Learn to say, "Yes, you are right"

Lately seem to hear quite often a lot of complaints from some old friends about their spouses. One particular case was quite serious. The old couple(retirees) had been on cold war for quite some time. Not money issue and no third party involved, the wife said she just could not bear anymore her husband's indifferent attitude, e.g. not putting things back in proper place after using or simply throwing plastic shopping bags around. What agitated her most was he would not admit his mistakes. All these led to frequent arguments.

"Why should I be the one to tidy up his mess all the time? It's enough and I want a divorce!" she said.

Divorce? After tolerated his behaviour for almost half a century and now you are losing your patience? You have forgotten how you both had struggled together in your earlier days to build up a beautiful home? Life was definitely much tougher then, but you were contented and didn't make any complain. Now that the children have grown up and your responsibilities are relatively lighter, you should just sit back and relax without much worries. It's ironic that at this juncture, you begin to sweat over tiny issues and yell at each other for every little mistake made. Isn't it time to treasure each other's company? Don't you realise that life is short and it's silly to waste time arguing over trivial things?

We must admit that as we grow old, we are more grumpy and stubborn. And because of our stubbornness, we often insist that we are right and "force" the other party to accept, not knowing that sometimes we could be wrong too! If both parties keep on insisting that they are right and nobody is willing to give the other party an out, we would expect endless fight on similar issues every now and then.

So be humble and never, never assume that we are right in all cases. Believe me, trying hard to prove the other party is wrong serves no purpose at all at this age. Why stress out ourselves unnecessarily each day fighting battles after battles?

It's time we learn to compromise and say, "Yes, you are right." ! This could save your day.