The Show Goes On!

I don’t consider myself a happily married woman.

I have a husband who, I think, does not have the time to stop by and think of me. He is one of those “manly” men, who believe that it is sissy to express love and affection.

Well .. he was not so “manly” when I fell in love with him. We used to talk for hours. I still remember those nights when outgoing calls used to be free between 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. and he used to call me right at the dot of 11.01 p.m. We would talk for hours, regardless of the fact that we had to get up early in the morning and go for work. Nothing mattered more than those precious hours when we talked to each other about any topic under the sun.

As a child, I have grown up seeing a father who hardly spoke to anybody in the family. My father is one of those “manly” men too, who believe that talking is a woman’s job. As a teenager, I had decided that I would marry a chatterbox. Yes, a chatterbox. I wanted somebody with whom I could talk for hours, with whom I could share my thoughts. So when I met this chatterbox in disguise, I fell in love! That was not all ... he looked smart too! He spoke well and sounded pretty modern. And more than anything else, he successfully managed to appear to be a passionate lover!!! There was no reason I would hold myself back from falling head over heels in love with this young man.

However, things changed as soon as we decided to get married. I failed to notice that he had gradually started to cut down on our endless discussions; he had become quite distant, and had almost stopped sharing his feelings and thoughts.

That was very strange. And call it foolishness or blind love, I completely ignored those changes as “work load”.

So, one fine day, we got married. Till then, I did not see how he would behave when angry, because he had never been angry with me. Till then, I did not know how he would react when he is told that he was doing something wrong, because I never knew he would stand by his mother even when she accuses me without any valid reason. Till then, I did not discover a lot of things.

And when I discovered the undiscovered, it was like a hard slap on my face. There I was, away from my parents with completely new people all around me – where I was not accepted for what I was. They wanted me to behave the way they always dreamt of an ideal daughter-in-law. And unfortunately for me as well as for them, I did not fit into that picture of the perfect daughter-in-law, which they had envisaged. And they wouldn’t accept anything that is away from their vision.

I was shattered. My mother-in-law had problems because I wore pajamas in the night. My mother-in-law had problems because I did not give my entire salary to my husband. My mother-in-law had problems because I was modern and because I was from a family that was better off financially and had lived a rather comfortable life.

So, my question here was: didn’t you all see me before your son married me? I lived there with him before got married for almost 5 months along with my sisters-in-law. Didn’t they see me at that point of time that I was wearing pajamas at home? When they met my parents, didn’t they notice that we were financially better off? And worst of all, why should my mother-in-law have problems if I kept my hard-earned money in my account? I was contributing my share for household expenses and EMIs!! Then why the hell was I expected to hand over the entire amount to my husband!!??

What angered me the most was that throughout all this crisis, my “manly” husband never opened his mouth and stood by me even once. I was left to cry all alone in the corner without anybody coming up to me to talk or comfort.

Before we got married, my husband had told me not to let his mother work in the kitchen when she visits us. His reason was “She has been slogging all her life, so I want her to relax when she is with us”. And when did that, my mother-in-law accused me of banning her from the kitchen!! And my dear husband screamed at me saying “You want to rule, right? You want to make my family feel as if they are outsiders!!”

That’s not all! They even blamed my mother to be the culprit behind all the problems. My sisters-in-law took it as their moral responsibility to be rude and impolite to my parents. My husband thought it was his duty to make things clear and to tell me that my parents were not welcome anymore. All this and more, because my parents came to stay with us for almost a month (girl’s family is not supposed to stay this long!) and because my mother tried to explain things to my husband, thinking that would help him understand me better.

Hell broke loose the day I couldn’t take all the nonsense any more and retaliated! I was rude, and I wanted to be rude. I had every reason to be rude.

Since that day, the graph of happiness in my life has seen a constant down slope.

Surprisingly, all this happened 3 and a half years back, and I am still married to this same man; live with his entire paraphernalia, and have a child out of this marriage. We still have bad fights and I still wonder why on earth I married this man.

I really have no clue what made me fall into this trap. I really have no clue what makes me stick on.

May be it’s hope. May be it’s the child. May be I have just got used to living in that rut.

People call me strong. Because they feel I am strong enough to go through all this without losing my mind.

But to be honest, I think I am weak. Too weak to call it quits and walk out.