Note: To read before the wedding. Yury Gurkov

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      A couple of weeks later, she shared her news again about the “love affairs”:

      – “…And I stopped loving that boy, and now I love another” – she told me after a while.

      – “Why?”

      – “That guy talks all the time. He is like a chatterbox. So I stopped loving him.”

      – “So you do not like that he talks a lot and does not listen to you?”

      – “Yeah.”

      – “So who is the new one?”

      – “Andrey, he does not talk much and gave me a candy.”

      We see the girl’s first steps of evaluating the actions. She noticed that she was not comfortable when the other person was not just a bit talkative. It is really not interesting when your opponent uses the formula 90 to 10, meaning that 90 % of the time he occupies with his conversations and you have only 10 %. Sashen’ka noticed the thing that many adult girls do not always have time to understand even before the wedding. The thing is that her future husband would completely fill the space with himself. Sasha made a new choice and felt that the gentleman who talks a blue streak less is better for her. And the fact that he gave her a candy made him a prince in her eyes.

      It is not a big deal when we are talking about the first-grader. She has 10 years in reserve to learn many things about boys. But if you instill in her the practice of thinking, looking for motivation and evaluating actions, their constancy, and many other things and details, then she will be much better prepared for relationships, for the choices that most people make in the strangest, least practical way, as practice shows.

      The rule ‘a new guy should be not like the last one’ works for everyone who got burned on the shortcomings of the boyfriend before the wedding. It often happens in the same scenario after the next divorce. For example, the guy was greedy and did not give gifts, so the next one who is more generous will immediately get a fat plus in the rating. And being already married to the «generous» man, the girl discovers that he is rude with his generosity and is constantly terribly jealous. Of course, here are given the most primitive examples, but the point is to give some thought provoking issue: you have to remember when beginning a new relationship what you did not like in the previous one. And, please, do not forget to get the wind of him in all other aspects before the wedding, so that, running away from one disadvantage, you will not get stuck in five more unpleasant ones.

      If only most girls and boys from childhood, from Sashen’ka's age had lessons in this issue – about boys, about how she understands them. Why does she fall in love with one or the other? I am sure that most readers had not such education. It was only slightly or not at all. Parents teach their child everything they consider important: to be honest, to respect their elders, to express themselves correctly and accurately, to behave in society, not to deceive, to be accurate, to achieve goals and to perform well at school. School has also many disciplines, including some important for the life ones. For example, there are such lessons as basics of life safety, arts and crafts, physical education.

      There are no places (no special schools, courses) where young men and women (those who are ready for the marriage) can be enriched with knowledge of how to build the ‘right’ relationships, how to understand who they love, what family life really consists of and how to avoid mistakes when choosing a husband/ wife? There is no whole layer of education and training, even no one teaches basic knowledge of preparing a family, happy relationship in marriage.

      How much time do you have? Maybe you are just preparing for a wedding and you are still reading, trying to find out whether you did everything right? Or you already live in a marriage and you have chosen your companion years ago. You have chosen him because of his beauty or sense of humor; maybe you liked him for fidelity or for a beautiful back. This also happens. You are not alone. There are plenty of similar stories. And some of them are collected in this book. Perhaps some of the readers all that is left to do is to educate their children that way, because their choice was made long time ago. They want their child to be more pragmatic in order not to repeat the mistakes of mom, dad, friends or relatives.

      A simple analysis of the reasons for his actions, some life experience and facts surrounding us and also a desire to help at least a few people to learn and not to make rash steps before the wedding (steps which are based only on feelings, on the concupiscence) make me put letters into words in this book.

      This issue is very extensive. There are many factors and components. It is difficult to conclude all the concepts and conditions within one or more sentences, or even one book. Therefore, I will try to tell you about the clearest, the most logical and most important things. This is not an axiom or a final conclusion in terms of the book. This cannot be taught. This cannot change all or many of those who read it. But even if a few people can think and contemplate afterwards, and one person does not make a rash choice of his/ her second half or somebody teaches his/ her children to be happier, then this work is not in vain.

      This education must begin with the alphabet and cooked semolina for breakfast.

      13. To love is to care