" I do "

Marriages just don’t work anymore or so goes the belief.

It’s easier to get a divorce today than get married. And the alarming number of people, young and not so young, who have willingly accepted that theirs’ could also be a marriage that might end in a few years is terribly saddening.

Many might ask what gives me the right to be talking about marriage being only 2 years into it myself, but my humble submission is this: I do not want to accept that marriages today do not work. That a few years down the lane, either me or my husband will cheat or that we will fall out of love with each other.

I want the happily ever after. And I want to make sure I get that damn happily ever after.

It's a pretty simple concept isn’t it— fall in love and spend your life together. Our great grandparents did it, our grandparents followed suit, and for many of us, our parents did it as well.

Why the hell can't we?

Things were very different for our grand parents and parents. I know. Social media was nowhere on the scene. Technology had not yet exploded. No mobile phones. Nothing. Of course things were very different but marriages lasted. And they were good marriages. And if I may – many tell me that financial independence for women has added fuel to the fire. I disagree. My grandmother was financially sorted – her marriage lasted for 40+ years. 

Question is - what went wrong?  

So, my attempt at penning down the reasons I think marriages do not work today: And many people I’m sure can and will come up with many more with all the logical sentiments as an addendum, I’m just thinking these are my top few. Many might even disagree and such. That’s ok.

1.      It’s over even before it has begun: It’s believed that ‘Armageddon’ – the end of the world is a done deal and well we can’t really do much about it, so we resign ourselves to this fact. Marriages are going down that road today, me thinks. Even as couples get married, they have taken a lot of the wrong things for granted.

They assume that divorce is an option. Did our parents think like that? All marriages go through rough patches. That’s not new. But giving up has become so easy. And our reasons are just so blah. Of course, there are couples who actually go through problems – abuse, harassment and bad things. But do we hear of those as often as we know of marriages breaking up because 2 people did not talk things through.

And the worst one – we have assumed that some time or the other one partner will cheat. Why? Yes, the chemistry will wither away.  Yes, both of you won’t look as good as you used to. And the romance will die out. Finances, children and all such matters will take precedence. But we all know these facts and we still get married right. So then why do we make it out to be a problem later? Our eyes are wide fucking open when we get married right.

Taking the easy way out knowing that we can has become an inevitable sad truth. And the problem I also think is that most people today want this. It’s so much easier to have a marriage, be happily in love with your wife and sleep with other women that most people find this to be very 'A ok'. Convenient and pretty fucking saddening. Do we think this is going to go down well with our kids – I mean kids today are way smarter than we used to be, so there’s no way in hell they are not going to know shit at a young age. Have we thought about that?

2.     The ‘Me syndrome’: Our constant obsession with ourselves. My life. My career. My money. My space. Well – if all you are going to be bothered about is yourself, then stay single. Stay happy. Marriage is not about ‘me’. It’s about ‘us’.

So joint accounts matter. Not who earns more. Conversations matter. Not how many FB friends you have.

Yes, we all need our space at times. But how much really? My grand mother once asked me to explain the concept of ‘space’ between couples. She had read about it in an article and no matter how much I tried I couldn’t get her to understand it. Post which I realized that it’s just another word being used to camouflage our obsession with ourselves.   

Our parents had dreams and they chased them together. It was all about their many firsts and each one was a celebration in its own right. Not just a declaration to the world forgotten as soon as it’s done. Haven’t all of us made this mistake atleast once?

Never before in history has there existed an age so geared toward the idea of “me first.” Sadly.

3.     We're connected, but completely disconnected at the same time.

Remember the last time you were having a conversation with your partner without either one of you fiddling with your mobile phone?

You told your wife you made dinner reservations ... through a text message.

Your husband had flowers delivered to your job ... through an app on his phone.

You both searched for furnishings for your new home ... online.

Everything is now linked to some type of technology. Where is the physical connection in anything? We've forgotten how to talk to each other yet expect healthy marriages. How is it possible to grow old together if we barely speak?

Why do you think our parents actually get to a point when they can celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary? Because they weren't scrolling through Instagram wanting to know what holiday a friend just went for. They weren't on Facebook counting likes. They weren't on vacation posting pictures on Whatsapp to their friends.

No.

They were only bothered about loving and respecting one another. They were talking to each other at dinner, walking with each other holding hands instead of their phones. They weren't distracted by everything around them.

4.    Singledom is no longer a curse. And most people seem to be using it as their escape plan. So if a woman is single and has the hots for a married man, the entire onus of saying no is on him. Like seriously – will that ever fucking happen.! Why can’t we as women actually stick by the moral code that makes us the stronger gender.

And men – well men – it has been proven scientifically over and over again that men can compartmentalize their emotions very beautifully. But when did this become second nature to women?

‘As long as I do not know, it’s ok’. ‘As long as he /she comes home every night and is a good parent, it’s fine’. I’m beginning to hate these statements. They are in fact a true testimonial of the fact that somewhere people today, just don’t want marriages to work. No matter how you disguise it, we are making sure that marriage as an institution will collapse in under 10 years. As a result of which, none of us can any point of time, ever ask our children to think about getting married. I mean, if most marriages today are to be considered as examples, well then! 

As I said, there could be many other reasons that are actually worthwhile. But can we please take a moment to think this through. Once we make a commitment, can we at least try our best to make it work, purely because we want it to work.

I’m scared to think of what the next generation will make of marriage. I do not want this fate for my child for sure. I want people to believe in marriage and make it work. It takes a lot – hell yeah it does. But it’s not even close to impossible.