RELATIONSHIPS

The Truth Behind Happy Looking Relationships

What happens when the reason you fell in love no longer exists

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When I told a friend that my son has been with the same girlfriend from high school, they were a bit skeptical.

They said young men should sow their wild oats, date and experiment before settling down. From my observations, that is an outdated way of thinking.

If you find love and compatibility at whatever age, why give up a good thing?

Yet, for US-based Indians, it’s complicated. Love is not just about freedom to be with someone you want to be with, but it’s also about strategy and practicality.

On a popular dating app, I noticed a pattern with Indian men in the US. Some were looking for love, some were after a green card, and a few wanted something casual until they’re ready to return home for a traditional marriage.

With all these different priorities, I couldn’t help but wonder how much love really factors into marriage.

Take three examples.

A good-looking Indian guy from a middle-class family in Mumbai comes to the US to pursue a Master’s degree. He meets a young American woman from a wealthy Boston suburb. They decide to marry. On paper, it looks like a love match.

But is it really?

She’s used to the finer things in life, while he’s still living in student housing. He knew he was marrying someone beautiful and high-maintenance, and yet he chose her.

Could her looks, money, or connections have made the decision easier?

Now, take another young man who came to the US for an IT job. Within a year, he meets an American divorcee with six children.

His parents, back in India, accused her of trapping him, but he says it was his choice. He loved her spirit and knew they had to be together.

Then there is my friend, Saanvi, who had a traditional Indian marriage. In a country that places a high value on those who are lighter-skinned, Saanvi’s parents had no trouble finding her a groom working abroad.

People called her fortunate to have found such a good match at the age of nineteen. However, her husband chose her specifically for her light skin color, hoping to have children who looked like her rather than his darker skin tone.

But that didn’t happen, and he often talked about being disappointed that the children didn’t take after her.

So, three men, three marriages. One for social elevation, one for personality, and one for looks.

What I wonder about is this: If these traits that determined why these men married those particular women were to vanish over time, would the center still hold?

Recently, I was visiting my aunt and marvelled at their professionally done family pictures displayed in the living room. It portrayed happiness, success, and the couple appeared to be very much in love.

It’s strange how the mind muses on what we don’t have versus what is.

Once upon a time, I used to be one half of those beautiful family portraits. But for some reason, my mind chose to downplay the sheer unhappiness I endured during my marriage, perhaps because of the longing in the moment to belong, to be part of a whole like I used to be.

The mind is a funny thing that way.

Saanvi told me something. She said no one knows what is really going on behind the display pictures.

For instance, she said my family was a beautiful family that people used to talk about. But no one knew about the depth of mental, physical, and financial abuse that went on behind closed doors.

I had looks — if winning a minor beauty pageant is anything to go by, I had the personality and educational qualifications — once upon a time, I graduated at the top of my university — but also had the misfortune to marry a narcissist whose mission in life was to strip away everything that was me until I was wholly dependent on him.

Perhaps breaking me down made him feel powerful…or assuaged his inferiority complex.

For someone who visits his kids once a year despite living close by, he later married a woman from Vietnam, a divorcee with little kids.

We are in a performance era, where appearances are everything. It’s as if we don’t portray ourselves a certain way, it is an opening that invites nosy bodies to take a closer look, judge, comment, and ultimately result in a loss of social currency.

Do you judge a book by its cover? By that, I mean, does a person’s outward appearance determine what you think of them?

More from Yana:

🎈**What Does It Really Mean to Have a Beautiful Spirit?**

🎈**I Come From People Who Suffered Silently**

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