The title sounds very weird to you?? I can understand! I had no better words to entitle my thoughts. Why? Read further!
But its going to be very rare for our next generation to hear a couple celebrating their silver/golden/Diamond jubilee aniversary. Why? Because our generation doesnt believe in LOVE FOREVER!!Infact our generation is the most confused generation when it comes to marriage. I wont put all the blame on us, our parents are equally responsible. NO,.,, I am not a scapegoat to blame our parents for our follies. I have a strong logic to what I am saying! Read further...
Our ecosystem has for last 24-26 years taught us to be strong minded, logical and opinionated. Girls are socially, emotionally and even financially not dependent on Men these days. We dont marry at the age of 20-21 where you can be influenced and manipulated. We have studied all these years with people of opposite sex and interacted very closely with many of them. We have had friends of opposite sex and know how a girl/guy thinks about the opposite gender.
We have seen our fathers/mothers, brothers/sisters and friends respecting the other gender and expect the same. Both boys and girls stay in hostel, away from home and have studied in same manner. None of us have ever been seen as secondary because of our gender in our house. The crux is, till the day you get married we are equal individuals and suddenly after marriage...
Girl leaves her house, her parents, her city and even her surname behind. All those Hindi movies with ideal bahus are playing in flashback. As Indian girls, we are taught to be THE IDEAL BAHU by our mothers. Girls come with alot of dreams, alot of expectations, a lot of fancy ideas about a married life. Karan Johar movies had already done the damage in their innocent minds for over a decade and their romantic hero has been finally alotted to them officially. The girl has happily sacrificed her routine, her career, her parents, her friends, her passions for fulfilling this ultimate dream of her life. To be with her life partner and to have a HAPPY family of her own!!
From a boys perspective, boys are supposed to be a family man now. They are supposed to be nice and caring towards their wives. They are expected to satisfy all emotional, financial and physical needs of their women. They might have lived like a MOWGLI all their life, but now they have to be spick and span. They might have never attended a social family gathering ever, but now they need to accept complete strangers as their new family. Friends to them are some school or college or mohalla guys who accompany them for Saturday night drinking and now suddenly they need to have friends with a wife and kids preferably. Before marriage all the money they earned were their pocket money, they shopped, roamed, boozed, did whatever they want with that. But now, they are accountable, they have to give all their earnings to their family or wife. On top of that, they even have to pay for her shopping, parlour, travel, etc etc etc. Vacation to them was picking up couple of clothes in a backpack and drive away. After marriage vacation has to be international with a pre-booking done for accomodation, transport, even for a airport drop and pickup taxi. They had turned their faces to all the beautiful girls with no guilt of being caught, infact it was a sign of manhood for them. Now you have to think twice before talking to the short skirt air hostess for water.
We are talking about two entirely different individuals with entirely different upbringing. Two siblings with same upbringing and environment cannot get along forever, forget two distinct individuals.
For first few months, maximum 1.5 years you are willingly being a good boy or a good girl. You are in LOVE. LAlalaa laaa laa sounds could be heard everytime you see your partner. His eating habbits, his sleeping habbits, his wet towels everything feels cute!! Her shopping bills, her burnt rotis and even her long phone conversations make you fall in love everytime you see her. Buttttttttttttttt,,, sooner or later, you pauseeeeeeee..flashback and introspect!!
Who is the person I am looking at in the mirror? Just few months back I could relate to that reflection, but today I have to find that known identity!! People say, changes are good, but I dont find anything good in what I see! I am trapped, I was a free man before she came in my life. The common hobbies like travelling and movies which bonded us together on phone and chats are no more the same hobbies we are talking about. He travels with dirty jeans and his bike without a helmet and she travels in business class with all the five star bookings done in advance! Sanjay Leela Bhansali movies were never movies to be watched for him and she find SOCIAL NETWORKING or VERTICAL LIMIT pathetic!!
Then the problems start. You can never be happy as a different person. If you cannot be u, the laughter on your face cannot be the smile of your heart. You start reviving the you, you have left behind to become WE. It usually starts with one partner but eventually both realize that they have changed. The dissatisfaction leads in introspection. You tend to blame it on the other person and start echoing that the person wasnt perfect for you. I read a brilliant article last Sunday in LIFE supplement of TOI.
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/O-zone/entry/did-you-marry-the-wrong-person
Every marriage goes through the phase of wrong person atleast once. You might have had a love marriage or an arrange marriage, marriages are all the same!! The only advantage/disadvantage to a love marriage is the initial 6 months when you are unfolding your partners past life to understand the person better. But in those 4-5 hours of mushy mushy conversation with your boyfrien you hardly notice your differences. As they say, you dont love with your mind, its all dillogical! Even if you think you have married your soulmate, you will go through this phase in married life.
Meanwhile you have kids, you buy a house, you travel together, you share your fears and achievements and gradually and consistently you start bonding with each other.You have to make an effort to revive your love in your marriage which somehow fades away after few years. You start understanding each others thought process. You start accepting the flaws in him/her. You start compromising on petty things. You have differnt opinions but you learn to choose one of the more logical opinion to decide on things. You might like white and she might like red curtains, but then you start stopping on Orange which both like a little less than their choices. You travel with each other and give space for a day or two to experience their own world in their own way. You start having your own group of friends whom you meet seperately during weekdays or when she is away or when there is an exciting cricket match. You have adjusted to each others life style and have started respecting each others space more. She stops experimenting on new dishes to avoid disappointments and he starts recording his F1 on TV so that he can watch it later in the night. You both strive hard to have a lovely family life for your kids. You understand there are differences but the WE superseeds the I. Arguments still continue but they dont result into introspections and doubts anymore.
It is a fact that most divorce happens in 2 years of marriage. This is the same 2nd year when you dont remain yourself in the process of living upto family/society expectations. If you pass this 2-4 yrs of married life, you would mature in your relationship. You will in true sense become partners. No person is perfect and there are NO PRINCE CHARMINGS or CINDRELLA's in real life! When you can adjust with irritating mothers and crazy brothers, then why not give it a try to your partner? Abusive relationships should be a complete NO NO!But if you think difference in nature/opinion/society is the reason, everything can be adjusted. Life is all about compromises and adjustments. Dont know why these terms are used so negatively these days, but there are no two individuals on earth who can get along forever without compromises and adjustments in life.
Marriages in our generation might not be a compulsion, but if given a fair chance they can become beautiful. Instead of being trapped in a marriage lets trap our egos and free the love. Free love is the most satisfying relationship in history. Many more years of a Happy married life Mom-DAD!! :)
My parents are going to celebrate their 50th Wedding anniversary this June. I salute them for the achievement. The respect, love and connect they have for each other is incomparable. They are both imperfect individuals, but they have a perfect marriage which had been nurtured for years by both of them.
Our ecosystem has for last 24-26 years taught us to be strong minded, logical and opinionated. Girls are socially, emotionally and even financially not dependent on Men these days. We dont marry at the age of 20-21 where you can be influenced and manipulated. We have studied all these years with people of opposite sex and interacted very closely with many of them. We have had friends of opposite sex and know how a girl/guy thinks about the opposite gender.
We have seen our fathers/mothers, brothers/sisters and friends respecting the other gender and expect the same. Both boys and girls stay in hostel, away from home and have studied in same manner. None of us have ever been seen as secondary because of our gender in our house. The crux is, till the day you get married we are equal individuals and suddenly after marriage...
Girl leaves her house, her parents, her city and even her surname behind. All those Hindi movies with ideal bahus are playing in flashback. As Indian girls, we are taught to be THE IDEAL BAHU by our mothers. Girls come with alot of dreams, alot of expectations, a lot of fancy ideas about a married life. Karan Johar movies had already done the damage in their innocent minds for over a decade and their romantic hero has been finally alotted to them officially. The girl has happily sacrificed her routine, her career, her parents, her friends, her passions for fulfilling this ultimate dream of her life. To be with her life partner and to have a HAPPY family of her own!!
From a boys perspective, boys are supposed to be a family man now. They are supposed to be nice and caring towards their wives. They are expected to satisfy all emotional, financial and physical needs of their women. They might have lived like a MOWGLI all their life, but now they have to be spick and span. They might have never attended a social family gathering ever, but now they need to accept complete strangers as their new family. Friends to them are some school or college or mohalla guys who accompany them for Saturday night drinking and now suddenly they need to have friends with a wife and kids preferably. Before marriage all the money they earned were their pocket money, they shopped, roamed, boozed, did whatever they want with that. But now, they are accountable, they have to give all their earnings to their family or wife. On top of that, they even have to pay for her shopping, parlour, travel, etc etc etc. Vacation to them was picking up couple of clothes in a backpack and drive away. After marriage vacation has to be international with a pre-booking done for accomodation, transport, even for a airport drop and pickup taxi. They had turned their faces to all the beautiful girls with no guilt of being caught, infact it was a sign of manhood for them. Now you have to think twice before talking to the short skirt air hostess for water.
We are talking about two entirely different individuals with entirely different upbringing. Two siblings with same upbringing and environment cannot get along forever, forget two distinct individuals.
For first few months, maximum 1.5 years you are willingly being a good boy or a good girl. You are in LOVE. LAlalaa laaa laa sounds could be heard everytime you see your partner. His eating habbits, his sleeping habbits, his wet towels everything feels cute!! Her shopping bills, her burnt rotis and even her long phone conversations make you fall in love everytime you see her. Buttttttttttttttt,,, sooner or later, you pauseeeeeeee..flashback and introspect!!
Who is the person I am looking at in the mirror? Just few months back I could relate to that reflection, but today I have to find that known identity!! People say, changes are good, but I dont find anything good in what I see! I am trapped, I was a free man before she came in my life. The common hobbies like travelling and movies which bonded us together on phone and chats are no more the same hobbies we are talking about. He travels with dirty jeans and his bike without a helmet and she travels in business class with all the five star bookings done in advance! Sanjay Leela Bhansali movies were never movies to be watched for him and she find SOCIAL NETWORKING or VERTICAL LIMIT pathetic!!
Then the problems start. You can never be happy as a different person. If you cannot be u, the laughter on your face cannot be the smile of your heart. You start reviving the you, you have left behind to become WE. It usually starts with one partner but eventually both realize that they have changed. The dissatisfaction leads in introspection. You tend to blame it on the other person and start echoing that the person wasnt perfect for you. I read a brilliant article last Sunday in LIFE supplement of TOI.
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/O-zone/entry/did-you-marry-the-wrong-person
Every marriage goes through the phase of wrong person atleast once. You might have had a love marriage or an arrange marriage, marriages are all the same!! The only advantage/disadvantage to a love marriage is the initial 6 months when you are unfolding your partners past life to understand the person better. But in those 4-5 hours of mushy mushy conversation with your boyfrien you hardly notice your differences. As they say, you dont love with your mind, its all dillogical! Even if you think you have married your soulmate, you will go through this phase in married life.
Meanwhile you have kids, you buy a house, you travel together, you share your fears and achievements and gradually and consistently you start bonding with each other.You have to make an effort to revive your love in your marriage which somehow fades away after few years. You start understanding each others thought process. You start accepting the flaws in him/her. You start compromising on petty things. You have differnt opinions but you learn to choose one of the more logical opinion to decide on things. You might like white and she might like red curtains, but then you start stopping on Orange which both like a little less than their choices. You travel with each other and give space for a day or two to experience their own world in their own way. You start having your own group of friends whom you meet seperately during weekdays or when she is away or when there is an exciting cricket match. You have adjusted to each others life style and have started respecting each others space more. She stops experimenting on new dishes to avoid disappointments and he starts recording his F1 on TV so that he can watch it later in the night. You both strive hard to have a lovely family life for your kids. You understand there are differences but the WE superseeds the I. Arguments still continue but they dont result into introspections and doubts anymore.
It is a fact that most divorce happens in 2 years of marriage. This is the same 2nd year when you dont remain yourself in the process of living upto family/society expectations. If you pass this 2-4 yrs of married life, you would mature in your relationship. You will in true sense become partners. No person is perfect and there are NO PRINCE CHARMINGS or CINDRELLA's in real life! When you can adjust with irritating mothers and crazy brothers, then why not give it a try to your partner? Abusive relationships should be a complete NO NO!But if you think difference in nature/opinion/society is the reason, everything can be adjusted. Life is all about compromises and adjustments. Dont know why these terms are used so negatively these days, but there are no two individuals on earth who can get along forever without compromises and adjustments in life.
Marriages in our generation might not be a compulsion, but if given a fair chance they can become beautiful. Instead of being trapped in a marriage lets trap our egos and free the love. Free love is the most satisfying relationship in history. Many more years of a Happy married life Mom-DAD!! :)
very nice write up.. its a step by step process .. with a gradual increase in trust and dependence on each other ....yes and rightly mentioned with advent of a year and half tow years which are anyhow supposed to be passed with calmness and strong will power ...and then life is lot smoother .. ur so right when u say that divorce normally take place within the span of 2 years.. with me almost everyone I know of who divorced was between that span !!
ReplyDeletea very factual write up !! and to add an icing to the cake the Glasbergen Cartoon .. he is my God !! :)
Thanks mysay. I have been seeing the increase in divorces all around. Some very closely, some without any proper reasons. So just thought of echoing my experience on this confusing relationship :).
ReplyDelete"Trap your egos and free the love"
ReplyDeleteWhat a magnificent quote!!! Take a bow sweety :)
Thanks a ton for this wonderful article.
Thsnk u!!
DeleteVery nice writing Dipti... These kind of true advice are really needed to current generation people like me.. I love this one... :)
ReplyDeleteThank u Gayathri!! I am happy u liked it :)
Delete