Let me talk about something casually, drawing from a recent hit reality show and a few real cases I’ve come across.
Milla is one of my longest-standing readers — she’s been following me for six years now.
I still remember who she was back then: completely absorbed in career and wealth, coming to me every year for a destiny framework (格局) reading with her eyes fixed squarely on professional prospects.
As for marriage? She was still under thirty at the time and simply didn’t care.
I warned her more than once to use her spare time to lay some groundwork — to start building a quality social circle with eligible men — but she always felt she had plenty of time ahead of her.
After a few mentions, I stopped nagging.
Three years ago, she suddenly sent me a man’s birth details in a rush, asking me to fit her in as soon as possible.
After spending some time getting to know him, she felt he was a genuinely good match and marriage material.
The reason was simple: the man came from a typical middle-class family — the obedient-son type. Though two years older than Milla, he still carried the unmistakable air of a college student.
After reviewing the man’s destiny chart, I couldn’t help but furrow my brow.
But Milla cut in with total conviction: “Master, I don’t care about his career prospects. I’ll handle the money. All I care about is whether he’ll stay by my side — steady and devoted.”
Out of a sense of responsibility, I said something that risked offending her: “If you absolutely insist on someone who’ll loyally stay by your side — yes, he can do that. But you’ll eventually find yourself carrying a weight that grows heavier and harder to set down with each passing year.”
Companionship in marriage matters greatly. But companionship without capability as its foundation is, in essence, dependency — or parasitism. Think this through carefully. Be deliberate.
She smiled graciously, then walked straight into that marriage without looking back.
This year, Milla came to me again — as bright and resilient as ever, as direct as ever. She raised the question I had long known would surface: “Master, if I end this marriage now, what impact will it have on my child and my career?”
Left with little else to say, I told her something that risked offending her again: “For you personally, your career won’t take much of a hit — you’re parting on good terms, no messy fallout or real damage. But the years, the years were genuinely wasted on both sides.”
“From the start, he should have found a similarly easygoing girl — someone content with a quiet, ordinary life. And you should have found someone with a matching temperament, someone who could fight alongside you in the trenches.”
“As for the child?”
“I rarely see children raised in single-parent households come out with a fully balanced character. It’s not impossible — just uncommon.”
“So, to put it plainly: you spent three years with someone who couldn’t keep pace with you, wasting the best window of your youth — along with many other far more compatible matches that could have been yours. And now your child will grow up in an environment that is, let’s be honest, less than whole.”
“This was a poor move. And I warned you long ago. You chose not to listen.”
There was another young woman I saw around the same time, facing the same predicament: she was driven and ambitious, constantly pushing into new territory, while her partner had long since given up and settled into a life of coasting. Yet they had been together for years and were now at the age where marriage enters the conversation.
She came to me full of conflicted feelings, asking me to do a marriage compatibility reading for them. This time, I was even more direct:
“Whether you’re a man or a woman, remember this: never enter marriage with someone whose life rank is too far from yours — no matter how deeply in love you are.”
“You can date each other for a lifetime if you wish. The one thing you must not do is let a moment of impulse drive you to marry.”
“Because the gap in rank will create countless problems after marriage — problems you won’t be able to fix no matter how hard you try. It will slowly drain your patience until you completely break down.”
“The gap in emotional intelligence will have you endlessly patching up social situations they’ve damaged. The gap in capability will leave you silently bearing all the pressure alone. The gap in responsibility will mean that in your darkest moments, you won’t receive the care and support you desperately need.”
“They’re not a bad person. They’re simply not at your level.”
“If they can’t keep up with you, they will inevitably hold you back. And it drains not just your physical energy — it drains your emotional and mental reserves.”
“Unless you’re willing to spend your entire life pressing forward under your own power while simultaneously pulling them along — don’t let impulse decide this for you.”
Every word above is sincere counsel.
Over the years, I have provided invaluable life guidance to countless lovers, couples, and married pairs. For each one, I’ve offered deeply detailed readings from both the perspective of classical Chinese learning and real-world reality. And the one insight I keep returning to is this:
The couples who truly reach a good ending — who offer each other genuine, healthy companionship and build an increasingly flourishing household — always meet one standard: they are well-matched (门当户对), at the same rank and on the same level.
This doesn’t mean identical personalities, identical logic, or identical views. You can have one who’s outgoing and bold while the other is calm and reserved. One who makes the decisions while the other executes them.
But at the core, your life ranks must be as close as possible — ideally, the same.
Because when the gap in intelligence, emotional maturity, and sense of responsibility grows too wide, the inevitable result is one person letting go while the other carries everything forward. And almost always, it’s the one at the higher rank who ends up shouldering all the weight and pain.
As for the outcome — even if they never divorce, there will be no good fruit.
To every reader who is about to enter marriage, or who already has — I hope you sit quietly with this.