INCOMPATIBLE COUPLE COMPLETES 32 YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE

INCOMPATIBLE COUPLE COMPLETES 32 YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE
MUSINGS ON MY WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
By
VIKRAM KARVE

We, my wife and I, got married on 30 May 1982. 

Today, on 30 May 2014, we complete 32 years of married life, and enter the 33^rd year of our marriage. 

Ours was an arranged marriage. 

There was no “love” involved. 

We are certainly not a “made for each other” couple. 

In fact, we were, and still are, a terribly incompatible couple. 

The wife of a friend of mine who knew me closely and observed my “would-be-wife” when we had gone to invite them for our wedding commented to her husband that our marriage will not last for even 10 days. 

My friend landed up on our 10^th wedding anniversary on 30 May 1992 with a bottle of champagne and made his wife eat her words.

But what the lady had said did have a ring of truth in it. 

My wife and I are indeed an incongruous couple, we are poles apart in all aspects. 

We have huge differences of opinion on almost all matters, we fight a lot, we criticize each other, we shout at each other, we never hide our feelings especially when we don’t like something and we call a spade a spade.

We do not indulge in lovey-dovey Public Displays of Affection (PDA)

We do not say “I Love You” when we end phone conversations.

We don’t indulge in “niceties” like giving each other gifts or celebrating occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. 

Ours may be a rather volatile and “loveless” relationship.

But there is nothing fake about our relationship.

We try to live one day at a time.

Or, to put it another way, we make our marriage survive one day at a time.

In these modern times when even passionate “love marriages” break up and end in divorce, why is it that our rather prosaic marriage has stood the test of time?

There is just one reason.

Both my wife and I were always clear about one thing:

“DIVORCE IS NOT AN OPTION”