This is part 2 of a 3 part series. For Part 1, please click here and for Part 3, click here.
It was a typical evening at Shikha and Nirav’s house. Shikha, who comes home from work earlier, had made dinner and set the table.
“Hi,” said Nirav quietly as he walked past Shikha to change his clothes. She replied back just as quietly and without much emotion.
They ate dinner with minimal conversation.
“How was your day?” asked Shikha while looking down at her plate of food.
“Fine,” Nirav replied. He wasn’t being curt. He had become so afraid of saying something to incite a fight that their conversations had become very minimalistic. “How was your day?”
“It was ok,” Shikha said with tears welling up. Nirav could hear the quiver in her voice and he looked up at her, noticing that it was the first time he looked at her face since he walked in the door.
“Sorry,” she whispered, wiping away the tears and moving around her food. Nirav wasn’t sure if he wanted to ask what was wrong. Asking could mean opening the door for another argument and he had done enough fighting to fill his lifetime during their first three years of marriage. But he loved her and hated to see her upset. So he continued to look at her.
“How did it get like this?” Shikha cried throwing her fork on the plate. “We talk to each other like we barely know each other. I have so much that I’m upset about and I can’t even tell you because I’m so scared of making you mad and having another fight!”
She was sobbing out of frustration that she felt powerless to change her relationship, grief that her marriage had fallen apart, and sadness that she missed her husband but she felt she couldn’t tell him because she was worried he didn’t feel the same way. She didn’t want to fight but when they did fight, at least they were talking to each other. In a way that was far better than an emotionally cold relationship that their marriage had turned into over time.
Nirav sighed deeply. He wanted to reach out to her and hold her hand, but he was worried that would upset her further. He didn’t know how to comfort her because he knew that she was upset with him and things he had done or not done. Was he in any place to console her when he was making her unhappy? But he was also frustrated with her. At least if they didn’t talk, they could breeze through dinner without any bumps in the road. Now that she was crying and had brought up their marital problems, they had to face for the thousandth time something that seemed much larger than they could ever manage.
“What do you want to do?” Nirav asked exhausted as he rubbed his eyes.
“I don’t know! Why do you expect me to have all the answers?” she said angrily. She was hurt but didn’t feel comfortable expressing that so it came out as anger. “Don’t you have any ideas?”
Nirav recognized the sarcasm that always pushed his buttons. In the past, every time he heard that, he reacted with just as much anger and defensiveness. He wanted to say, “You were the one who brought it up so you come up with something” but he had no desire to talk. In essence, he stopped caring and just didn’t want to deal with this anymore. While he loved her deeply, he had no more motivation, no more energy to try and fix what seemed to be far too broken to ever mend.
“So, nothing?” she challenged, her tears stinging her eyes making her feel as if fire might actually be shooting out. She was angry, frustrated and lost. She couldn’t remember what it was like to be happy.
“You want an idea?” Nirav said slightly raising his voice. “Couples counseling.” He said it, just simply, and waited for her reaction.
“What?” she yelled. “Are you crazy?”
“Well, wouldn’t it be just as crazy to stay married like this? We act like we don’t even like each other anymore!’ Nirav pushed.
Shikha didn’t know what to say. Logically it made sense. They had tried everything to improve their relationship. They tried taking trips to reduce work and life stress, finding common activities to do together, and trying new activities together. They tried talking about their issues when they were relaxed, when they were upset, in different languages. Sometimes Shikha would write him a letter, other times Nirav tried writing an email or leaving a voicemail. They tried creating a list of positive things to say to each other every night but they were never able to stick to it. They even agreed to create a “serious life talks” schedule so that they could control how often they had serious conversations.
Nothing seemed to help. They always ended up fighting. The arguments escalated so that it took less and less for each of them to become angry. Nirav started shutting down when he got angry and Shikha started slamming doors. They both would yell and be frustrated for days that their repetitive fights had no resolution.
Logically, counseling made sense. But something about it seemed wrong. And then it hit her. She didn’t like the idea of counseling because if they went, that would mean she would have to accept that her marriage had in fact gotten that bad. If they didn’t go, they would continue to have the same problems that they haven’t been able to resolve and they would continue to have silent dinners, but it was easier to avoid the reality of how broken their marriage had become. She knew, in that moment, that if she didn’t agree to counseling, she would have no reason to complain about the marriage anymore because she would not have actually tried everything to save it.
“Ok,” she agreed after a long pause.
For the first time that night, Shikha and Nirav looked at each other in the eye. They knew this was the last chance they had at rebuilding a life that they had dreamed of and both craved for so long.
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