A Couple’s Love Story : My Husband is an Optimist

My husband and I worked at the same textile factory; I was a loom operator, and he was a repairman. Due to poor management, our factory suffered significant losses and was acquired by a large company in March of last year. All the original employees were laid off. My husband and I received a severance package of over 40,000 yuan, marking the end of our nearly twenty-year relationship with the factory. I felt utterly lost and filled with fear for the future.

My husband’s reaction frustrated me. He came home and casually said, “From now on, no more early mornings for us. We can enjoy our days off.” I was furious and snapped, “Aren’t you supposed to be the head of the household? Why aren’t you worried at all?” He replied, “What’s the use of worrying? We still have to live. Just because we can’t see the path now doesn’t mean there isn’t one ahead. We just haven’t found it yet.” Listening to him sip tea and talk so lightly, I didn’t want to respond.

One day, while I was sighing, my husband cheerfully said, “What’s there to worry about? We’re healthy and capable. What’s there to be afraid of? The world has no real troubles; we create them ourselves! I’ve thought it through—I’ll repair bicycles, and you can mend shoes. It’s a low-investment, low-risk venture, perfect for us. For years, I’ve been fixing our own bikes, so I have a solid foundation. Plus, I’ve been a repairman for years; fixing bicycles should be no problem.

Mending shoes won’t be hard either.” Seeing I wasn’t responding, he added, “What’s there to be embarrassed about? The paper reported that a Peking University graduate set up a stall selling meat. Our work is just as skilled, just not as high-tech.” His words reassured me somewhat.

We quickly bought the tools for shoe and bicycle repair. My husband practiced on our own shoes, getting pricked by needles and awls several times due to inexperience. After two days, he became proficient and taught me.

We set up our stall in a new residential area. For the first three days, we offered free bicycle and shoe repairs. Some customers insisted on paying, but my husband sincerely said, “Just letting us work for you is a sign of trust. If you think we did a good job, come back and support us.”

After three days of free service, our reputation quickly spread in the community, and soon we had a steady stream of customers. We built a good reputation by being honest and never cutting corners, which brought us good business. In our spare moments, my husband would joke, “Sitting at the gate of the community, admiring countless beauties, but when I turn around, my wife is still the most beautiful.” His words always made me feel happy.

Contentment Over Space

We live in a two-room apartment with a total usable area of just 40 square meters, and the living room is only a few square meters.

For our child’s study environment, my husband and I gave up the larger bedroom to our son. As our son’s study materials and books increased, we added a few wooden shelves to the TV cabinet as a bookcase. We had two single beds of the same size at home; my husband stacked and fixed them together to make a bunk bed, which he called a “duplex bed,” and placed it in our son’s “male dormitory.” If we had female relatives visiting, my husband would sleep on the bunk bed in our son’s room.

Without the TV cabinet, my husband fixed a thick wooden board to the wall to place the TV, saying it was the most popular wall-mounted TV.

To save water and electricity, we stopped using the twin-tub washing machine and washed clothes by hand, calling ourselves a “fully automatic washing machine,” joking that even drying clothes was automatic. The twin-tub washing machine found a new use in the kitchen, one tub holding rice and the other holding flour. With limited space in the kitchen, my husband hung several hooks on the wall for stainless steel pots and pans. Since our clay pot didn’t have a hole to hang on the hooks, my husband tied it up with string and hung it on a hook. Every time I entered the kitchen and saw the silly-looking clay pot hanging there, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Our son used to do his homework on the dining table, but now we placed the table in his bedroom-study combo, which looked out of place. So we used the dressing table as his desk. The rice bucket, retired from the kitchen, became my large makeup box. My sunscreen and other products were stored there, and my husband joked that keeping cosmetics in a metal rice bucket helped prevent moisture. Every morning, when I lifted the rice bucket lid to get my makeup, I couldn’t help but smile.

In the summer evenings, to save electricity, we only turned on the fan in our son’s room. We placed large basins of water in the living room and our bedroom to cool down.

Our son is very sensible, studies hard, and does well in school. Every night, my husband busied himself in the living room with unfinished tasks from the day, I handled housework, and our son studied. Looking at our warm and harmonious little home, I felt a deep sense of happiness. The house was small, but it felt cozy.

Harmony Brings Prosperity

Every noon, one of us had to go home to cook. My husband suggested deciding by playing the “tiger, stick, chicken, worm” hand game. At first, we were evenly matched, but after a month, my husband consistently lost and eventually just lost every time. He ended up going home to cook every day.

My husband’s home-cooked dishes were simple but tasty. He also enjoyed giving them playful names. For example, soybean sprouts stir-fried with mung bean sprouts became “mother and son reunion.” Scrambled eggs with tomatoes became “snow on the volcano.” As northerners, we liked eating steamed buns, so my husband would place a fried egg inside my bun, calling it a “husband and wife sandwich.”

One noon, a customer came to pick up her shoes that she had brought in two days earlier. I had repaired them at home the previous night but forgot to bring them. I asked the locksmith next door to watch our stall while I went home to get the shoes. My husband was eating leftover fried rice with a side of pickles.

An egg shell, left from making a fried egg for me, was on the floor, which he hadn’t had time to clean up. When he saw me, he was taken aback. I felt a wave of sorrow and burst into tears, “How can you let yourself suffer like this?” My husband, always the optimist, shed tears too. “I’m an unskilled man, trying my best to make your life better. Seeing you and our child well is my greatest wish and happiness.” We shared that fried egg sandwich, taking turns eating, and at that moment, with tears streaming down my face, I felt like the happiest woman in the world.

From then on, I made sure my husband ate the same food as me. I started buying beer in bulk, keeping it at home and taking a bottle with us each morning. At lunch, facing each other, my husband would drink beer and gaze at me warmly, always complimenting me as “deliciously beautiful.” I would brush off his sweet talk but felt warm and happy inside. I soon discovered a secret.

One day, at his cousin’s wedding banquet, my husband played the hand game with the guests, and no one could beat him. He won repeatedly and ended up drinking a lot, getting quite drunk. On the taxi ride home, I asked him, “Why do you always lose so badly when we play at home?” Laughing, he said, “I purposely trained myself to throw my hand slower to lose to you, so I could cook for you. You’re a good wife, and I want to treat you well.”

After half a year, we saved enough to buy a small storefront near our community’s gate with a mortgage. We used the severance money for the down payment and the earnings from the past six months to stock a hardware store. We continued our bicycle and shoe repair business, setting up our stall in front of our hardware store.

Owning the space saved us rent, enough to cover our mortgage. With a store and our repair business, our lives steadily improved.

Two months later, on my 35th birthday, my husband closed the store at noon and posted a sign: “Closed from 12 PM to 2 PM for my wife’s birthday. Open again after 2 PM.”

I didn’t want to spend money on a birthday celebration, but my husband insisted and threatened, “If you don’t come, I’ll carry you like a bride.” Feeling both sweet and helpless, I went to the nearby restaurant with him.

During the meal, he said, “I’m an unskilled man. You’ve suffered with me.” Tears immediately welled up in my eyes. After composing myself, I said, “I’m grateful to be with you. You’re optimistic, tolerant, strong, and kind. You’re the best person in my heart. More money just means better meals; a bigger house just means a bed to sleep in. Our parents are healthy, our child is sensible, our life is stable, and I have a wonderful husband. With you, I feel safe and comfortable.” My husband shed tears but smiled. I knew I was smiling through my tears too.

Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “