(Minghui.org) For many years, I thought that the most unfortunate thing in my life was that I married the wrong man. I thought about divorcing him many times, but he refused to agree. Falun Dafa has resolved the many grievances between my husband and me.
A fortuneteller told me, “You will have a good marriage if your husband is three years older than you.” So I followed this criterion when looking for a husband. A colleague later introduced me to someone who was three years older than me. I thought that even though I knew his family was very poor, he was just the right age, so I accepted him. However, on the day of our marriage registration, I was surprised to find that he was five years older than me! I wondered why fate had played such a big joke on me.
Although I appeared to be weak, I was very competitive. I thought, “We are still young. If we work hard together, our life will be good.” At that time, we didn't have our own place and lived in my parents' house. Every day after my husband finished breakfast, he went out in a decent outfit, came home at noon for lunch, went out again, and came home in the evening. However, our savings were diminishing. Later, creditors started to show up, demanding that he repay his debts, which made my parents uneasy. I never saw my husband bring any income home. Instead, I had to help him pay his debts.
My father, who had never asked for help from anyone, later saw that my husband could not earn anything to support his family. So my father got him a job through his personal contacts. It wasn’t long before my husband quit that job; he said that he was not making much at it. My husband decided instead to sell shoes. I had to give him money every time he needed new stock, yet I never saw him bring money home. In short, I barely ever saw my husband make any money.
I later started to earn an income and bought a home. We moved out of my parents' house, and we let my mother-in-law and aunt live with us. Yet my husband didn’t change. When I sometimes asked him for money, he would say, “Why do I need to give you money?”
I was really fed up with a husband who didn’t know to be grateful, how to support our family, or how to accept criticism. He never took any responsibility for our family. I thought about divorcing him many times. Every time I mentioned it, he said he would rather die than get divorced. Thus, my resentment towards him was tied to the thought that he would commit suicide if we divorced. The quarrels between us were endless, and I sometimes wished that he would die.
I began to practice Falun Dafa in 2005. I wanted to be a good person according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. But when it came to my husband, I couldn’t put up with him. Because of the many grievances between us, I was not able to communicate with him rationally or forgive him.
I had a very clear dream when I first started cultivating. I seemed to be in the Imperial Garden of a Royal Palace. The owner of the garden was my husband, and we loved each other. But outside the city, there were beggars everywhere. People were hungry and dying. In my dream, I felt compassion for them. I begged my husband to open the door of the city and save those who were going to die. I promised him that he only needed to do what I asked this one time and that I would do whatever he asked of me in the future to repay him. My husband finally agreed to open the door to save the people outside the city, but as a result, our financial situation steadily declined.
I thought the dream was a hint from Master Li, letting me see that the relationship with my husband was predestined. After the dream, although I was vaguely aware of this predestined relationship with my husband, I still resented him because of the way he treated me.
Later, I put practicing Dafa on hold for a while. During that time, I was actively resentful. When my husband was mentioned, my wrath exploded!
My husband had a stroke in late 2014. As soon as he called me, I rushed home, called the ambulance, and had him taken to the hospital. I took good care of him in the hospital and he was discharged a few days later.
This made me realize that the most important thing in my life was cultivating Dafa. In the spring of 2015, Master also arranged for a fellow practitioner to find me. From then on, I really started to learn how to cultivate myself.
Master said:
“In cultivation practice, there may be two scenarios when dealing with specific conflicts or when others treat you badly. One is that you might have treated this person badly in your previous life. You feel in your heart that it is unfair, "How can this person treat me like this?" Then why did you treat this person that way in the past? You might claim that you actually did not know it at that time, and this life has nothing to do with the other life. That does not work. There is another issue. In conflicts, the issue of transforming karma is involved. Therefore, in dealing with specific conflicts we should be forgiving instead of acting like ordinary people.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
I said to Master in my heart, “Master, I will repay my debts; otherwise, how can I go home with you?”
After that I tried to let go of my resentment for my husband and truly cultivate myself. My husband did not completely recover from the stroke, and he couldn't do anything with his dragging leg. His temper got worse, and he often found fault with me for no reason. I tried to understand his situation. He wasn’t yet 50 and was in a situation that would be unbearable for anyone. So, if he vented his anger at me, so be it.
In daily life, I cared for him, tolerated him, and often gave him money so he could sense the compassion of a Dafa practitioner.
Master said :
“Compassion can harmonize Heaven and Earth, ushering in springRighteous thoughts can save the people in this world”(“The Fa Rectifies the Cosmos,” Hong Yin Vol. II, translation version A)
I wanted to melt the ice between my husband and me with the Fa.
I couldn't manage it well at the beginning, and I couldn't help but try to reason with him. Later, I studied Master's teaching:
“As a cultivatorOne always looks for one’s own faults’Tis the Way to get rid of attachments most effectivelyThere’s no way to skip ordeals, big or small[During a conflict, if you can remember:]“He’s right,And I’m wrong,”What’s to dispute?”(“Who’s Right, Who’s Wrong,” Hong Yin III)
When my husband got angry again, I told myself that it was time to work through things and look within to find my attachments. At other times, watching him vent his anger, I would laugh and say, “I provided you with room and board. I really don’t know why you still treat me like this.”
Some nights I went out with other practitioners after group Fa study to put up truth-clarification materials. I came home very late, and at first, my husband cursed me and Master. In the middle of the night, my husband turned the volume of his mobile phone or TV up all the way to keep me from sleeping. I sent forth righteous thoughts to disintegrate the evil factors behind him. Sometimes, if I couldn't stop him, in order to not bother others in the building, I went out in the middle of the night to sleep in the downstairs storage room or the park so he wouldn't create karma for himself or problems for Dafa. This went on for almost six months before he gradually stopped.
I asked him why he was acting that way. He said he didn't know why, that he seemed confused, and he just wanted to behave that way. I tried to tell him the reason, “Your bad thoughts were in line with certain evil beings, so they could control you; those thoughts did not come from your real self. Because you lacked positive energy, they dared to control you like this. Just as when a human body is too weak, a ghost will dare to possess the body. You have to strengthen the positive energy in your mind, be a person of integrity, and be a person who can think about others. Then those bad things can't reach you and control you." I introduced him to the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. He read it and withdrew from the Chinese Communist Party, the Youth League, and the Young Pioneers right away.
One day my husband said very proudly to me, “You can go out at night now, and I will not try to stop you.” Every weekend when I went out to clarify the truth to people about Dafa, he asked, “Are you going out to save people today?” He never again tried to stop me. After I returned home, I told him about the gratitude of people who understood the truth. He was happy to hear that.
Thus, the grievances of more than 20 years between my husband and me finally melted away. At home, I always remember that I am a practitioner. I care about him in all aspects of life. My husband loses his temper less and less frequently. He once even said to me, “How much virtue have you gotten from me?” I was shocked. How could he say such a profound statement? Did Master use his mouth to help me eliminate the remaining grievances between us?
I noticed that when I did not maintain my xinxing well, he became confused again, and he was skeptical of what he understood before. This reminded me to keep improving my cultivation, and my husband could then maintain righteous thoughts in my field. I also found that he was like a mirror for me. For example, when he was lazy and did not want to do his physical exercises, I thought that it must be my attachment to seeking comfort emerging.
I am grateful to Master and to Dafa for resolving the many conflicts between my husband and me. If I did not cultivate, if it were not for Master’s blessings, my husband and I would have truly become enemies. Master arranged to have my husband help me improve my xinxing, to let me save him, and to turn bad things into good things. Thank you, Master! I will certainly cultivate well, save people, free myself of karmic debts, and return to my true home with you.