Henry, ”what has gotten over you? You’re changing by the day. This is not what I bargained for when I married you… ”, Anita shouted before Henry cuts in. ”What are you implying?, he stammered under his breath as if unsure of the words to utter. But it was not that he wasn’t sure of the words to frame; it was just in a bid to not allow her regret the marriage a moment further.
And Anita was right, she had married a different man, or so she thought. Henry seems to become less of himself and more of someone else. ”What has happened to your conscience”, demanded Anita in a feat of rage and a tone that espouses her feeling of betrayal.
Henry and Anita’s relationship is one of those relationships you would refer to as a ‘perfect one’. They started out as friends, and their love story became completed – they were joined in holy matrimony. And the first few years were moments of bliss, and it really was, until now that the bliss is threatened.
Anita had just returned from work, and was about taking some nap when her attention was drawn out by a white leaflet on the bedside stool.
Her inquisitiveness got the better part of her, as she reluctantly reached out for the paper – she later wished she hadn’t. It was addressed to her husband. She shouldn’t have snapped it open, but she knew Henry wouldn’t mind, or so she thought. ‘After all, there are no secrets between us’, she had said to herself.
It was a medical report. Eyebrows raised, ‘but he never told me he had an appointment with the doctor’, she had considered. Her body began to give multiple pulsations. But she wasn’t done yet. She cast a careful glance at the paper in her already trembling hands. She’s now sitting upright on the 3 and half-sized mahogany bed which had come as a wedding gift from one of Henry’s office clients.
And it dawned on her – he’s been living with a congenital breathing disorder. How could she take this. She cringed at the pain in her heart, more for the feeling of disappointment than the discovery of the fact his health is vulnerable.
Multiple thoughts cascaded down her head. ‘Should I just pretend?’, she had thought. ‘No, it won’t work that way!’, she had countered that thought. She would confront him, she concluded.
She was knocked out of her imaginations by the sound of Henry’s Peugeot 406 car. And she perceived the security man running to open the gate.
She was ready to let go of decorum, she had braced herself up for a fight, and she got it.
She ran at him, sweetheart wouldn’t form on her lips this time. ‘No wonder you’ve been acting strange’, she had said, waving the report at his face. Henry’s face had turned blank. ‘When are you planning to tell me this?, she had continued hysterically. Henry, ”what has gotten over you? You’re changing by the day. This is not what I bargained for when I married you… ”, Anita shouted before Henry cuts in.
‘I’m sorry, dear’, he had managed to say but Anita won’t take that. She broke down in tears.
She had always believed she is in a very transparent relationship but with this, she would have to agree with the school of thought that, MARRIAGE IS AN EYE OPENER. She couldn’t believe she’s bargained for the height of deceit – self-deceit. How does she handle this now that her eyes are opened? How would she rationalize this? She started wailing.
That’s about Henry and Anita. Now let’s talk about yours: How do you feel when all you’ve depended on suddenly disappears when in marriage? What would your resolution be when your spouse spontaneously becomes the direct opposite of what you thought he/she was? The comforting part of your spouse now turns to a gruesome pain in the neck for you and so many good things you ever have celebrated then, now gives nothing close to bliss!
You’re probably going to wish you never got yourself into such marriage, right?
Let me ask you a question: if you’re in an airplane and an alarm notifies you about an impending crash, what comes to your mind? I bet you won’t think of going back to the airport but rather would seek a way for safe-landing. You are probably going to get yourself a parachute. That could be the only help, for real. And that’s how divorce is engineered – or prevented.
It is better to think twice before you get engaged. Prevention, they say, is better than cure. It is better to check and double-check on the one you want to marry before you say, ‘Yes, I do’
Some husbands who have professed themselves to be lions, turn out to be paper tigers in marriage while some wives who have proven to be the help-meet only turn out to be out of the help equation.
It is tragic and demeaning to the soul when one sees the only reason one got married disappear in marriage.
When it happens, it’s easy for some people to call the shot for divorce but some will never, albeit, for religious reasons.
If you belong to the ‘Till-death do-us-part’ group of marriage, you are probably going to start a regret spree. No! You find ways to make the marriage what you so desire.
That a marriage is giving signs of crash doesn’t mean it will; marriage is far more reliable than airplanes.
What if the unexpected happens? What if you get less than what you bargained for?
The best way out of this is to learn ahead.
These are my suggestions about what you should learn:
*How to adapt to Changes.
*How to manage Individual differences.
*Perseverance and Patience.
*How to Spot, and solve, Home-breaking Problems.
*How to Tell when your spouse is changing for the worse.
Remember this: you can always work at whatever you desire, and you’ll realize.