How to get over a broken Marriage? An arrange marriage disaster.
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” — Dr. Seuss
Quoting “How I met your mother”: When you are single, all you are looking for is happily ever after. But only one of your stories can end that way. The rest with someone getting hurt.
If you have find your soul mate. The chances to that are 1: 662.9 Million. Don’t waste time reading this blog. Go to her, propose her and marry her. 😉
But if you decide to find your love, find love in eachother’s eyes, and you decide to have a traditional wedding with your traditional parents, then you will face a tough question: Kundli milli k nahi? If this happened and unfortunately not-matching ended up breaking your marraige. Than this story is for you. You can skip my story and directly jump to How I recovered after 3 months of grieving, blaming, self-realization, and finally healing.
Yes. This happened to me. When I met a girl in the first instance I felt that I had something for her. A minor vibe of soul-mate.But I wasn’t ready for it then. Having gone through multiple bad experiences with relationships in past. I had finally given up in search of a partner any further. Fast Forward >> to a year later. I finally got a chance to interact with her. Slowly realizing that she is a person that I would really love to have in my life.
Fast forward to 6 more months of constant to and fro communications, fights, jokes, and her mood swings. God! the mood swings you can’t even imagine 😂. We finally started to develop feelings for each other. To further put me on cloud seven, Her father (A good friend of my father) proposed marriage for us and a few months later we agreed to it. It’s fair to say that we both were having the same feelings & thoughts about the union. Spending hours talking, getting to know each other, thinking about our future, feeling bad skipping even a single day without talking & imagining a life together etc. Now you are wondering where did it go wrong? Wait for one more paragraph!
There is no pain in a story to share unless it has so much happiness that you start doubting yourself that- Do you even deserve it?
Well, it came across in my mind many times. Being a binge tv series watcher. I always thought that this is going way too well. Finding a girl who is so happy, kind, loving, motivating & tens of matching qualities with me. I woke up every morning trying to better myself so that there isn’t any reason that I will ever lose her. I changed for her. I changed for myself. I changed for the best. I had passions & ambitions, she into my life, I had the direction, which I was missing. I did whatever I could find that would make us better in the future. Stable Job, New house, Healthy habits & Books about relationships. 😉 We developed immense trust in each other. I used to ask her what are the chances of us getting together? to convince my insecurities that I will never lose her. And believe me, she started with 4/10 all the way to 10/10 😎. It was really something special between us. Well to conclude it was a kind of a fairytale. We two introverts, holding hands & planning of living happily ever after. The universe was putting everything together for our union. It was not perfect, maybe nothing is, not even us. But we knew how to deal with each other's imperfections.
From the movie Stuck In Love:
Samantha Borgens: There are two kinds of people in this world: hopeless romantics and realists.
Samantha Borgens: A realist just sees that face and packs it in with every other pretty girl they’ve ever seen before. The hopeless romantic becomes convinced that God put them on Earth to be with that one person. But there is no God and life is only as meaningful as you fool yourself into thinking it is. Guys who get laid a lot are realists. You should be listening.
Now starts the downfall… The first step of every arrange marriage dilemma in India. “The Kundli”, a silly century-old Hindu tradition. Which decides that two people born on a date will somehow affect their married life. So if you want to marry someone you love, it doesn’t matter that you like & trust each other. You have to be born on a specific day. OMG! Right?
This tradition was made since in the Hindu arrange marriage dilemma, a groom does not use to meet the bride before marrying. Their parents meet and decide. Now they need some validation that they are making the right choice 😂 and not getting blamed later, they match the bride & groom’s planetary positions at the time of birth. They call an educated pundit, which cannot predict his own future but can predict if the marriage is going to be successful. They believe “The Lord giveth, and the LORD taketh away" anything anytime. On the contrary, believe that God has written it all down before their birth, which they can read so easily and write someone's future on a piece of paper. If the marriage is happy all well. If it ends, well you have God to blame. Cauz why not? He won’t be coming down anytime soon to defend himself.
But this is changed now. THANK GOD. In India, the rate of arranged marriages has significantly decreased. It’s still followed mostly in the rural areas. Where people are still uneducated & settle for what they get. Safer to say in India, the rural people do not plan their lives, and certainly do not dream for the future. It is a luxury only for city-living people in India. In the era we are living in, we are so much connected via technology & still, many of us are not able to make a decision for our lives, find a perfect partner & rely on this absurd idea. In our case, this absurd idea came a year later.
To conclude the background. My parents were not interested in taking my life’s decision for me and were happy to believe in God and Pray for my happy life instead. However, as a Friend, my father decided to share my birth info with her father, so that they can be convinced too and do any solution if needed. And YES! there is a solution for everything. There is not a single scripture in Hindu mythology that depicts that Gods married after matching their Kundli. So why should a human do that? But breaking our trust and friendship her parents concluded that the Kundli isn’t matching. They are not ready for any solution. And further want to end our 1-year relation between us. After hours and days of discussions. It finally had to end. A full stop to my plans of marrying her.
1-year of planning, building trust, love, hours of talking, hours of imagining a future together just gone with the wind.
Now ME being a hopeless romantic, who thought that she is the one, was not ready to accept this idea. That somehow an old tradition can decide what’s best for me. What’s best for us. It’s unfair to me. It’s unfair to anyone in my situation. I had future plans, God! Why are you doing this to me? Asking this question, obviously gave me no Answer.
After failing to convince her parents. The Last Hope! tried a lot convincing the girl, I wanted to marry so much. But she wanted to do what her parents decide. Not everyone is a rebellion. I asked her to be compassionate with me, and help me out of this misery. Well, she helped. As much as she could. But she could not leave the compassion towards her parents. This is the quality I admired in her. So a lot of texts and stupid ideas later, I came to terms that “It’s her decision”. I can’t force her into marriage. NO! that’s not wise. In the process of getting me justice, she will feel guilty. But it’s not her fault.
A girl choosing her parent's happiness over me is not wrong in any way.
The biggest question I have or anyone in my situation is always:
What’s my fault in this? Why do I have to suffer through this experience?
When I say suffer. It means constantly fighting to get her out of your head. Constantly dwelling into the past memories, Losing your sense of self & losing the direction you once thought your life is going.
You suffer only because you let yourself get emotionally attached to the person. We all do it all the time. Cling on to our emotions. It’s a general human tendency. It’s no one’s fault. Especially not the girl you loved. She might be going through the same experience. Don’t be irrational and make her feel guilty. You decided to be vulnerable. Accept it.
“There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream — whatever that dream might be.”– Pearl S. Buck
I finally came to my sense and decided to LET IT GO. This is probably the best thing you can do.
Here are some more things you can do, instead of beating yourself up for the things that have happened to you. No amount of blaming and beating around the bush in your head will Get you out from this. If you are in serious depression, I suggest immediately seeking help from a Medical Professional. No matter how mature you think you are. This can be a trauma for your whole life. You will find another soulmate, but be in constant fear that you might lose her as well. All you need is a little internal healing. I recommend reading a book: The Untethered Soul. This book will help you deal with the impermanence of our human life & how to get rid of clinging to the emotions, so you can finally decide to move on.
Here are some things I did. If you are in my position. Try them out:
- Let it all go: I am sure that everyone is giving you this advice. But your mind doesn’t want to take it. It’s still stuck in your past memories & emotions. It was your comfort zone. Being with her gave your mind “The Happy Hormones” and hence mind is always trying to bring the matter up again and again. Only because it’s protective mechanism doesn’t want you to feel sad or traumatic. It is something that did not end well according to your psyche! So you have to gather your willpower and have to take the step to end it. It’s hard & painful. But doable. Just don’t think about the experience. Yes! it was an experience, a good one. But just an experience. You have experiences in life literally every day. You let them go. Why can’t you do this instance? Your heart will pain. Let it. It's just the process of energy leaving your body. Find anything to keep your mind from dwelling back into the experience again. Replace the thought with any other good thought you have: Your future, Your passion, Your Ambition. Whatever. Try to find out the times you go back. And in those times pre-occupy your mind with anything. There are literally thousands of things to do in life. Start thinking about any one of them. Figure out how you can do them. Slowly the stored energy of the past experience will pass through your heart and you will start to feel light and accept it. As long as you are alive. You will find another perfect match. This time was not right. It will be next time. Don’t worry.
- Wait, but have no hopes: You can wait for a miracle. Sure! but don’t hope and stay stuck. You must have had plenty of plans with her. Plenty of things to do before marriage. Carry on that path. In your journey, you will again find someone. And this time you will be much more ready than you were & ready to deal with anything that will come. Keep a small hope that the situation might improve. This will give hope to keep moving in the direction you once had. In life, there is nothing written in stones. Life can change in a single blink. There are people who married their love of life at 75 years of age. If it’s meant to be, it will be. But not right now! The best you can do is stay connected. Just be friends. If you loved her truly, then her happiness is most important to you. Even if you are not in it. You already have let go of your marriage with her. Don’t let go a “Good Friend”. Slowly you will come to terms that maybe this was the only part she has in your life.
- Don't Blame: In my situation, there are plenty of people to blame. It’s fair to say that I still have no idea “What was my mistake”. But it’s just my guilt talking. My psyche trying to protect itself. It just happened. You weren’t at fault. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t blame anyone. Everyone made their own decision according to their value system. What they think was best. You blame them, changes nothing. It’s in your head. The more you blame, the more “only you” will suffer. You will constantly think that you can make it right. But my friend, accept it. “You can’t”. You have made several people in life change their minds. But in this case, you can’t. The only reason that matters is, there are a lot of people on this planet. This is the same as a “You cannot change the decision of an Interviewer”. Solely because they think they can find someone else. This is life. Don’t Feel Entitled.
Seasons, they will change, Life will make you grow, Death can make you hard. Everything is temporary. Everything will slide. — Lyrics of Birds, Imagine Dragon.
4. Life Happens: If you think life is going to be easy, well it’s not. The entropy of the world is constantly increasing and so is the disorderlyness. Don’t make plans for the future. Live in the moment. Make plans, but don’t be stern. No matter how much discipline you have in life. Things will change. And not according to you. Definitely not before ringing your house bell. Let the life in, accept what it gives, and move on. Every time you go in the past, try pinching yourself and come back. You have no control over the past or future. Only the current moment. Live it. or else you will constantly lose much more than just your loved one.
Life Doesn’t Happen to You, It Happens for You.
