For as long as I remember I have seen my parents annoyed with each other. They have kept it together for the sake of us and because of societal pressures. I don't know If it's a good thing though. Had it been better , if they had ended their marriage and ended up with the partners
they could actually love and respect? When I look at my mother, I think I know the answer and it's no, she wouldn't have done it. She is too weak a character to think for herself, or to know that she wants anything for herself. Her sense of righteousness is such that she would feel guilty if she realized she was constantly unhappy in her marriage. She's also very flexible and would have come to love any man that she married. But once it was done, and owing to her religious belief in the institution of marriage, it's impossible for her to break free from the learnt patterns and behaviors. She sees everything that my father forbids her from as wrong. She is very God-fearing and kind and believes in very rigid parameters for her righteousness. My father on the other hand wants some specific things from his life partner that my mother apparently lacks in. When you are not content with something for too long, everything that it represents serves to annoy you. He keeps finding faults with my mother. He would have fared well with a head strong , independent women . It's as if he seeks someone who would bring him down to ground with herself. As if he would prefer that to the pedestal my mother has set him up on. The fuel of ego is not essentially fulfilling, as he would rather have someone who will not take his crap. Because he knows its crap. I have known him to be the most loving and generous father. He has cared for me and my other siblings and handled us so gently always. He has hardly ever raised his voice with us. So what is wrong that this person could be so different with his life partner, who is nothing but obedient and caring to him? I think that the egoistical man with my mother is just a facade He does not give her the satisfaction of opening up to her, or accepting her for who she is. It's a punishment he gives her as well as himself, for being in a union that doesn't feel right. My mother. on the other hand, amazes me with her capacity to both charm and annoy me at occassions hardly minutes apart from each other. No matter how badly she is treated, or how mean someone was to her, she would complain about it for a while. But give it an hour and she gets impatient about the situation, focuses on her own faults that must have given rise to that situation, goes back on her stance, and initiates contact, in not most , but ALL cases. It's hard to feel sympathetic or fight a battle for such a person who does not keep his own feet on the ground. Beneath all this, she has a very gentle, a very compassionate heart that bears no malice even for the people who have hurt her the most in her life. She would have been at her best, with someone who could restrain himself from pushing her buttons to get the desired response. Because it is always so easy! There could be a man who could protect her frail and ill-defined personality from collapse, who could deny to give in to the great temptation of controlling someone who could be controlled so easily. Someone who could let her spirit soar freely, which i can bet is never going to see the light of the day now. In fact, she may not even identify all her life that what it is that makes her terminally unhappy and unfulfilled. She is going to shame herself into happiness. Like all the God fearing and husband-fearing women.
They could have been made for each other. But well. It isn't so. And they have kept it together.
Broken marraiges are shitty businesses. They are traumatic. As I have seen, or gotten the taste of from the conflicts between my parents.
But what about those two people who spend their entire life, unhappy. People who are endured, not celebrated. People who were not even in love when they got married, to begin with. They don't have a younger version of themselves to go back to in past and seek to love their partner from the same frame of reference that they had then.
For the same reasons, I believe love is not over-rated. I believe if someone marries, it should be for love, and love alone. For then, even if the things go wrong, it is easier to live with the result of your own mistakes.
they could actually love and respect? When I look at my mother, I think I know the answer and it's no, she wouldn't have done it. She is too weak a character to think for herself, or to know that she wants anything for herself. Her sense of righteousness is such that she would feel guilty if she realized she was constantly unhappy in her marriage. She's also very flexible and would have come to love any man that she married. But once it was done, and owing to her religious belief in the institution of marriage, it's impossible for her to break free from the learnt patterns and behaviors. She sees everything that my father forbids her from as wrong. She is very God-fearing and kind and believes in very rigid parameters for her righteousness. My father on the other hand wants some specific things from his life partner that my mother apparently lacks in. When you are not content with something for too long, everything that it represents serves to annoy you. He keeps finding faults with my mother. He would have fared well with a head strong , independent women . It's as if he seeks someone who would bring him down to ground with herself. As if he would prefer that to the pedestal my mother has set him up on. The fuel of ego is not essentially fulfilling, as he would rather have someone who will not take his crap. Because he knows its crap. I have known him to be the most loving and generous father. He has cared for me and my other siblings and handled us so gently always. He has hardly ever raised his voice with us. So what is wrong that this person could be so different with his life partner, who is nothing but obedient and caring to him? I think that the egoistical man with my mother is just a facade He does not give her the satisfaction of opening up to her, or accepting her for who she is. It's a punishment he gives her as well as himself, for being in a union that doesn't feel right. My mother. on the other hand, amazes me with her capacity to both charm and annoy me at occassions hardly minutes apart from each other. No matter how badly she is treated, or how mean someone was to her, she would complain about it for a while. But give it an hour and she gets impatient about the situation, focuses on her own faults that must have given rise to that situation, goes back on her stance, and initiates contact, in not most , but ALL cases. It's hard to feel sympathetic or fight a battle for such a person who does not keep his own feet on the ground. Beneath all this, she has a very gentle, a very compassionate heart that bears no malice even for the people who have hurt her the most in her life. She would have been at her best, with someone who could restrain himself from pushing her buttons to get the desired response. Because it is always so easy! There could be a man who could protect her frail and ill-defined personality from collapse, who could deny to give in to the great temptation of controlling someone who could be controlled so easily. Someone who could let her spirit soar freely, which i can bet is never going to see the light of the day now. In fact, she may not even identify all her life that what it is that makes her terminally unhappy and unfulfilled. She is going to shame herself into happiness. Like all the God fearing and husband-fearing women.They could have been made for each other. But well. It isn't so. And they have kept it together.
Broken marraiges are shitty businesses
. They are traumatic. As I have seen, or gotten the taste of from the conflicts between my parents.But what about those two people who spend their entire life, unhappy. People who are endured, not celebrated. People who were not even in love when they got married, to begin with. They don't have a younger version of themselves to go back to in past and seek to love their partner
from the same frame of reference that they had then.For the same reasons, I believe love is not over-rated. I believe if someone marries, it should be for love, and love alone. For then, even if the things go wrong, it is easier to live with the result of your own mistakes.
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