How marriages today differ from marriages from the “60”s

Good evening to my beloved toastmaster club members and guest. Last year, I had been
given an opportunity to teach at a primary school for about three months. Everything went well
for the first two months. But when it came to the last month, a jaw-dropping incident happened
in my school. That day, I was patrolling around the school compound just as what I did in the
first two months. Suddenly, I saw something that really shocked me. I saw a man and a women
around 30, was kissing at an undisclosed corner. The interesting part is that both of them were
not husband and wife. They are parent who brought their own son and daughter to school
daily. I know this because I was teaching their children at that time. When I saw this, I didn’t
report the incident to the headmaster immediately, instead, I just standing there, enjoying the
whole show and only making a report after that. When I reported it to the headmaster, he get
angry. He said: “How could you enjoy the whole thing by your own, you should tell me
immediately, you should bring me on, I am also interested in watching it”. According to a
statistic from the internet, there were 22,111 couples getting married in 2017 while there were
9,848 couples divorced in the same year. Meaning to say that nearly 5 out of 10 couples
divorce in every years. The number of divorces in Malaysia has more than doubled in just
eight years from 2004 until 2012. What is the main reason behind this perennial issue?

If we observe the marriages from the 60’s, the first thing that we can learn is that no matter
how much you hate your husband or wife, you will not leave him or her. This is something that
I discovered in my family. Most of the time, I can hear my mom and dad shouting at each other,
arguing and saying something which is terrible. For example, my mom will say: “Why you are
so lazy, don’t even come forward to help me when I am busy, I think there were something
wrong with my eyes at that time. Or else it is impossible for me to get marry with you.” Although
they argue very often, sometimes even more than 10 times per day, but they never take it into
action. But nowadays, the younger generation manage to get marry today and divorce the
next day. Actually, It is impossible for us to look for a couple who never argue with each other.
The most important is that you have to learn to accept and embrace the foible in your other
half and not to run away from it. No one is perfect. When you get married, more problems will
start to emerge. Marriage is not just about love but also implicates accepting each other in
every aspect of life. Nowadays, younger generations is affected by the western culture or
mybe a Korean culture. The Korean drama keep instilling us that once you get married, life
after that is wonderful and this is the happy ending. So when comes to real life, they couldn’t
accept it because the things that they will be facing is contradict with the things that they
expected.
Not like marriages from 60’s, couples nowadays are inconsiderate to their other half. In order
to have a nice marriage, you should be considerate by lending your wife or husband a helping
hand when he or she is in need. Let say, you can help your wife to cook when she is busy
washing clothes or she is tired after getting back from work. As a wife, you should also help
your husband as well when he is in need. But today, we could hardly see any tolerance among
the married couple. This is the reason why dispute often occur among couples because no
one want to tolerate. Sometimes, it could lead to a fight. When your relationship with your
husband or wife is not good, the likelihood for “third party” to step in will also be increased

Back to the incident that I saw in school, I was quite pity of my student. A broken marriage will
inflict a huge negative impact on their life. Most of the time, a brutal, impolite, naughty,
rebellious student in our eyes actually comes from a broken family. They are showing
behaviours that you certainly cannot accept not because they are bad but because they are
lacking of something that all of us have. So, if you are married and considering to break up
with your other half, think of your family, think of your son before making any decision. Be a
responsible father, be a responsible mother. Thanks.