There was a young couple that one day decided to get married. The husband was a normal nine to five blue collar working class employee. The wife’s work schedule was eleven to seven. Since the husband worked earlier in the day, he woke up early every morning and made breakfast for him and his wife. The wife had a hard time waking up every morning, so she never had time to eat breakfast at home and would buy breakfast on the way to work. As a typical woman, she loved to shop and buy clothing. It was extremely hard for her to save money. Since she would get home later than her husband from work everyday, he would do the household chores and prepare dinner every day after returning from work.

One day the young man’s mother decided to visit. She lived in a small village far away. She saw that her son was doing all of the household chores, working and cooking. She became very angry. Also, the mother was a very frugal person, and disliked how her daughter-in-law constantly spent money. Immediately the mother disliked her daughter-in-law and was dissatisfied with everything the daughter-in-law did.

The mother was very heart broken to see that her son worked so hard. So she decided to take over his household duties during her stay with them. Even then, the young woman woke up late and was in a rush to work every morning. She never had time to eat the breakfast that her mother-in-law had prepared. After a week had gone by, the mother-in-law could no longer take it. She complained to her son “Does your wife despise my cooking so much that she refuses to eat it every morning?” The young man in turn went to his wife and asked her to just wake up a bit earlier every morning to eat the breakfast his mother prepares.

The next morning, the young woman indeed woke up early enough to eat breakfast with her husband and mother-in-law. That morning they were having rice porridge. With the first bite, the young woman immediately noticed a strange taste. She thought to herself that it was a misconception. Therefore, she took a second bite but the funny taste was still there. She could no longer endure it and since she was at the dining table, she had to run to the bathroom to throw up in the toilet. Her mother-in-law became furious and thought to herself “Is my cooking really that bad that she has to throw it up? I can’t stand this any more. I’m going home.”

The young man immediately ran into the bathroom to his wife and said to her angrily, “If you did not want to eat the food that badly you should not have ate it! But since you chose to eat it, it was very unnecessary of you to throw it up!” Then there was a loud bang. He then went outside to see what had happened and realized that his mother had packed her luggage and had left the house. Immediately he chased after her. While running, the mother kept looking back to see if her son was following. She was not looking where she was going. She took a step on the road and immediately got hit by a speeding truck. The young man was very devastated and took his mother to the hospital nearby.

In the mean time, the young woman had no idea what was going on. She had no idea why she threw up her breakfast. She did not know why her husband and mother-in-law were so angry. That night neither the husband nor mother-in-law came home. She wondered to herself where they might have gone. The next day went by; it was very late in the night. She went to bed but was unable to fall asleep. She heard a noise at the front door. It was her husband. Since he had not contacted her for the past two days, she wanted to see what he was up to, so she pretended to sleep. He came in the bedroom and rummaged through the drawers and took out his bank account booklet. With that in hand, he left the house. The young woman was very furious. Her husband not only did not come home for two days, the first thing he did when he got home was to take the account book. She decided that since he ignored her, she would go to his workplace the next morning to talk to him.

Early morning the next day, the young woman went to her husband’s workplace. She went up to the reception counter and asked for her husband. The receptionist then said “He has not come to work for the past two days. He said his mother was involved in an accident and is at the hospital.” The young woman wondered what had happened since her husband had not informed her of anything. Immediately she rushed over to the hospital. She had the nurses at the front desk search for her husband’s name and her mother-in-law’s name. Finally after searching for a while, they were able to locate the mother-in-law’s name and informed her which room she was in. The moment she entered the room, the doctor announced to the young man that his mother had passed away and pulled the sheet over her face. The young man looked at the doctor in shock and then looked over at his wife standing by the door and yelled out “This is entirely your fault!” The wife was very confused. She had no idea what was going on. She never even knew that her mother-in-law had been involved in an accident.

The following few weeks after the mother’s death, the young man rarely went home. On the few days he actually came home, he was drunk and smelled of alcohol. The young woman was very upset. She did not know why her husband was acting that way. She knew that he was unable to accept that his mother had passed away, but she did not know why he was keeping a distant from her. One day, when having lunch with a friend at a restaurant, she saw her husband. There was a young and beautiful lady sitting besides him. She became very annoyed and went over to him and demanded an explanation. He ignored her and acted as though they did not know each other.

A few months passed by, the young man continued to not return home every night. The young woman decided that their marriage was not going to work out. She then contacted him to come home to sign the divorce papers. Finally, he came home to sign the papers. As he was about to sign the papers, he noticed that his wife’s belly was pretty large. He then asked her “Are you pregnant?” The wife replied “Yes.” Immediately he became very shocked and asked her “When did you find out you were pregnant?” She then replied “When I started to vomit after each meal, I went to see the doctor and found out that I was pregnant.” He then realized that he had misunderstood his wife and regretted not taking the time to understand the situation before blaming her. But it was too late; she had no hope for him or the relationship. He pleaded for forgiveness and a second chance. Even though the papers were not signed, she did not forgive him.

The young couple continued to live together under the same roof but no longer shared the same bedroom. While sleeping, the young woman heard moaning sounds from the other room. The young man was tossing and turning unable to sleep. His entire body was aching. He thought it was from his own guilt so he just ignored it. Meanwhile, the young woman just assumed he was just pretending to be sick so that she would forgive him as he had always done so in the past. After a month had gone by, she finally came up to him and said “I forgive you, just go see a doctor.” So they went together to the doctor’s office and found out that the young man had liver cancer. He had no longer than one week to live. The couple was devastated. When the week had gone by, the young man passed away and the young woman became a very pregnant widow.

Where had it gone wrong? If in the beginning the young woman and the mother-in-law had made some sort of effort to get along, understand, and to accommodate each other, then this all could have been avoided. Things would have turned out differently if the mother-in-law had reacted to the young woman vomiting during breakfast in a calmer manner. If the mother-in-law had gone to check on her daughter-in-law to see if she was not feeling well, she would not have packed her luggage and left the house. If she had not left the house, there would not have been an accident which led to the death of the mother-in-law. If the young man was more understanding of his wife, they would not had the whole period of three to four months of misunderstandings that caused the young woman to give up hope on the marriage. Then the young couple would have been able to spend the last few months of the young man’s life happily together. Then the young woman would not be left unhappy and regretful after the young man had passed away. We all make these kinds of mistakes. If we step into the other person’s shoes and tried to understand what was going on in their life and why they were acting the way that they were, there would not be so many misunderstandings. Not all misunderstandings can be revoked and second chances may never come. As the example in this story, these misunderstandings turned out fatal.