Go and get her a present. Like that one of my favorite jokes like the person who asked his his wife, he said, "Valentine's Day tomorrow, darling, what do you want?" And she said, "I need nothing. I've got you." He said, "Yes, but what do you want?" He'd been married long enough to know women. And so she looked at him and said, "Something, anything with diamonds in." So when she opened her present the following day, she found a pack of playing cards. It has 13 diamonds in it. So that's what you guys you can get for your your wife's Christmas present. A pack of play cards. Diamonds, darling. Diamonds are a girl's best friend. Anyway, back to reality. So I told this lady, you've got husband suffering. That's what it's like having a husband. you ask other women and it's just it's a difficulty having a relationship. It's not easy but you know you can work at it and make it work. And the junior sister, this the younger one of course her problem was she was looking for a partner in life like many people do. They can't find one. You know they find someone who's just almost okay but then it just all goes pear-shaped. It doesn't work. And people keep telling me actually see all these girls coming up here say I just really need a partner in life. I'm looking for someone to go out with and share my life with someone I can trust. And see all these nice guys come up. I'm looking for a girl. I really should start a dating agency cuz I've got all these potential clients and they're all really nice people. I can't understand it cuz I've known some of these people for such a long time. Why can't you get on together? You I get on with you. Really nice people, really good people. But anyway, this is coming in in a few moments. But I told this lady said, "You you are looking for a husband, somebody you can share your life with. And your elder sister has got a husband she doesn't want. I can see a solution." And I actually said that they got very upset at me. I don't know why. It's logic. It's reason. Your sister's got a husband she doesn't want. a younger sisters and I wants one share. Isn't that what brothers and sisters are supposed to do? But then I told her, okay, you've got, you know, a single woman suffering. And I said, if you find a partner in life, you'll have what your elder sister have, married woman suffering. And so they actually understood that. They said, "Yeah, you're right. And if you're married, you have married woman suffering. If you're single, you have single woman suffering." So they thought they'd become nuns. And I said, "If you become nuns, then you have none suffering. Go and ask the nuns at Gijigan.

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• 20,000 to one: the husband who lied once

  In brief: After a talk in Malaysia a mathematics lecturer asks whether to divorce her husband because she discovered he lied. Ajahn Brahm does the…

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  The classic tale was when I was teaching in Malaysia, and somebody asked me this question at the end of the talk. I have found out this morning my husband has lied to me. My husband has lied. I can't trust him anymore. Should I get divorced? She asked me whether she should get divorced. Quick I asked her what are you doing at this university. She was a lecturer on mathematics. So I saw an opportunity to answer her question, I asked how long have you been married, she said three years. I said let's do some statistics. Three years is maybe one thousand days. Lets say for the sake of this argument, let's assume that on average throughout your three years of marriage, your husband has said maybe twenty things to you every day, on average, which could be right, which could be wrong. So he's said twenty thousand statements to you since you've been married and now he's lied for the first time. The quantum probability theory on his past record, the next time he opens his mouth there is a twenty thousand to one chance he's telling the truth. What do you mean you can't trust him? [LAUGHTER] Isn't that pretty good odds, twenty thousand to one? If every time a politician opened their mouth with twenty thousand to one chance they're telling the truth, I'd vote for them, wouldn't you? They'd be trust worthy. But you can see what we've pointed out, that why is it that one lie, a real lie, they'd lied, why is that given so much prominence that everything else is totally forgotten and ignored? This is the stupidity of our human being which is just so fault finding and negative it hasn't got a balanced perspective on life. That lady wanted to destroy her marriage. Once I told her that story they stayed together.

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• The embassy couples who got back together

  In brief: After his first book, opening with the two-bad-bricks story, becomes popular, Ajahn Brahm is invited to Bangkok: of four couples at the…

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  I got this invitation to go to Bangkok. Four couples in the Australian Embassy in Bangkok had marital trouble. Two were divorced. They've gone through the divorce proceedings. Two were separated but not divorced yet. When they read that story, they came together again. Amazing, they were divorced. But they decided to come together again, separated ones came together again. And they wanted to see me. They want to say thank you. So they bought me an airline ticket to go to Bangkok, paid everything. So I gave a talk for the people in the Australian Embassy in Bangkok. Say thank you. It worked.

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• 'Now I've got you exactly where I want you'

  In brief: A monk visiting his family in Chicago slips on the ice and breaks his leg. When his mother comes into the hospital room, he has never seen…

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  Like one of these monks, he was visiting his family over in Chicago years ago. I know Chicago is can be really cold, very windy, and when it does get icy, it's very, very slippy in Chicago. He slipped over and he did broke his leg, break his leg. And he told me afterwards he was taken to hospital with a broken leg. And of course, you know, they contacted his mother who lived in Chicago. And when she came into the room to see her son with a broken leg, he told me he never seen his mother smile so much. She was so happy. How can you be happy when your son's in pain and broken his leg? And she said, "Now, son, I've got you exactly where I want you. You can't go back to Thailand and and become a monk or or Sri Lanka and just disappear in some cave somewhere. You're in the hospital. You can't go anywhere. Now, I'm going to mother you whether you like it or not.

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