Divorce

I didn’t marry the first guy I loved. I love the guy I married. Had I married B and then felt suffocated, which I am sure I would have, divorce would have been a messy option. 

It is interesting that second relationships or marriages have a stronger chance of endurance than a first relationship or marriage, especially one that happened at a young age. This post comes in the heels of having just finished reading ‘Committed’ by Elizabeth Gilbert. I read the book a few years back and wrote a draft of this post back then! The book dwells upon the institution of marriage and its history and what makes it so desirable and in some cultures, essential.

For me, marriage hasn’t been a sacred or religious entity. It wasn’t so when I almost got married to the guy I fell in love with in college nor when I finally actually got married to Sathya. Though I respect all the customs and rites involved in a Hindu wedding, the force that wants me to believe in marriage, and one that is still binding me to Sathya, is not that.

Had I felt as strangulated and gasping for air with Sathya as I felt with B, I am sure I would have considered living on my own and not been in a marriage that had turned into a farce. I am fortunate it doesn’t feel so. And I also understand and know that for many women, and even men for that matter, marriage can be debilitating. Sometimes, we all feel like the wild animal that has been caught by the ring master of a circus. He has no choice but to perform. 

Most Asian and Middle-Eastern cultures regard marriage very highly. Children, family, social responsibilities are built into the expectations of a young adolescent. The ultimate aim is to “settle down.” For the woman, the search is on to find a man who earns well and can afford to look after his wife and kids financially. For the man, to find a wife who will cook well and raise well-behaved kids. So naturally, divorce is an extremely stigmatized word.  Why couldn’t the woman have adjusted? That is the first question people ask.  

I have thought of that option too, many times, over a 13 year marriage. Misunderstandings and fights and the isolation and that ‘being alone’ feeling that follows makes us think of divorce as a solution. If we move apart, live far away from each other, we reason, at least one of us can be happy. I have said this explicitly to Sathya “I will work and take care of the children, you please live peacefully at least from now on as we have messed up each other’s lives for so many years. Be a free bird”. You would think a man would want to hear that. He would be waiting for it. A bird is the ultimate symbol of freedom. But even that bird flies back to its nest as the sun sets. Every one of us longs for the security of a place we can call home. Many men are like that.

If a relationship is about repeated fights, constant misunderstandings, endless anxiety, continuous worry, what is the point of being together? I walked out of one relationship and into another in the hope that each fight would be better than the last; that as the sun sets, you would still want to be with each other, that being together was a better option than being alone or apart. Thank God, it is!