Love Or Arrange, A Marriage is a Marriage!

“I can’t believe you said this”, “How could you … …. ….?”, “I can’t live with you anymore!”, “You’re Crazy!”, “Just Go Away **** **** ****”

After few years of marriage, these expressions above replace expressions like “Wow, I can’t believe you did this for me :)”, “How did you pull this off?”, “I can’t live without you!”, “I’m crazy for you”, “Please, Please never go away!!” said before getting married. This can be a phenomena of feeling disconnected with your partner after child birth or not spending enough time with each other for any different reason. As you age and progress in life and career, you think you’re both living together = growing together. And suddenly, there is an epiphany that its just not true! You two have still been growing separately mentally (as most humans do). Often times, arguments find a way back to the start of time and there is a reference to one’s upbringing and values! This downward spiral never ends well.

Well, one can’t predict the future. So we go with the heart (in most cases) when picking a life partner and some social guidelines set forth by our ancestors. But these guidelines have not changed in centuries. The same old caste, education, financial stability, etc. for families are the usual consideration before any family gives a green light to any wedding.

So why do, despite checking all the usual boxes (or not), marriages turn into such dire states in the future? The key to our future lies in our childhood. As we progress in our marriages and become (or don’t) parents or progress in our careers, at one point, the nuptial relationship takes a backseat and runs on auto pilot. What this means is, there is the usual guidelines of date nights that start applying without much thoughts. And here, in this auto-pilot mode, we become our parents! i.e. We start treating our significant other the way our parents treated each other without much thought. It doesn’t matter whether we liked that part of our parents in the moment or not, we saw it, took a photo in our minds and now the auto pilot is picking it up. Needless to say, this auto pilot is not what our partners fell in love with and in a lot of cases, it highlights some issues more than strengths.

So, you may now think, well, don’t go on auto-pilot mode. Hmm, easier said than done. Another one — I know me, this is not me, its my partner who’s now annoying. Ahmm, really? Okay, one more — My parents never had a strained relationship, so my auto pilot looks very different than others. So why have we jumped from 1.7 divorces per 1000 people in America in 1919 to almost 50% in 2020?

Listen, all I am saying is that marriage, whether love or arranged, takes a LOT of work, and that is L-O-T of WORK in CAPITALS! And, we’re not in the generation of our parents when one of the spouse would back down in an argument. We’re trying hard, each one of us to find our equal place in a relationship and backing down is a sign of weakness. So what do you do? Here’s some tips to keep your relationship from going into auto-pilot mode:

1. Practice mindfulness in talking to each other each and every single day, no exceptions. Listen to one another with 100% attention at least once a day, no multi-tasking at the time
2. Discuss details of each others’ day. There are small patterns of frustrations that catch up into your relationship if not heard timely. Best way to avoid that is to listen carefully and observe your partners tone while speaking about their day and keep that in mind
3. Offer hugs, massages, kisses during the day, especially for no reason at all
4. We sure do live in a world of multi-tasking, endless screen time and a never ending, never satisfying To-Do List. Make time to do chores together and with the kids. This helps kids see what a successful relation looks like.
5. Talk and explore your renewed fantasies. We all evolve and there’s a high chance your partner’s fantasies have evolved since when you first got married.

But when in an argument, do these –

1. The hardest of all – Time yourself out when you catch yourself getting too upset in a situation and starting to yell (it doesn’t matter at the time if you’re right, the outcome won’t be right). So find a corner where you can do what you like – listen to music, dance, so something silly, paint, fidget spinners? Whatever calms you down. Don’t pick a chore like dishes without music because you will end up doing down a spiral of negative thoughts.
2. Pickup a discussion after making sure your spouse is calm too. Either convince or be convinced, but discuss issues like adults. IT IS SO EASY to be in auto pilot and yell at each other.
3. Don’t put off or let go of discussions when an issue is close to your heart. If it is a questions of values of beliefs, it is important to share and respect each others viewpoints, however, it is not important to agree on them! These delicate moments will make you mindful of each others feelings and you will resist the urge to call each other names in between a heated argument.

These may seem regular common sense things to do but are a good reminder for me every day and may be a good one for you too!