A life worth living

Building on from What are we working for? a very moving incident occurred recently which needs a small diversion from the usual semi-business related themes to discuss life in general.

A few weeks back I met with a very good friend called John* who with tears in his eyes mentioned to me that his wife wanted a divorce and was cold towards him, not hostile, but worse -- painfully cold.

Now John is a very successful business man with his own firm which is incredibly powerful and often finds himself away from home dealing with clients. John is incredibly well respected by his employees and clients and well liked by all. John has a lovely nine year old daughter.

If the divorce goes through, under British law he will lose a lot more than half as he does not want to displace his daughter by selling the home that he has saved so hard to earn for her and is not guaranteed the one thing he really cares about -- time with her.

So how can this happen?

Well, I am no Relate counsellor, but here are some questions to consider:

- Why do you work long hours and away from home? Who are you doing it for and do they appreciate it?
- Do you believe that a relationship left alone deteriorates over time?
- Do you know what leaves your partner feeling loved?[1]
- If you lived as you do now from now until your death, would you be happy? If not, why not?

- Finally: What are you going to do about the answer to the above questions?

[1] The 5 languages of Love (Amazon), is an incredibly good book which deals with the different ways in which people show and receive affection. Every man should have at least skimmed this book. It is inevitable that your relationship will at some point hit rocks and hopefully this will help prevent it being ship-wrecked.

*names may have been changed to protect the innocent