Culture,Life & Love,Relationships

LOVELESS MARRIAGE – A Journey of Healing and Growth, not a Dead End.

Loveless marriage may be a curse like emotional imprisonment, where two people are bound together but lack intimacy, passion, and warmth to sustain the relationship. There is a profound feeling of isolation, frustration, and resentment. With time, a deep sense of emptiness rules over, and the absence of love wears away the well-being.

This ‘curse’ of a loveless marriage can be broken with the empowering tools of simple and meaningful dialogue coupled with appropriate counselling. Trustworthiness in accepting and analysing desires and emotional needs is critical. The goal is to restore and rekindle the fading fire or audaciously accept the vital need for change.

 

On the day of marriage, take an empty box and put one marble in each time you say, ‘I love you’ to your spouse. Follow this for a year.

After one year, reverse the process and remove one marble from that box whenever you say, “I love you.” The irony is that it may take an entire marital life to empty the box.

Be it the Oxford gist or Khalil Gibran’s version, ‘LOVE’ is the most misunderstood word.

Let’s talk about Love, not as the hunky-dory teenage romantic fiesta but as the meaningful, philosophical and emotional sensitivity of love in a marriage. This is the love that can truly transform a relationship.

Relationships in which we force commitments to accomplish something, promises to fulfil, expectations to meet, and an endeavour to survive are not Love. Love is an arrangement of an emotional and physical obligation beyond boundaries and borders.

The marriage vows are served vehemently into the naïve’ minds as sermons and compulsion, not by choice. In most marriages, everyone witnesses the vow ceremony sarcastically, mocking it and losing holiness and sensitivity much before the nuptial devotion or intimacy.

Matrimony is a metaphor that delivers lifelong camaraderie, intimacy and bonding. Marriage is like a heap of sand – to make it look wet, keep pouring water all the time. The longer you dissuade moistening the ground, the quicker dryness and drought befall, fashioning a desert of weariness and desolation.

Most marriages suffer the retribution of ‘taking for granted’. This is not a birthright over each other but a power game of eccentricities and frivolities. Marital commitments and family obligations leash the true feelings, nurturing mechanical and insensitive actions that commence with a routine morning rush and culminate in one-sided late-night bedroom rituals. The profundity of vows, appraisal, and candid adulation is coffined in the process, exhuming a stench of horridness and deceit later on.

“It’s not the lack of love, but rather a lack of bonding and reverence that makes unhappy marriages.” The loveless desert of grief nurtures desertion, indifference, brutality, betrayal and infidelity.

People fool themselves by prophesizing love in their premarital and ‘live-in’ stints. However, love breathes in the people, not the marriage, and it has to come from within, flowing freely like a natural breeze.

Marriage is not coercion, pursuit of attention, or relentless affection; without freedom, it is not worth living and needs serious help. Although there might be several cons to emotional and sensual discrepancy and disharmony, the couples must categorically agree ‘never to give up’. To fix a broken marriage, each one is undeniably responsible for facing the ordeal and sharing the journey of dealing, healing and growth.

Wisdom infers that marital camaraderie is divine and precious and is cherished until death parts them. Modern times and the present generation, however, have a different philosophy. For them, it is debatable, needing logical validation and endorsement.

The biggest jolt of suffering and shock befalls the children who witness a cold and loveless relationship. Daily arguments, abusive language, and physical extremes pollute their naive minds, rubbing their emotions on the wrong side. Their tender feelings misinterpret the school of marriage and are charred emotionally, questioning the sanctity of togetherness when they grow into adults. Children count on a successful marriage and must see the parents loving and respecting each other.

Maintaining love and affection with the same vigour and agility is the most arduous task. They say that after seven years, revitalisation is required, and a fresh appraisal must be made, mutually or individually. The foundation of a sturdy marriage is loving your spouse even when they aren’t as lovable as they used to be—believe in them and reassure them when they are enduring the scuffle of believing in themselves.

A marriage is in the doldrums if —

*The mutual communication and dialogue are taken over by dreadful silence – ‘The silence of the lambs’.

*One finds excuses to avoid spending quality time together – ‘You know I had a busy day. . . can we sleep early?’

*Bed rituals take a nosedive, and mundane clarifications are given to sleep on the bed’s other side with a separate quilt – Gosh, I have PMS problems . . . I have terrible backache . . . etc.

*Talking to each other is like a struggle. Are we talking about the Quit India Movement – the struggle for freedom?

*The lifesaver intuition is conveniently ignored, and the ego is replenished – ‘Why me?’

* No energy is wasted from either side to uplift the sagging relationship or repair the damage – energy is consumed in lunches, card kitty parties, or evening stag booze fiestas.

*One waits for the spouse to leave the house and fantasises about the glories of freedom – Hey, I am free. . . How about some fancy drinks and dinner?

 

Serious amendments are needed, and gruelling toil is predicted if these happen in one’s marriage. The irony is that most marriages suffer from this menace after specific years- a mid-life crisis.

Instead of a throbbing silence – how about shouting out your grief and frustration? Many good episodes of one’s life are sported by shouting — “You’ve never heard of an unhappy marriage unless the neighbours have heard it first.”

So don’t be stunned or discouraged by your loveless marriage. Most married couples in the world are suffering from this menace—maybe they don’t confess or are first-order hypocrites – they suffer from the PDA itch and make others run for their money by displaying exuberantly loving couples. Most have a different story to narrate if you implant CCTV in their bedrooms.

A loveless marriage must be handled by healing it – not running away.

 

“We love because we can lose. If there were no threat of separation, no death to shake us to our core, we probably wouldn’t love so much at all.”  DONNA LYNN HOPE.

 

 

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4 Comments

  1. Beautiful explanation of true feelings

    1. Dr. Anuj says:

      Thank you so much …regards

  2. Dr Ashok Kumar Ojha says:

    Nice blog on Dealing with a loveless marriage…Deal with it and heal it..Love is a divine pleasure gifted by God..Love is eternal.. There is no scope for demand or compromise..A partner has to understand the feelings of the other before he or she utters to explain.. If situation so arises that it’s wanting, both of them should realise that there is no love and their relationship has become loveless..Then onward starts a slew of compromises and adjustment.They also culminate in to a fiasco If efforts towards restoration fails.Henceforth, mistrust develops that leads to flow of abusive languages and and sometimes resort to domestic violence..It is seen that in a true love, one has to remain not only faithful and loyal
    but also caring and respectful. These traits do not pop up instantaneously.They need time to get nurtured and cared..There is always an ample scope of rebuilding relationship albiet it is never so easy..As rightly said, the worst part of the loveless relationship is that of children. They are the most affected persons…So before the heaven falls, one should make all out efforts to restrengthen rekindle the shaky and broken relationship as early as possible. Very articulated blog Anuj bhai..

    1. Dr. Anuj says:

      Dear Ashok Bhai… I just adore your expression and style of writing. You enhance my thought system with your wonderful feelings and logic. Every word is a marvel. you talk of wisdom.
      thank you so much for expressing yourself on my blogs so regularly. regards.

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