The Love Marriage Conundrum

This is the love story(?) of a boy and girl.

Let’s call him P.

Let’s call her D.

It was the winter of 2009.

When they first met, they hardly talked. They noticed each other but there was no communication. Or maybe there was, they will never know. He was the flamboyant, popular, loud boy in the class who was always flanked by other boys. She was a confident girl but she was in a setting that was all too alien for her so she kept to herself. Everyone thought she was aloof, maybe even a little scary. People around her were from different cultural backgrounds, she could not fit in. So she made it her business to come in the classroom quietly, listen to the lectures and scoot off as soon as it got over. He, however, hung around. He had friends and he fit in with everyone. It was weeks of attending classes together and all they did was notice each other with no real intention of getting to know each other.

It was during one of those lectures that the professor made a grammatical error, like he always did. D quietly corrected him in her mind, she had given up on correcting this professor. That’s when she heard someone correct him. And he was doing a very funny impression of him. She turned to the source of the sound and saw him. Turns out P would not tolerate bad grammar as well. That evening, during break time, they got introduced to each other and thus began a friendship.

He would later tell her that she had smiled a smile to herself when he was correcting the professor and he saw it. That drew him in. D felt rather flattered.

I don’t know if I did a good job in masking my characters because it is pretty evident by now that this is a story about how I met my husband. We started out as friends and before I knew it, we were dating. Six years of being together, of being friends, our families got involved and decided that it was time we needed to be married to each other.

Everyone calls my marriage: Love marriage.

Honestly, if I were my younger self, I would practically burst with excitement while telling everyone that mine was a love marriage.

Right now though, I am very divided on love.

Like most things, I am two people in one when it comes to my understanding of love. One person in me is the mushy gooey hopeless romantic that believes that all romantic comedy movies are based on true stories. She is always waiting for her own romantic story to play out. Then there is another person who resides in me, to whom love is well, sane and normal. Nothing extraordinary like the butterflies in the stomach or the flash of lightening that strikes you when you first see someone. The logically romantic part of me is more dominant to my personality than the other one. However I would like to insert a disclaimer here that for the most part of my growing up years, I let the crazy romantic dominate my personality all the time.

So when it was time to be married, we just did. There was no arranged marriage related doubts nor was there love marriage related ease that most people claim.

Every marriage takes work. Mine did too. Still does sometimes. But, to be honest, I don’t see myself married to anyone else but him. I’ll tell you why.

• In times of crisis, P is my friend first and then the husband. That makes decision making and problem solving a much easier task.
• He treats the familial unit the most. My family or His, relationships are important to him and that is something that matters to me the most.
• P is an excellent father. A little crazy at times but tolerable.

I am not a bad wife either. At the risk of sounding a little too ‘blowing my own horn’ I can safely say that I am driven, sweet, loving and crazy enough to be his wife.

Being married to someone you dated, is not all flowers and sunshine. You need to settle yourself in domestic roles. You will start to see a routine setting in and you will also see that despite the routine being abysmally boring on the outside, it is the perfect setting for the two of you. Netflix and chill will actually mean just Netflix and chill with a side of popcorn. And Sunday snuggles on the couch will win over fancy brunches. This is no different in an arranged marriage as well. The entire transition can be the exact same in that setting as well.

My husband puts it across expertly. He says:

Love does not make marriage work. Compromise does. The good kind of compromise. Because middle ground is very important to find the balance in any relationship.

In March of 2018, the husband and I would have known each other for 8 years. Two years of being married and one baby girl later, we still have days when married life is more surprising. Then there are days that bore us to death. Like I mentioned earlier, balance is key.

This post is a part of the blog train started by Jasmeet of Mommy Voyage and Anchal of The Mum Story. They have networked to bring together moms to share their take on Love and Relationships in this month of Love.

I am grateful to Cheni Adukia for introducing me to the blog train.

I now let the train pass from my station and reach yet another wonderful place on Deeksha’s blog.