My thoughts on marriage

I fell in love and I have quite the "happily ever after" dream marriage. Sometimes even the happiest dreams do have problems. After a lot of thought, I do feel that due to the expectations we thrust on a marriage, most marriages are bound to fail.
You have 2 individuals who, due to different reasons choose to share the rest of their lives together. You're bound to run into so many issues along the way. Both of them need to change themselves a bit to have a happy co-existence. The changes usually would be for your benefit and will not appear as a burden.
You learn to care about the spouse and do things to make them happy. All the while you don't feel burdened. You feel happy to see them happy.

But - I do feel that marriage is too overloaded. We expect emotional bonding...financial settlement.. children.. physical intimacy.. adjustment with families... adjustment to cultures... food.. too much. On some areas we can improve a lot. In some we may fail.

I, for one have never understood certain cultural aspects of my spouse's family. It is a stark contrast to my family. For my upbringing certain things seem extremely unreasonable and illogical. The best I can do is, hide my true feelings from my spouse, so as not to hurt him. But, occasionally my true feelings do come out - as facial expressions! And - that begins a certain war at home. Imagine - we are 2 people who are totally in sync with each other's emotions and expectations. But this inability of mine to see his family the same way as he sees - wreaks havoc in my marriage. It makes me more bitter towards his family and truth be told, it has definitely changed my level of closeness with my spouse because I feel he has become too demanding.

As an individual I am entitled to my own set of opinions about things. If my parents were to do the same things as my in-laws do, I would not spare a single rough word. I would curse them, blame them and tell them they are wrong. So, there is no partiality here. My spouse has seen aspects of his parents which I have never ever seen. So, that brings a different connect and emotional attachment for him. How can I be expected to do the same? I have understood that I am what I am. The way I see things are based on my grooming as an individual. I will continue to be the same but I shall hide my true feelings as well as I can. Usually I empathise with people a lot. Many of my friends are surprised how I can sympathise with just about anyone. But if there is someone I cannot truly sympathise with - I need to accept that too. Yes, it is probably because that person has not behaved great with me or that person is actually not worthy of being sympathised. Whatever be the reason, since I am unable to become Mother Teresa here, I shall remain who I am and continue my hiding business and master it one day. (Well, I haveconveniently forgotten that my looks - or rather the lack of good looks, my unkempt hair and cracked feet have also wreaked enough havoc in my married life without me even realizing it. I'm 33 and now is when I know the importance of physical intimacy in a marriage. I realize how important it is to be attractive to your spouse. Late chamatkaar :-))

Marriage is the only place where two positives can make a negative :-)

Sadhguru's perception abt "should we marry?"

“Do I need to marry?” As a human being you have physical needs, emotional needs, psychological needs, social and economic needs. As an individual, how strong are your needs? Is this some kind of a passing need that you can easily go beyond? If it is, don’t get married, I’m telling you. If you find that marriage is not necessary, that’s it, once you make a decision, don’t look that way. If you make a decision to go that way, don’t look this way.

When you have fallen, you will make bad partnerships, desperate partnerships. When you are well, when you are at the peak of your life, that is when you must make a partnership which will take you through all those ups and downs.

There are various needs of a human being that propel us towards relationships – physical, emotional, psychological, economic and social.