another (English translation) of an ancient bon mot: “You ask me how my farm can pay, since little it will bear / it pays me thus; it’s far away, and you are never there.”
Proverbs 21:19 Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.
“it pays me thus, it’s far away, and you are never there”
This reminds me of the place at the Jersey shore near Atlantic City that my father was renovating. It was far from my rather difficult mother who was living in north Jersey. One day at the marina a guy commented to my husband, “I have never seen a guy work as hard as your father-in-law” Another wag commented “He must have a nagging wife.” My husband nearly sputtered out a mouthful of coffee, and we had a good laugh when he came home and told me the story.