I have realized that I had a very biased viewpoint when it came to marriage, the balancing and conformance it entailed. Being a female myself, I always took into account my own perspective and experiences along with those shared by my female friends. I never considered or tried to know the other side of the story; but when I did, the circumference of my viewpoint did not change. It just increased to include the other side as I came to realize that it was difficult for everyone.
The more I have got to know married couples better, the more I get skeptical. It has been a journey of unraveling some rather unpleasant truths - about people, human behaviors and the way our society functions. Marriage and family is supposed to instill a sense of togetherness, love, affection, compassion, respect, sharing and most importantly an irrevocable sense of security. But is that what we have today? I don't believe so. Somehow proving ourselves right instead of the other person is more important than letting some trivial things go; proving we are more abundantly wealthy than the other person is more important than being gracious and thankful ; proving we are better in every which ever way than the other person is more important than embracing the fact the it is all right to have some shortcomings and flaws. We are so focused on doing everything right and being perfect than the other people that we forget that these flaws and imperfections make us who we are today.
Marriage today is not about embracing each other with all of who we are. It is more about being
immaculate in the eyes of our family, the society and most importantly, be active on our social networking sites - all in all keeping upto social expectations. If you don't post a picture hugging, kissing or laughing or any sort of fun activity where you appear happy with each other, every other week, or call your relatives frequently or visit them or have them to visit you, it is just unacceptable. Why have we allowed ourselves to be influenced by these social dos and don'ts? We need to be able to determine that it adds to the stress and not relieve it. Is it not enough that we have to deal with and adjust according to expectations & boundaries of our spouse and maybe families as well, that we need to exhaust ourselves by being worried about those 376 people on our Facebook friend list as well and an equal no. of followers on Twitter and Instagram?
The more I interact with married people, the more I have come to realize that it has come down to managing dynamics. At the end of the day, a successful and not to mention a peaceful marriage solely depends on your ability to juggle priorities, people and manage their expectations. Nah ! This is according to me an incomplete truth. I believe that a successful marriage depends to quite an extent on establishing one important basic fact- this marriage involves TWO people. Only and only what these two people think, expect and want from each other is the thing that matters the most. Rest everything, everyone is a by product of this. All other people, their opinions, expectations are secondary to the opinion and expectations of the two primary people involved in this relationship. They are the ones who set the ground rules, who have a say in what is acceptable and what is not, which painting to hang where and what color to paint that wall. If you can embrace this, my experience says, It will be a Hell Lot Easier !!!!
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