I used to.
Mine was an arranged marriage, like most of the Indians. Before marriage I spoke to her only a couple of time, because our marriage date was 3 months after we met formally and also we both were busy with work and preparation for the big day.
On our big night, it was 2 strangers in a room. I knew more about my watchman than my wife. We didn’t do any thing on that night , since we were strangers and very tired of the long rituals from our marriage.
couple of months after marriage was suffocating for both of us. We tried to change for each other but it made it worse. there were a lot of differences between us.
* She was an extrovert, I am an Introvert.
* I have less friends, she had a ton of them
* She will be in phone most of the time, I rarely make calls and only calls I get is from my parents and more than them the credit card people.
* I like staying indoors, she like going out and shopping (I hate shopping)
* I like to be with my family and relatives, she spends her time with friends and hate spending time with the relatives.
* She is a Coffee person, when ever she is free one can find a coffee mug in her hand. I don’t drink coffee or tea.
* I have a kind of OCD where I don’t have any unread mails or messages even I open those spam/add mails. Once I happened to have a glimpse of her office laptop screen and she had 500+ unread mails.
* She like to read a lot , she hasn’t seen the GOT series but read all the books. Most of the time in the weekend when ever she is in home I can find her in the balcony of our room reading something. I on the other hand don’t like to read much, weekends I’ll be on my bed with laptop on my chest binge watching any thing and everything
* I am very lazy, she is very active.
* She love driving, be it car or bike. Me on the other hand still don’t know how to drive a bike.
* She spends a lot and I am kind of a savings person who rolls his tooth paste tube till there is no tooth paste left.
* She travel to office in the cab, I used take the bus
* She has a very good dressing sense, I just need a shirt and a pant and I’ll manage till it tears if I have to.
* But I still try to dress well because of char log (Society) kya kehte hai. She is like F**k them who cares, Its my life attitude.
* I never get into fight, because its a waste of time and energy even when it is not my fault, She’ll fight if someone wrongs her.
* I hate cooking but love to clean I always want everything in order, she hate cleaning (She is the mess maker in the house) and used to cook food better than my mom.
* She love dogs and I hate those monsters (I had a bad history with dogs).
* She is a fitness freak, she eats healthy, goes to gym everyday and also good at sports. I go to gym when ever I feel like my stomach is getting big, eats what ever that is considered food, I am also good at sports that I play in my Xbox.
* And the main thing is She is vegetarian and I am not. I eat chicken everyday.
All this difference may feel trivial or small (Even we taught we can handle), but it was not for us. We tried to change for each other but it felt like suffocating trying to be someone we are not. This caused frustration and stress in our life. Everyday we were unhappy. Marriage was turning to be a prison for us. Only thing we had in common is that we both thought our marriage is suffering and both didn’t want that to happen. Some time we used to argue and fight because of this. I regret marrying her.
One day we stopped trying to change for each other an we stayed the way we want. It was like staying with a roommate. We did what we like and didn’t expect any thing from other. After this, the suffocation was no more. We could breath again. In time, we kind of got used to each other.
6 months down the lane, I got an offer to work abroad for 6 month for a project. She was happy for me and I left.
I never thought that I would miss her, but I did. I missed her talking to her friends over the phone, Missed her food, no one was there to make mess. When I get back from work no one would be there in the house.
Every day I used to call her. Call would last for 10 to 15 minutes with basic ‘Hi, how are you?’, ‘How’s work?’, ‘How’s everyone there?’, ‘What’s going on?’. Every day I used to call her at the same time. She used to avoid calls form others during this time. I would be worried if she didn’t pick up the call. then I used to call my parents to check in on her.
I missed her a lot. I realized I am in love with her and I thought its only from my end and she doesn’t feel the same about me. So I kept quit.
I was about to return to India. I informed her the same, my flight was supposed to reach around 2 am in the morning, so told her that not to wait for me, since I had a key with me.
I reached around 2:30 am. When I came out of the airport, I was surprised to she her waiting for me outside the airport. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw me. She came near me. I could see her eyes filled with tear and a big smile on her face. I knew then that she also love me. She hugged me and said she missed me.
Now I don’t regret my marriage. She is the perfect one for me.
We didn’t change expect change for each other. Just love the way we are.
I only wish that we should have spent some time together before marriage so that we didn’t go through what we went during our initial days.
By Anonymous
Staying married is a decision we make everyday
