This is part 1 of a 3 part series. For Part 2, please click here and for Part 3, click here.
Shikha put her head against the back of the sofa and breathed a heavy sigh. “Probably nothing,” she said quietly.
“Well, is there anything that you can do differently to help the situation?” asked her best friend Nadia.
Shikha sighed again, “I doubt it.”
“You seem so defeated,” lamented Nadia. “What’s going on?”
Across town, Nirav was playing basketball with his best friend and seemed to have an answer the question that was asked to his wife.
“We’re just not on the same page anymore,” Nirav told Manav. “She does her thing and I do my thing. We eat dinner together at night but even after dinner, we’re on our laptops or watching TV but that’s about it.”
“When do you think that changed? You guys used to be inseparable when you were dating and when you first got married 2 years ago,” Manav asked.
“Before our first year of marriage for sure,” Shikha replied. “We used to fight all the time. He had so many habits that I just couldn’t get used to and that used to bug me. He never prioritized our relationship. His job was always more important than us. And he said that I nagged too much.”
“Ya, we girls have a tendency to nag a lot,” joked Nadia. But Shikha wasn’t in the mood.
“All she would do was nag, nag, nag,” complained Nirav. “I couldn’t do anything right in her eyes. And then I’d get mad! Who wants to be married to someone who thinks you can’t do anything right?”
“That sounds terrible,” empathized Manav. “Did you guys ever try to talk about it when you weren’t angry with each other?”
“All the time. I knew his work and travel schedule better than he did,” Shikha explained, “so I’d pick a time when I thought he’d be least stressed about work. While we were cooking or baking or even cleaning the house I would casually mention something that was bothering me about our relationship. We were both happy and I figured we could have the talk.”
“What sorts of things would you bring up?” asked Nadia.
“Anything!” exclaimed Nirav, getting frustrated. “I need to express my feelings more. I need to include her with my friends more. I need to stand up for her more. We would be having a good time just doing something together and then she had to go and bring up something serious. I never could just do something with her, like cook, without getting into a serious conversation.”
“Wow. That would make me mad. It’s like everywhere you turn, there’s a criticism of you,” replied Manav, understanding for the first time why Nirav has seemed unhappy for so long. “Did you ever tell her what you wanted from her?”
“He wouldn’t say anything for a long time and then one day he’d just get so mad and list off 100 things he wanted me to do differently, like stop being so mean, stop being so controlling, etc. What am I supposed to do with a list that long? That’s overwhelming!” said Shikha. She paused. “But over time, even that stopped and all he’d ask is for me to stop treating him like he’s my child.”
“What does that mean?” Nadia asked, confused.
“She’d nag me like she’s my mother! ‘Did you check the mail?’ ‘Did you pay the electricity bill?’ ‘Did you do your laundry?’ I don’t want to be married to my mother!” Nirav said as they walked to grab lunch. “Her nagging made me want to do those things even less.”
“That makes sense,” explained Nadia. “He hates that you nag so he’s protesting. Also he knows you’ll remind him eventually about what he has to do so he doesn’t have to remember himself. You became his crutch.”
“That’s so stupid!” said Shikha furiously. “I don’t want to be nagging him! Does he think I enjoy it?”
“Yes,” said Nirav coolly. “I think she gets some pleasure out of nagging me and pestering me. I think she even enjoys bringing up things that she doesn’t like about the relationship and talking about negative things. I don’t know why. It sounds sadistic to me.”
“I do it because he won’t,” said Shikha fired up from frustration. “All he thinks about is his work. I knew he was starting a business and things were going to be really hectic for a while. I knew that before we got married so I can’t complain about that. But I had no idea that he assumed our marriage would come second to everything. He thinks that just because we’re married he can put me on the back burner and ‘deal with our marriage’ once everything else is settled. He doesn’t consider the fact that I might not be around when he’s ready to deal with us.”
“Are you getting a divorce?” asked Nadia worriedly.
“No of course not. But I’m not into the relationship much anymore. I love him still but we do a lot of separate things. We don’t spend a lot of time together. We don’t feel married anymore.”
“We’ve become roommates who don’t get along great all the time,” said Nirav without much emotion.
“That sounds sad,” lamented Manav.
Nirav shrugged his shoulders. “I still love her but that’s just what it’s become. We fight a lot less though but I think it’s because we’re both just tired of fighting.”
“What’s the point? We’ve had the same argument over and over a hundred times. He doesn’t listen to me and never thinks that I have good ideas about the relationship,” said Shikha.
“She just criticizes and criticizes and she never realizes what that is like for me,” Nirav added.
“I feel lonely,” Shikha said.
“I don’t feel like I’m married anymore,” Nirav stated.
“Do you think it will ever get better?” Manav asked sadly.
“No,” Shikha and Nirav replied.
Shikha and Nirav’s marriage is an example of what a failing South Asian marriage looks like. South Asian couples will rarely get a divorce because of the cultural stigma against legally breaking a marriage. However, Shikha and Nirav’s marriage is already broken. They do not listen to each other, they have very negative views of their partner, have lost hope that things will get better and no longer engage in a joint life together. They have become so distant and hopeless that they no longer have the energy to even argue.
There were red flags along the way. Fighting all the time, not prioritizing the marriage, having the same argument over and over without resolution, not attempting to repair after a fight and losing a sense of connectedness are all signs that the marriage is on it’s last legs.
Shikha and Nirav can still mend their relationship by attending couples counseling and learning about how each of them contributed to letting the marriage get to where it is now and then knowing how to strengthen it again. Without couples counseling, Shikha and Nirav are resigning themselves to a lifetime of unhappiness because they seem unable to figure out on their own what the other needs to have a healthy marriage. If they have children in the future, without a healthier marriage, they will raise their children in an unhealthy household and the children will suffer from the marital discord.
If you see yourself and/or your partner in this article, please share this with them and reach out to a local South Asian mental health professional to get your marriage back on track right away.
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