Summary

A woman reflects on her experience of being repeatedly manipulated and cheated on by her husband, exploring the reasons behind her failure to recognize the pattern of his infidelity and her subsequent actions to prevent such situations in the future.

Abstract

The author recounts her discovery of her husband's infidelity after finding a hidden mobile phone containing evidence of his numerous affairs and exploits. Despite being an analytical and observant person, she admits to rationalizing away the warning signs of his behavior throughout their three-year courtship and marriage. She identifies several factors that contributed to her overlooking the red flags: the belief that relationships require hard work, the misconception that others share her moral compass, and societal pressures to marry in her twenties. The experience has led her to reevaluate her approach to relationships, now considering the opinions of her friends and being more attentive to tell-tale signs of untrustworthiness. She acknowledges the universality of infidelity as a human experience and is determined to approach future relationships with greater wisdom and caution.

Opinions

Relationships should not necessitate continuous effort to 'make them work' if they are fundamentally broken.
People often project their own values onto others, which can lead to a misguided understanding of their actions and intentions.
Societal and parental pressures, especially in Indian culture, can lead individuals to rush into marriage before they are emotionally ready.
Infidelity is a common human experience that can affect even the most intelligent individuals.
It is important to learn from past relationships and not repeat the same mistakes in future ones.

I allowed myself to be manipulated by the same man- again and again.

But why?

I didn’t even know there was an extra mobile in the house.

There was a faint beep of message notification from a cell phone somewhere. My first thought was that my husband has forgotten his phone when he left for work. It took some searching, and I found this nuisance sitting innocuously in the drawer of his wardrobe.

It was about 2 PM when I discovered the mobile phone, and by 5.30 PM I knew that not only had my husband been cheating on me throughout our 3 years of courtship period, but he had been doing so with multiple women. He had continued cheating post marriage in more ‘creative’ ways and that he was slimy enough to create an email account for saving trophies of his exploits- nudes of girls, sex chats, and some receipts.

Did I not see it coming for the past 3 years? What were the transgressions I saw and how did I rationalize them? Why, most importantly, a woman who is usually analytical and observant fall into this bottomless pit of misery? Or rather, how did she, on her own accord, walk into this pit again and again?

I thought I will see the signs when they happen. I did see the signs but then I rationalized them individually and I failed to see the pattern these signs were building.

There are a few reasons which led to it:

1. Relationships need hard work: Don’t they say “don’t give up, the end may be a little closer than you think?” Well, stay away from this adage when it comes to relationships. For one, if you have to continuously work on making something work, then my dear, you should realize that it is broken.

What hard work goes into making a relationship work is a topic too wide, with too many variables and context involved. This is what makes analyzing any relationship so hard. But if you are feeling conflicted at heart more than you are feeling giddy with love, it’s time to prick the happy bubble of illusion.

Our judgment is most clouded when our heart is yearning to dive into love.

As for me, I know better now- I am a good judge of character till the time my heart is not involved. So now, what my girlfriends think of my guy matters. I take it seriously and they don’t mince their words anymore.

2. We see others through the lens of how we are: Before I met my ex-husband, if anyone would have told me what I would witness 3 years down the line, I would have thought that such men are few and far between. I believed in honesty, in romance and surprises, in the sufficiency of love and all the other fluff. And with all my heart, I thought this was how the world operates too. I believed that anyone would find hard to lie and also say ‘love you’ to a person. That guilt of cheating would show in someone’s body language because it would be gnawing that person’s soul.

I was wrong, and this rose-tinted view of the world hurt me badly. At the time when your belief system takes a tectonic shift on seeing such evilness, it is natural to shut yourself completely. It is self-preservation. That is okay as long as your conscious of the fact that mistakes of one person should not become a punishment for the next one. It takes time- I am still working on it.

3. It’s time and he’s the best there is: Graduating, finding love, the pursuit of a dream job, the thrill of living independently, house hunting and car buying- our 20s is packed with so many adrenaline peaking events that it is just natural to want to add another big milestone: perfect wedding. Indian social setting adds another layer of pressure- parental. I have seen very few survivors who have managed to brave this one. The 80s kids are sandwiched between the parent-abiding values which we were raised with and the rebellious new world we were exposed to as the Internet exploded around us in our 20s!

It doesn’t matter who, but when.

We cave to the societal pressure on us and desire within us for the photo-finish end to our 2nd decade of life. It doesn’t matter who, but when. So, the one around you at that time is the one you decide to go ahead with.

One of the benefits of divorce is that society gives up on you, sort of. Divorce is a big elephant in the room, acknowledged and left alone. Life doesn’t go in circles but in spirals- I will return to the point where I’ll consider marriage again, but emotionally and mentally I’ll be at a better place than I was the last time over.

This is not my story alone though. Infidelity is the ugly twin of love, born from the same womb of desire. It has existed since the time Adam found Eve, and it is one of the few human experiences which every person would go through sometime in her/his life. In a way, it is one of the imperfections that humanity is so keen to improve, it is a shared tragedy which is most spoken of, it is an experience which is most written about. But there you have- smart people, who should know better, walking into infidelity as easily as a kid walking into first monsoon drizzle.

There is still much I do not understand, but what I do understand is that there were clear tell-tales of what was to follow, and in the future, I will reserve more attention to those. I may fail again in love, but not in the same way.