I am a person who tries my level best to stay out of debates. Sometimes, when I hear something that is so against what I believe in, I have a lot of counter-arguments that come to my mind. But somehow, my conflict resolution strategy in such scenarios has always remained “Avoiding”. I am in no way proud of that, by the way. However, when these points churn in my mind for quite a long time, I vent those out in the form of a blog. This blog is the outcome of such a ‘one-sided’ debate.

For months together now, I have been listening to some who keep arguing that marriage is the end to anyone’s life. They keep giving lame points about how you do not get to have fun after you are married, and how you end up having to compromise and adjust for the rest of your life while you are unhappy with it. To people who are not married yet, they say “Never make the mistake I made”. To people who are newly married, they say “Wait for some more time and you will definitely feel the way I feel now.” To people who have been happily married for years, they say “It’s just a pretense. There is nothing like a forever-happy marriage.”

I feel bad when I listen to this, especially the enthusiasm with which they try to state that marriage is the last thing any sane person should commit to. In the first place, I feel that it is double standards to be married and keep talking bad about the very concept of marriage. If they never liked the concept of getting married, they should never have gotten married. If they got married and then realized it was the gravest of mistakes that they could ever have made, they should have gotten out of it. Continuing with it for social acceptance, or whatever reason they have, is pure hypocrisy.

I have never understood the attribution of “years of experience” to generalize marriage. It is a simple fact that every marriage depends on the people involved. The experience and adventures can never be the same for two couples. Just because they have been married for 10 years and were never happy with their life, it doesn’t mean everyone else needs to be unhappy with their marriage as well. Just because they were not happy with their priorities changing, it doesn’t mean that for everyone it is a forced change. Just because their spouses did not give them the space they needed, doesn’t mean that for everyone marriage is like being caged.

And thinking from the spouse’s point of view, if they happen to listen to their spouses lash out about how much of a punishment marriage is to anyone and everyone they know, I am pretty sure that as normal human beings, they are entitled to get hurt. Cracking harmless jokes or one-liners once in a while might be looked at as fun. But when it is a heated argument about why no one should get married, coming from a married person, I’m sure any spouse would be pretty upset.

The worst part is that they choose to not see that there are people genuinely happy in their marriage. They don’t understand that these people are happy because they did not take their spouses for granted. Instead, they put in efforts to keep the relationship alive in their own simple ways. They tried to be each other’s best friend. Simple adjustments and compromises that we need to make are part of any relationship. We don’t look at them as sacrifices when we have our priorities set right and at ourselves as martyrs when it was our decision. A lifetime of happiness with one person is the result of a lot of ups and downs that we handle well, together. It is also the result of conscious, yet simple things that we do to make each other feel special.

But no! These crusaders against marriage will not see the fact that people are happy only when they want to be happy. Trying to talk rationally to them is nothing but a futile activity which results in unnecessary waste of time and energy. Hence, this blog. 🙂