A rural woman was deceived by a matchmaker, which is truly heartbreaking; she hopes her second marriage will bring a better life.

My home is in a rural village. Because my family runs a small shop, it serves as a place that provides everyday middle school students with study snacks. The shop in the small village is not big, but there is still some gossip, and you can run into all kinds of people.

Once, an older woman brought a child to the shop to buy things, and she bought whatever the child wanted. I thought it was strange at the time, because in rural areas people usually do not spoil children like that. After asking around carefully, I found out that the child was not hers; she was only the stepmother.

This stepmother came from a neighboring county and divorced her husband 5 years ago. Her husband at the time was a master of eating, drinking, whoring and gambling, and he did not care about the child either. Every day when he came back, he just lay in bed waiting to sober up. This stepmother's surname is Zhang. Mrs. Zhang and her husband were introduced by a matchmaker. Rural matchmakers generally praise the person being set up to the skies in order to make money. Mrs. Zhang had attended high school, and in that era, being educated was no small matter. Because Mrs. Zhang's maternal grandfather had a daughter who had studied, his standards and expectations were a bit higher, and as a result he ended up preventing his daughter from finding a satisfactory match even at 25. At that time there was no other way. The daughter's marriage could not be delayed, so under the matchmaker's urging, she married her current ex-husband. At the time, it was said that the ex-husband had a house and the family also had more than ten mu of land. He had also attended elementary school and had a little spare money. By then the house had already been built, three stories, just waiting for him to take a wife.

In the first few years after Mrs. Zhang married into the family, things were still fine, and life was fairly stable. But she did not know that her ex-husband had a bunch of fair-weather friends, and he gradually fell in love with running off to big cities and began to learn drinking and gambling. It was said that he earned money outside for a year, but in fact he only sent 5,000 yuan when she was pregnant. When Mrs. Zhang gave birth, her ex-husband was still outside and had not come back. During festivals, he would only come back when paying New Year calls; the rest of the time, no one knew where he was. In the following 3 years, when the child was 10 years old, her ex-husband did come back. But he spent all day outside playing cards and gambling with others, and when he lost money he would come back to ask Mrs. Zhang for money. If she did not have any, he ordered her to go ask her father for money. Life was in constant turmoil. She thought about divorce, but her ex-husband refused. After tormenting each other for 10 years, she finally divorced her husband 5 years ago, and the child was raised by the husband's side.

Mrs. Zhang met her current husband while doing business. Her husband is 52 this year, and his wife abandoned him and left when he was 48. She despised his family for being poor, and she too had been deceived by a matchmaker into marrying him from the mountains. At 48, he was no longer young and had remained a bachelor until he met Mrs. Zhang. The two got along well, and their temperaments were not bad either, so they planned to be together. The husband is 48, and Mrs. Zhang is 40. That the two could meet and be together in middle age is no easy thing. So, not long ago, she brought her husband's child to the shop to buy things, and she was not very harsh with the 7-year-old child, and the child also liked this stepmother very much.

Every time I see the two of them passing by in front of the door, even if villagers nearby are gossiping, saying that her husband married well, that his current wife is good to the child, good at managing the household and capable, I just smile and let it pass. How can we understand other people's lives and other people's pain?

A rural woman may be fooled by a matchmaker the first time, but the second time she must keep her eyes wide open. Rural women can also marry a second time, and control their own lives themselves, because the person beside you is the one who will accompany you into old age.

This article is original by the author of the Toutiao account. Without authorization, it may not be reproduced.