Smita and Dilip had been married for seven years. Theirs was a love marriage. Or so they thought. The arguments and bickering started right from day one. They would have their moments of course but they were few and their memories never lasted. They would fight over their respective in-laws, their child, money, a movie, a phone call or just about anything. They never seemed to agree about anything in their lives. Once Dilip could not hold his temper and dealt out a hard hitting, back handed slap on Smita's cheek. Smita stayed back only because of her child.
Very early in their marriage, when Smita was pregnant with their child, Dilip had been foolish and unfaithful. When he came to his senses after her delivery, he had confessed his sins to her and had pleaded and begged for forgiveness. He had told her that only because he missed her did he do such a stupid thing. Smita, being a simple person, decided to give him a second chance. She loved him very much to let him go.
After a while, he started confiding in her that he did not like her physically. He had been put off right from the start, he said. She should have been more well proportioned, he had expected something else, etc, etc. On hearing these things at first, Smita thought that this was his way of starting an argument with her and decided to ignore what he had said about her. But, it did not end there. He started ignoring her completely, started sleeping in a separate bed. He had also taken to commenting on some of her friends. He would say,"It would be great to have an affair with so and so...she really is sexy!" She would get really upset and depressed. She started losing her self confidence. She felt she could never do anything right because whatever she did he would either ignore it completely or pass a negative comment.
When she fell sick, he would not even inquire about her health. Many a times, when she raised her voice against him, he would stop eating as if to say it was all her fault. Sometimes he would shout out loud about the mistakes he had made in his life by choosing her as his life partner when he could have had anybody in the world. All this threw Smita into an abyss of depression, self pity and regret. She stopped taking care of herself, threw herself into household chores and started over eating. The end result: she gained weight and looked even more unsightly.
Smita did not want to break her marriage. Her Indian conservative upbringing forbade her from doing so. Also, there was the child who was very attached to her father and vice versa. If she left her husband, her child would be affected for life.
With her family's help she joined a support group in her area just to take her mind away from domestic matters. Slowly, she found that when she did not care about what her husband said, his comments did not upset her. Of course, things that have already happened cannot be undone. But her mind still has the largesse to forgive.
Isn't marriage otherwise called a compromise of sorts?
