My husband’s domestic violence is so severe that it has often become a police matter. The police say that it is dangerous for me to live with him, and my children who are now married advise me to get divorced. However, as I have learned through the teachings that the family/home is important, I am not thinking of divorcing him for the sake of my family members, and instead, I am prepared to keep on putting up with his violence. (Female in her 60’s)
A
Just remaining married as a husband and a wife will not guarantee happiness. Rather than considering whether to endure or to divorce, what is necessary is for both of you and your husband to change your ways of living respectively and to correct your ways of thinking and perceiving things―or your jittai. When it comes to human relationships, it takes two to cause a problem. Realize that you have also created a part of the cause of his rough behavior.
Shinji
Human beings, who live through their kokoro(unmei-jittai), need to know the correct path and walk it, and strive to elevate their jittai.
The more the teachings are learned as a family and each family member knows their respective roles and places and deepens their involvement, the greater the jittai of each family member is corrected, enabling them to walk a life in one with their unmei.
A marital relationship can be established only when the husband and the wife are properly involved based on their respective places and roles. If your relationship with him remains strained and violent, it will not produce good results in each other’s later years or in the lives of your children.
If it is difficult for you and your husband to strive to live by the teachings together, you might as well distance yourself from your husband, because your children and those around you are worried about you. “Never getting divorced” is not the solution.
With this in mind, why don’t you ask your married children to mediate between you and your husband, and talk about your future in calmness? Together with your husband, listen to and accept your children’s honest thoughts and feelings as to how they want you to be, and look for the clue to the solution based on the teachings of Kami. Then, you will come to see the path to peaceful twilight years of yours, the happiness of your children, and how to attain a life with no regrets.