The reason I came to this site, was to get some sane advice for my situation...and that was more than 2 years ago. What I did find however, that the continuous bashing of women and petty issues, badmouthing each other is more predominant than actually helping people. So much so that it put me off from even coming here.
I am glad that you have brought this up, Manisha because at the end of the day, I have found over and over again that men post perfect images of themselves here. No one is perfect and if a marriage fails, no matter who has the bigger responsibility of the blame (barring cases of abuse) both people are responsible. Who is more responsible and who is less, is immaterial. A marriage means both people give 100% of themselves in whichever way they can and when it is founded on the belief of 'what do I get out of this as a man/woman,' it is not a marriage, but rather a means of exploitation.
Men consider vulnerability a weakness, talking of emotions a weakness...everything that is to do with sharing is a waste of their time. And I have experienced this to a point where I KNOW things are going wrong but my voice is not important and not heard because I am the woman in the relationship.
Being nice to each other and treating each other with courtesy, love and kindness is NOT an unfair expectation. Rather, it is the founding stone of a marriage. But too often, I have seen that over and over again, instead of building a marriage on these lines, men try and build marriages on the lines of "this is my family, these are the rules, I don't want to hear anything, just do as I say". A woman is not a robot or a piece of furniture that is picked up from another household and brought into yours.
It is tiring to hear men here constantly lament about wives and go on and on and on about how they're lives are miserable because of the women they've married. The reality is, that if you're miserable, it is quite likely that your wife is miserable too. For every man who comes here and talks about being exploited by his wife, there are as many women as well, who are every day, even as I write this, exploited by their husbands in ways that take them years to even understand and even when they do, finding support to end such a marriage is not so simple.
This entire debate about which laws favor one gender over the other would actually die when men begin to realize that marriage in the Indian context is an imbalanced equation from the get-go. The poor-men stories about when a man gets married, his parents are old...honestly...how old are your wives parents? Thrity? They're old too. Maybe older than your parents. How many men actually think of treating the wife's parents as more than people who have given them their daughter and should now leave the man's family alone? Why not, that you too will behave with the same respect and kindness to her parents as you would expect from her for your family?
We are expected to leave everything, forget everything, become someone else but the men we marry, they're allowed to go on with their lives as usual and god forbid if we call that an unfair expectation. And when/god forbid if we look for equality and ask that they too forget their parents just as they expect us to, we are bad wives and want to break up their family.
Why expect something from a woman when men can never do it themselves? And why is it fair to keep piling on the expectations? Not just the husband's but also those of his family? Is it not too much to ask of one human being?
Before you look at the laws...look at the discrepancies in your own thought process and how imbalanced our society is...before you lament about what your wife did to you, take a deep look within and ask yourself if you were really and ideal husband for her. How many of you even think of what kind of a husband did your wife want, and did you actually get there? I am not talking here of what husband's think that a wife needs from him but rather actually knowing because you bothered enough to stop thinking for her and asked her instead??
Ever since a girl is young, she is taught by her parents how she should behave and think so she is a good daughter, wife and daughter-in-law tomorrow. Why are men not taught these things? And as a gender which is provided ZERO guidance on what makes an ideal husband, how do they end up still crying wolf?
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