'I came across a story that forever changed my idea of love. Every woman will relate to this.'

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Years ago, while waiting for a doctor's appointment in Shanghai, I picked up an old magazine from a side table.

Its pages were yellowed and soft, the kind of print that has long disappeared in the digital age. I don't remember the magazine's name, and I never knew the author. But the story I read that day has stayed with me for more than a decade.

It was a reader-submitted family story — the kind of column where people sent in old marriage photos of their parents or grandparents and shared the lives behind them. But this story was unlike the nostalgic, heartwarming ones that usually appear in those sections.

It was painfully honest.

The writer described their grandparents' marriage. From the earliest memory, the grandmother did everything: cooking, cleaning, buying groceries, sewing clothes, repairing household items. She carried the entire household on her back. The grandfather, meanwhile, did nothing. He lay in bed, waiting to be fed, served, and tended to like an outdated landlord. He didn't raise the children, wash a dish, or lift a finger.

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The grandmother often muttered complaints under her breath — not loud, not dramatic, just the exhausted murmurs of someone who has carried too much for too long. She would say, "One day I'll die of exhaustion. Then he'll finally realise how much I did for this family."

She held onto that thought like hope. Like justice. Like compensation.

Even the writer, as a child, believed it too. Surely after all the years of being served, this man would collapse without her. Surely he'd finally understand her worth.

But that fantasy was the only comfort she had.

Divorce wasn't an option for her generation. What would she say, "He doesn't help with housework"? No one would have taken her side. She grew old in that marriage, her back slowly bending, her hands becoming like sandpaper. Her beauty faded. Compliments stopped. She became, to her family, just a grumbling, hunched old woman — the kind nobody thanks. And then, as she always predicted, she died of exhaustion.

But what happened next stayed with me for years.

Just three months after her death, he remarried. His new wife was younger. And with her, he became a completely different man.

This man, who had never boiled water, suddenly cooked daily. He cleaned. He did laundry. He shopped. He served his second wife with devotion. They walked the streets hand in hand ike teenagers in love. He smiled more than he ever had. They were happy together for twenty years.

And when he died, he requested — very clearly — to be buried beside his second wife.

Not the woman who spent a lifetime sacrificing for him. Not the woman whose hands created every comfort he ever enjoyed. Not the woman he used up.

In Chinese culture, being buried next to someone is symbolic. It is where your descendants sweep the tomb each year. It declares who mattered to you in this life — and the next. To choose the second wife was not just a decision. It was a message. And perhaps the deepest heartbreak of all.

Image: Supplied.

That forgotten article taught me something brutal and true: If someone doesn't appreciate you now, they probably never will.

The grandmother spent decades imagining that after she died, her husband would finally miss her. She believed he would look at the empty bed, at the undone laundry, at the meals that no longer appeared magically — and realise her worth.

But life rarely works like that.

People rarely change like that.

Regret is not guaranteed.

Love is not earned by suffering.

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If anything, the grandfather's transformation proved the opposite: he was capable of love, attention, and devotion — just not to her. He wasn't a helpless man. He was simply a man who didn't love the woman who loved him.

It reminded me of the modern line: "He's just not that into you." But this story was the older, darker version — the kind that played out long before dating apps or self-help books.

And it made me realise something even more important: we only live once, but we may love many times. Don't waste yours hoping someone will change. Don't convince yourself that after you leave, they'll suddenly cherish everything you used to do. A man who ignores your care today won't worship your memory tomorrow.

If the shirt you iron every morning means nothing to him, it won't mean anything when it's wrinkled.

The truth is simple and hard:

Love should be kind.

Love should be fair. But often, it isn't.

If I had a daughter, I wouldn't tell her to marry for love or for money. I would tell her this:

Love yourself first.

Be financially independent.

Be emotionally independent.

Don't build your life on someone else's potential.

Don't wait for gratitude that may never come.

The only love that is truly unconditional is the love we give our children. Everything else — marriage, partnership, romance — requires balance, respect, and reciprocity.

That forgotten article from a forgotten magazine gave me a lesson I never forgot:

Don't lose yourself trying to make someone love you.

And never bet your entire life on being appreciated later.

Life is too short for that.

And sometimes, the truth is simple:

If they can't love you now, they won't love you then.

Feature Image: Canva.