没人付费的笔译｜被妻子抛弃的男人

4月16日，我仰慕的《纽约客》Staff Writer 樊嘉扬发了一条推文（为应付审查，在微信公众号平台我只能写“樊嘉扬在社交媒体发布动态”，下文涉及的自我审查不再一一列举）：

You can’t properly grieve—you can’t heal—without safety and support and space to fall apart and be vulnerable. You need people to actively acknowledge your loss.

她分享了《大西洋月刊》的一篇文章：Grief, Everywhere，我关注樊嘉扬的推特数年，知道她母亲不久前去世，她还沉浸在悲痛里。我的视力日益衰退，不能在手机上长时间阅读，她分享的文章我只是快速浏览了一遍，没什么感觉。

我接触《大西洋月刊》大概在十年前，那时付费墙还未普及，另一堵墙也不像今天这般密不透风。那年我买了人生中第一款智能手机，诺基亚的牌子，我可以在手机上无限制地阅读《大西洋月刊》。

在同一个页面，我被编辑推荐的文章 The Marriage Lesson That I Learned Too Late 吸引，不顾视力疲劳，又点击阅读。标题下方的引语击中了我：

The existence of love, trust, respect, and safety in a relationship is often dependent on moments you might write off as petty disagreements.

它的意思大概是，摧毁一段亲密关系的，往往是一些鸡毛蒜皮的小事。说得太对了，我的婚姻就是活生生的例子。

我在手机上读了前面几段，直到眼睛再也受不了。我把文章保存至“熊掌记”App，休息片刻后在 iPad 上读完它。

作者 Matthew Fray 被妻子抛弃了，原因让人啼笑皆非—因为他喜欢把餐盘放在洗碗槽边，不考虑妻子的感受。他痛定思痛，痛改前非，成了情感教练和畅销书作家。（Matthew Fray is a relationship coach and the author of [This Is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships]）

读了他的故事，我不禁又仰天长叹，我很能理解他的妻子为何抛弃他。我有洁癖，但妻子似乎天生邋遢，我们谁也不肯改变自己。我的洁癖日趋严重，到了吹毛求疵的地步，和妻子共同生活成为我的噩梦。去年五月，我曾像娜拉一样离家出走，今天又和作者的妻子共情。真是见鬼，我的经历为何如此女性化，难道我的心理性别为女性？

暂且搁置我的“心理性别”问题，下面我要翻译文章的一些精彩段落，和感兴趣的朋友分享。由于没人付费，我的翻译只是点到为止，旨在传递最核心的内容。

The things that destroy love and marriage often disguise themselves as unimportant. Many dangerous things neither appear nor feel dangerous as they’re happening. They’re not bombs and gunshots. They’re pinpricks. They’re paper cuts. And that is the danger. When we don’t recognize something as threatening, then we’re not on guard. These tiny wounds start to bleed, and the bleed-out is so gradual that many of us don’t recognize the threat until it’s too late to stop it.

摧毁婚姻的，常常是那些把自己伪装成无足轻重的东西。很多危险的事情，发生的时候看不见摸不着。我们意识不到威胁，毫无防备。细小的伤口开始流血，缓缓地流，我们感觉不到疼，直到一切都无可挽回。

I spent most of my life believing that what ended marriages were behaviors I classify as Major Marriage Crimes. If murder, rape, and armed robbery are major crimes in the criminal-justice system, I viewed sexual affairs, physical spousal abuse, and gambling away the family savings as major crimes in marriage.

过去我一直认为，导致婚姻破裂的是那些不可饶恕的重罪，如出轨、家暴、赌博输光家产等。

Because I wasn’t committing Major Marriage Crimes, when my wife and I were on opposite sides of an issue, I would suggest that we agree to disagree. I believed she was wrong—either that she was fundamentally incorrect in her understanding of the situation or that she was treating me unfairly. It always seemed as if the punishment didn’t fit the crime—as if she were charging me with premeditated murder when my infraction was something closer to driving a little bit over the speed limit with a burned-out taillight that I didn’t even know was burned out.

我在婚姻中并没有犯重罪，当妻子和我出现分歧时，我会建议保留分歧。我相信是她错了—要么她对情况的理解出现根本性错误，要么她不公平地对待我。惩罚似乎总是和罪过不相匹配，我只是轻微超速，她却控告我蓄意谋杀。

（我出轨成性，犯了婚姻中的死罪，但这并非今天讨论的话题，本文的主旨无关道德。）

The reason my marriage fell apart seems absurd when I describe it: My wife left me because sometimes I leave dishes by the sink.

我的婚姻失败的原因说起来很荒诞：妻子离开我，是因为有时候我把餐盘放在洗碗槽边。

It makes her seem ridiculous and makes me seem like a victim of unfair expectations. But it wasn’t the dishes, not really—it was what they represented.

这让她显得可笑，我成了不公正期待的受害者。可重点不在于餐盘，而在于它们所代表的。

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of times, my wife tried to communicate that something was wrong. That something hurt. But that doesn’t make sense, I thought. I’m not trying to hurt her; therefore, she shouldn’t feel hurt.

我妻子无数次试图向我传递一个信息：婚姻出了问题，她正受到伤害。但我不以为然。我没故意伤害她，她不该感到受伤。

We didn’t go down in a fiery explosion. We bled out from 10,000 paper cuts. Quietly. Slowly.

我和妻子从未爆发激烈冲突。但细小的伤口开始流血—安静、缓慢地流淌。

She knew that something was wrong. I insisted that everything was fine. This is how my marriage ended. It could be how yours ends too.

她知道婚姻出了问题，我却坚持一切安好。我的婚姻就是这样结束的，你的婚姻也可能这样结束。

Sometimes I leave used drinking glasses by the kitchen sink, just inches away from the dishwasher. It isn’t a big deal to me now. It wasn’t a big deal to me when I was married. But it was a big deal to her. Each time my wife entered the kitchen to discover the glass I’d left next to the sink, she moved incrementally closer to moving out and ending our marriage. I just didn’t know it yet.

有时我将喝过的水杯放在厨房的洗碗槽边，离洗碗机只有几英寸。对我来说这没什么大不了，离婚前后都如此。妻子却很在意，每次她走进厨房，看到洗碗槽边的杯子，便愈发坚定离开我的念头（我每次看到妻子的邋遢也是同样的反应）。我还蒙在鼓里。

I wanted my wife to agree that when you put life in perspective, a drinking glass by the sink is simply not a big problem that should cause a fight. I thought she should recognize how petty and meaningless it was in the grand scheme of life. I repeated that train of thought for the better part of 12 years, waiting for her to finally agree with me. But she never did. She never agreed.

我想说服妻子，在人生的宏大目标面前，洗碗槽边的杯子真的太渺小，根本不值得引发争端。我以为她会意识到它的琐碎和无意义。结婚十二年，我一直重复我的观点，等待她的认同，可是她从来没有认同我。

I was arguing about the merits of a glass by the sink. But for my wife, it wasn’t about the glass. It wasn’t about dishes by the sink, or laundry on the floor.

我和妻子争辩“洗碗槽边的杯子”的价值。可是对她来说，杯子不是重点。洗碗槽边的餐盘和地上的脏衣服都不是重点。

It was about consideration. About the pervasive sense that she was married to someone who did not respect or appreciate her. And if I didn’t respect or appreciate her, then I didn’t love her in a manner that felt trustworthy. She couldn’t count on the adult who had promised to love her forever, because none of this dish-by-the-sink business felt anything like being loved.

重点在于，我是否考虑她的感受，重点在于，她会觉得嫁给了一个不尊重、不欣赏她的男人（就像我没有遇到尊重和欣赏我的女人）。没有尊重和欣赏，哪来值得信赖的爱？我连餐盘都不愿收拾，如何让她相信我爱她？