The sad thing about writing a blog post on the laptop is, I end up going on to the reader and start reading posts. Trust me, that’s sad because, once you start scrolling down the reader, it is a rabbit hole which is never-ending, ever consuming, and most importantly filled with amazingly funny and interesting blog posts. The rants, the stories, the lives, the recipes, the fun, and some pretty serious thoughts, all of those are just wonderful and a little too much to handle on a serious work day. Eventually, I ended up not working at all yesterday. And today when I open my laptop at work again, I see my open tabs filled with interesting posts that are waiting to be read. And I couldn’t resist and dived in.
It was then that I found this post on relationship goals by a very famous blogger. It was about choosing to leave and being happy over staying in the relationship and being unhappy. Well, I couldn’t agree more.
The more I think about my marriage, the more clearer it gets as every day passes. I was terribly unhappy in the marriage. No matter what anybody says, marriage is a compromise that we humans are ready for out of our necessity or want or wish to be with a certain someone. And when I got into a marriage that did not originate from love, I was pretty sure that I may not be the person who can love someone out of the blue and so thought that maybe arranged marriage is the thing for me. I thought if I can respect that someone, and if there is some attraction in between, there can be a relationship and by any remote chance even love can follow. I just shouldn’t have rushed into it and should have taken some time to get to know him and figure out if I can really respect him or not and if I’m attracted to him or not. My other mistake is that I underestimated the power of the human brain. Once I got into the relationship, it is clear that there is no love or attraction. Yet, there is a need to stay in that relationship as it involved many people, two families and their hopes, plans and pressures.
So, in the compromise called marriage, we need to make 10 thousand more compromises every day about things ranging from too little to too big with not just one person but with almost everyone around. I don’t know why compromise is a bad word, but when done with love, while in love and while being loved, nothing ever sounds like a compromise and everything seems to be fair and square. But for someone in my situation, to make all those little or big compromises every day and with a realisation that eventually, I will have to compromise on the dreams and plans that I curated for my life, is just plain heartbreak.
To stay in that marriage means to live a life that is never my wish or dream. Call it my ego or anything else, to live on someone else’s terms made me terribly unhappy. And once the wave of unhappiness hits you, it hits you hard. Throwing you off your feet, into the waves of depression and messing up your brain, body and everything within and around. At one point, the mere thought of a life with him made me miserable.
It is very easy to tell someone in an unhappy marriage to just move on OR to just bear it now and you’ll adjust to it with time OR that all marriages are that way OR to think about your parents OR that the next one might be worse OR that he isn’t abusive OR that it isn’t as bad as I think it is. It is very easy to say such things when you are in a happy place and know nothing of the cyclone of unhappiness raging within this person.
And to choose happiness, this person, has to break hearts, destroy plans and then survive the onslaught of hatred and at the risk of being called cold, cruel and selfish. Well, if it is not my life on the line, maybe, I wouldn’t be so selfish to choose myself over everyone else. Despite all my mistakes, miscalculations, misjudgements, I still have to live with myself. The only way I can do that is to accept my mistakes, accept my shortcomings and still forgive myself so that I can meet the next day in peace. I made a similar choice. I accepted myself for what I am and I choose to move out of that marriage and be happy. I know, I might never find love or might never get married again. I might be alone and might have to face loneliness at one point in time. But I still choose that over being with someone and being unhappy.
Choosing oneself for your own survival is not being selfish. It is called self-preservation. It is the best possible decision that I’ve ever taken and I’m very proud of myself for making such a choice. So, if there is something that I have to tell someone in my place, I would always beg them to choose themselves over anything and everything. No matter how many lives we have, we always remember only one and that one life is this and it is our responsibility to live it to the best of our ability.
Just choose yourself and choose to be happy. Any decision in life should be based on that. And when you do that, you’ll be ready to face any consequences that result from the choices you made.
So, that’s me for today. Have a great life, you people. 🙂
journeyofmythoughts 