“A great marriage doesn’t because of the love you had in the beginning but how well you continue building the love until the end” – anonymous.
Rajiv and Puja, (names changed) got married 10 months back. It was a love marriage. They met at high school and have been together ever since. They did break up 2 years back and dated others for a while but eventually got back to each other. 4 months after their marriage, they wanted Divorce. They say to have tried everything possible to keep up with the marriage but nothing seemed to work.
After being together for almost 7 years, what could have led them to this situation? What can be the reasons for their separation?
Another couple, Shivam and Radhika, who are married for 7 months now, had an arranged marriage and a courtship time for 9 months. They too are contemplating divorce. They feel they are not fit for each other, so continuing the marriage is a farfetched dream for them. They did not realize this during their courtship period.
What could have gone so wrong that after 9 months of courtship and then 7 months of marriage, they are so serious about separation?
Both the cases are one of the many separation cases that one gets to hear often these days. What is it, that’s causing the couples to decide so early in their marriage about separation? What makes their relationship of years go so bitter?
The interesting thing about both the cases is that, irrespective of the fact that it’s a love or arranged marriage setup, the rate of separation between couples is going high, especially within the first year of their marriage.
Psychologists and Marriage counselors believe not being able to adjust and adapt to the new roles and responsibilities, can be one of the major reason behind this. Couples, when dating or in a courtship period, play different roles as compared to after marriage. Here, they just have to be with each other, which makes them feel connected and ready for marriage but once they are married, their roles and responsibilities change towards each other and their families. Basically, they move out of their comfort zone and then try to be with their partners. Before marriage, they lived in their comfort zones and then spent time with their partners. Change of roles and sudden change from their comfort zones make it difficult for them to adjust with each other. Adjustment issues when left unresolved seeps into different areas of life, making the gap between the couples wider.
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Rajiv and Puja, before marriage, met on the weekends and spoke on the phone for few minutes on weekdays. But now they have lesser time for each other, as after marriage Rajiv is now working 6 days a week and Puja is also doing overtime at her workplace to help Rajiv pay off the EMI of their new house. Weekends are left only for household chores, exhausting them completely. They don’t get sufficient time for each other anymore. This sudden change of roles and responsibilities, takes a toll on their married life. They claim to love each other enough but not survive each other’s company in a marriage setting.
Psychologists also often observe lack of acceptance of each other completely and having expectations not met as another major cause of divorce today. This is exactly what happened with Shivam and Radhika. In their courtship period, when they began knowing each other, there were certain things that they liked and certain that they didn’t. Initially hesitant, they didn’t mention it to their partner but eventually they started expecting these habits to change. They thought that they would cope-up but soon realized it to be difficult. This coping mechanism rather led to more arguments and finally to the topic of divorce.
Shivam wanted Radhika to quit smoking and Radhika wanted Shivam to be less workaholic and spend after office hours with her rather than playing badminton with his friends. Both of them tried, but could not give up their habits for more than a month which increased arguments between them. They even could not see the changes that they genuinely made. The expectations went higher and acceptance was lower, which finally ended up in making them call quits in marriage.
Besides adjustment issues and acceptance problems, other commonly noticed issues between newly wedded couples are lack of proper communication with each other, intimacy, patience, living life more for social media and society than themselves, comparison with other couples, understanding and accepting each other’s families as they are. These problems make it difficult for the young couple to enjoy each other’s company. More so they fail to understand, that it’s a new journey for both of them and that they will not be perfect in the course of this journey. There will be hurdles that they have to cross by giving each other support, time and understanding. They will need to spend more time with each other in the initial few years of marriage to make their communication, understanding, trust and intimacy stronger. They will require to be more accommodative and accepting of each other’ drawbacks and help overcome these. Newly-weds need to be more open to each other’s personality type and when they see things getting difficult, they should seek help of their families, friends or a professional before it gets bitter and they decide separation. There are Psychologists and Counselors who deal with Marital issues and help couples resolve their differences and get back together. It’s ok to seek help than shy away and suffocate and call quits early in marriage.
Marriage is a beautiful journey which cannot be travelled alone. Make the most of it while you are travelling together!
