Relationships
Did you know that the Anagram for Relationships is
"Phoniest Liars"? And we wonder why relationships are
so troubling! :)
First a disclaimer: Seeing as most astute people in the world give relationship advice only if they can rake in profit (self-help books?), you will have to credit me for being less opportunistic! I am not trading my relationship-wisdom for your "rainy day" money! I am giving it away for free. Also, there's a chance you might think I am being very boastful, but don't judge me too badly for it. Afterall, boastfulness may be a disreputable virtue, but it is not the antithesis of truthfulness. So I request you to focus on the truthfulness of this post, while I focus on the boastfulness (and being disreputable!). :)
I was telling a friend that had I not been married to Tapi, I would have been disqualified from all matrimonial websites by the uncles and aunties of the world! (also, as someone rightly pointed out, even being married to Tapi disqualifies me from matrimonial websites). They would have written me off as a disaster and ostracized me for maligning their morally pure online space!
Every marriageable man and woman listed on these matrimonial sites are an epitome of beauty, comeliness and perfect-morality! They seem to have no flaws!
I on the other hand am short-ish, dark (in matrimonial terms: "not entirely white-ish and somewhat wheatish" complexioned) (!), chubby-ish, not much to look at, casteless (with no tradition of arranged marriages in three generations on both sides of my family... except rarely and that too disastrously...), in an unconventional line of work (also currently without job!), easily attracted to men (the more the merrier), need constant entertainment (whether with spouse or otherwise), borderline alcoholic (to brahmin standards), not religious (except second-handedly... erm.. i mean, i maintain some high-level curiosity), don't cook (note: i didn't say can't cook), prone to hiding my favorite food, love to hate family, don't (yet) care about having kids, and in the rare occasion that I do have some unquestionable values they are unconventional and one doesn't know what to make of them... I am opinionated, judgmental and argumentative.
But, somehow, seeing as I have been in a long term relationship for over 10 years with one very admirable man, I can take credit for excelling at this committment-thing like nobody's business! (TAKE THAT you judgmental uncles and aunties! Slap!) :) I can challenge most people that my marital life is more honest, peaceful and exciting than theirs! Tapi and I quite enjoy our questionable lives together (although his life is much less questionable than mine) and are madly in love with each other! I can't remember the last time we had a fight. I get jittery if I don't hear from him for two hours when he's at work. I rarely take a vacation without him, and when I do, I drive people nuts with my sulking and whining until we are back in our intertwined hug like Richandamy in Zits. My family thinks this obsession we have for each other is borderline unhealthy... and we might come to regret it one day, since we make no time for social life. But so far, so good! (Social life doesn't seem to miss us either!)
Here is what I think about most 'rocky' marriages (please forgive my generalizations. Today I am celebrating Blanket Statements Day.... which happens to coincide with Prabha is the Greatest and the Best Day)
I think it is very petty why most people get married or divorced! And this I think is true not just for arranged marriages. It maybe true for every kind of relationship that ends up in a marriage. When you get into a relationship it is because of a long laundry-list of qualities you like about a person, and when you get out of a relationship it is with a long laundry-list of complaints about the person... Finding a spouse seems to be no different from finding a roommate or buying a hair product! Then there are these "surprises about" and "disappointments with" each other that keep us amused or frazzled. Everyday is like an episode out of a soap opera. You feel like you have to have a say is what this other person IS... you comment on their values and choices as if you have earned your right to do so. (I so despise the nagging-variety couples... especially when they nag the hell out of each other in public and think it is funny, or acceptable! It is disrespectful beyond words... not just to each other, but to everyone they put it through)
I constantly keep hearing words like compatibility, adjustment, compromises, sacrifices, expectations and rights when people define marriages. In fact, these words seem more synonymous with marriages nowadays than they were a generation ago! (Am I wrong?) Is this all people think marriages are about? (Come to think of it, my single friends impart this wisdom about "adjustments" more than my married friends do!... ok... some of my newly married friends do as well...This I think is ironic. How can people (want to) get into a relationship feeling THIS pessimistic about it? If it makes them feel better, I'll say, I don't find happily married people using these words to describe their relationships! Also the "not-married-but-madly-in-love"-varieties can't be bothered about defining their relationships... which is lovely and refreshing to see! They look so smitten and adorable.)
In fact, getting married is not "life changing" at all... sorry to disappoint. It is really nothing! While change has been the constant in my life, change because of marriage remains an elusive concept! (Likewise, Tapi may be losing hair, but I have little to do with it! I can only take credit for his good looks.... they say when two people live together for a long time, they start resembling each other ... If you don't agree with me, wait till I lose hair!)
If physical attributes or a person's interests or character are the only things that attract us to them... then seeing as these are not permanent attributes, and that we could also be wrong in our judgment of them, it makes more sense to get into such a relationship in a non-commited way than in a committed way! If you suddenly find yourself less attracted to a person... isn't it more convenient to get out of that relationship without having to make rounds to the court than otherwise? There has to me more to a marriage than physical and intellectual attraction! There has to be that whatchamacallit that will never cease to exist! There has to be that whatchamacallit that continues to exist even after the novelty of the physical and intellectual attraction wears off. And that whatchamacallit can't be something you can define in words!
I am also quite certain that it is near impossible to adjust, compromise and cater to the expectations of a person in the long-term... At some point it is bound to boomerang and all hell will break loose.
Committed relationships are more about being and letting be. It is about two people ungrudgingly letting each other make selfish choices and taking pleasure in seeing them feel blissful and contended. It is the most deferential and considerate thing you can do for your loved ones (also applicable to other family members and friends!) :) I think it helps to focus less on what we like about our loved ones and more on that we love them!
Moreover, divorce is the worst thing that can happen to good people (when I say good people, I mean those who otherwise don't deserve to go through that kind of hurt)! It is disrespectful, condescending and speaks very little about your own morality! ... how can you marry someone and then not find anything nice about them to like, to the extent that you don't want to see them for the rest of your life! If divorce makes you happier, you have to question your motive for marrying this person in the first place. Like I said, this is more understandable in a non-commited relationship than in a committed relationship (I'll even say, the break up in a non-committed relationship is less disrespectful even)... And why must we like or not like people that badly, especially if we don't find them morally reprehensible?
I don't know if I have this relationship thing figured out. So this is just a thought that I am going to consider... and I am going to consider this for my other relationships as well. The world is so full of attractive people. I think we ought to work on creating meaningful, committed and non-committed ties of many different kinds with everyone... :) (Ok. Stalkers. Keep out!)
(By the way my blanket statements don't apply to unequal relationships dictated by chauvinism, or the kind of arranged marriages where two people are forced to come together whether they want to or not. In these, the rabbit warren is more convoluted and confusing. I won't know how to find my way from one burrow to another. I am safe for having not entered it!)
Final disclaimer: This post is full of generalizations. As I read it I can see some erroneous statements. But, in my defense, I also scattered disclaimers all through the post, and also couldn't have explained myself anymore, seeing as it is already so long!
First a disclaimer: Seeing as most astute people in the world give relationship advice only if they can rake in profit (self-help books?), you will have to credit me for being less opportunistic! I am not trading my relationship-wisdom for your "rainy day" money! I am giving it away for free. Also, there's a chance you might think I am being very boastful, but don't judge me too badly for it. Afterall, boastfulness may be a disreputable virtue, but it is not the antithesis of truthfulness. So I request you to focus on the truthfulness of this post, while I focus on the boastfulness (and being disreputable!). :)
I was telling a friend that had I not been married to Tapi, I would have been disqualified from all matrimonial websites by the uncles and aunties of the world! (also, as someone rightly pointed out, even being married to Tapi disqualifies me from matrimonial websites). They would have written me off as a disaster and ostracized me for maligning their morally pure online space!
Every marriageable man and woman listed on these matrimonial sites are an epitome of beauty, comeliness and perfect-morality! They seem to have no flaws!
I on the other hand am short-ish, dark (in matrimonial terms: "not entirely white-ish and somewhat wheatish" complexioned) (!), chubby-ish, not much to look at, casteless (with no tradition of arranged marriages in three generations on both sides of my family... except rarely and that too disastrously...), in an unconventional line of work (also currently without job!), easily attracted to men (the more the merrier), need constant entertainment (whether with spouse or otherwise), borderline alcoholic (to brahmin standards), not religious (except second-handedly... erm.. i mean, i maintain some high-level curiosity), don't cook (note: i didn't say can't cook), prone to hiding my favorite food, love to hate family, don't (yet) care about having kids, and in the rare occasion that I do have some unquestionable values they are unconventional and one doesn't know what to make of them... I am opinionated, judgmental and argumentative.
But, somehow, seeing as I have been in a long term relationship for over 10 years with one very admirable man, I can take credit for excelling at this committment-thing like nobody's business! (TAKE THAT you judgmental uncles and aunties! Slap!) :) I can challenge most people that my marital life is more honest, peaceful and exciting than theirs! Tapi and I quite enjoy our questionable lives together (although his life is much less questionable than mine) and are madly in love with each other! I can't remember the last time we had a fight. I get jittery if I don't hear from him for two hours when he's at work. I rarely take a vacation without him, and when I do, I drive people nuts with my sulking and whining until we are back in our intertwined hug like Richandamy in Zits. My family thinks this obsession we have for each other is borderline unhealthy... and we might come to regret it one day, since we make no time for social life. But so far, so good! (Social life doesn't seem to miss us either!)
Here is what I think about most 'rocky' marriages (please forgive my generalizations. Today I am celebrating Blanket Statements Day.... which happens to coincide with Prabha is the Greatest and the Best Day)
I think it is very petty why most people get married or divorced! And this I think is true not just for arranged marriages. It maybe true for every kind of relationship that ends up in a marriage. When you get into a relationship it is because of a long laundry-list of qualities you like about a person, and when you get out of a relationship it is with a long laundry-list of complaints about the person... Finding a spouse seems to be no different from finding a roommate or buying a hair product! Then there are these "surprises about" and "disappointments with" each other that keep us amused or frazzled. Everyday is like an episode out of a soap opera. You feel like you have to have a say is what this other person IS... you comment on their values and choices as if you have earned your right to do so. (I so despise the nagging-variety couples... especially when they nag the hell out of each other in public and think it is funny, or acceptable! It is disrespectful beyond words... not just to each other, but to everyone they put it through)
I constantly keep hearing words like compatibility, adjustment, compromises, sacrifices, expectations and rights when people define marriages. In fact, these words seem more synonymous with marriages nowadays than they were a generation ago! (Am I wrong?) Is this all people think marriages are about? (Come to think of it, my single friends impart this wisdom about "adjustments" more than my married friends do!... ok... some of my newly married friends do as well...This I think is ironic. How can people (want to) get into a relationship feeling THIS pessimistic about it? If it makes them feel better, I'll say, I don't find happily married people using these words to describe their relationships! Also the "not-married-but-madly-in-love"-varieties can't be bothered about defining their relationships... which is lovely and refreshing to see! They look so smitten and adorable.)
In fact, getting married is not "life changing" at all... sorry to disappoint. It is really nothing! While change has been the constant in my life, change because of marriage remains an elusive concept! (Likewise, Tapi may be losing hair, but I have little to do with it! I can only take credit for his good looks.... they say when two people live together for a long time, they start resembling each other ... If you don't agree with me, wait till I lose hair!)
If physical attributes or a person's interests or character are the only things that attract us to them... then seeing as these are not permanent attributes, and that we could also be wrong in our judgment of them, it makes more sense to get into such a relationship in a non-commited way than in a committed way! If you suddenly find yourself less attracted to a person... isn't it more convenient to get out of that relationship without having to make rounds to the court than otherwise? There has to me more to a marriage than physical and intellectual attraction! There has to be that whatchamacallit that will never cease to exist! There has to be that whatchamacallit that continues to exist even after the novelty of the physical and intellectual attraction wears off. And that whatchamacallit can't be something you can define in words!
I am also quite certain that it is near impossible to adjust, compromise and cater to the expectations of a person in the long-term... At some point it is bound to boomerang and all hell will break loose.
Committed relationships are more about being and letting be. It is about two people ungrudgingly letting each other make selfish choices and taking pleasure in seeing them feel blissful and contended. It is the most deferential and considerate thing you can do for your loved ones (also applicable to other family members and friends!) :) I think it helps to focus less on what we like about our loved ones and more on that we love them!
Moreover, divorce is the worst thing that can happen to good people (when I say good people, I mean those who otherwise don't deserve to go through that kind of hurt)! It is disrespectful, condescending and speaks very little about your own morality! ... how can you marry someone and then not find anything nice about them to like, to the extent that you don't want to see them for the rest of your life! If divorce makes you happier, you have to question your motive for marrying this person in the first place. Like I said, this is more understandable in a non-commited relationship than in a committed relationship (I'll even say, the break up in a non-committed relationship is less disrespectful even)... And why must we like or not like people that badly, especially if we don't find them morally reprehensible?
I don't know if I have this relationship thing figured out. So this is just a thought that I am going to consider... and I am going to consider this for my other relationships as well. The world is so full of attractive people. I think we ought to work on creating meaningful, committed and non-committed ties of many different kinds with everyone... :) (Ok. Stalkers. Keep out!)
(By the way my blanket statements don't apply to unequal relationships dictated by chauvinism, or the kind of arranged marriages where two people are forced to come together whether they want to or not. In these, the rabbit warren is more convoluted and confusing. I won't know how to find my way from one burrow to another. I am safe for having not entered it!)
Final disclaimer: This post is full of generalizations. As I read it I can see some erroneous statements. But, in my defense, I also scattered disclaimers all through the post, and also couldn't have explained myself anymore, seeing as it is already so long!
