I for I-Openings – Welcome to Reality!

Back home, you are unpacking your honeymoon baggage. You smile over the little naughty moments you both had over the last week and your eyes fall on the bunch of potpourris you’ve got from your honeymoon shopping. Your mom is fond of rose fragrance, so you keep aside the rose one to gift her. Your dear wife walks into the room and coincidentally the rose potpourri catches her attention. “My mom would love that,” she exclaims and makes a move to pick it up.

“No, I’ve already kept it aside for my mom.”

Oops! You thought it aloud and now you are confused about how she’s going to react.

Welcome to reality! Marriages may get made in heaven, but unfortunately we will have to live it out on earth. When you fantasized your husband tugging you from behind, you didn’t care to locate your mother-in-law in the vicinity, did you? Well, why would any sane person do? But that’s the difference marriages can bring in from the courting life you had dreamt with your then boyfriend. Meeting someone for a few hours and living with the person under the same roof all day are two different lives.

It was only you and him when you courted. But in reality, marriage is about living with each other’s families even if not in the same house. So, the first eye-opener after marriage is I for In-laws! It is in our blood to treat our in-laws as a species different from our’s. They may be nice, you may be equally nice. Yet, the heart that accepted and loved their son cannot easily open up to do the same with the family which raised him. Why? Ask yourself and let me know. My mother-in-law has always been known to be calm, polite, kind, considerate, affectionate, understanding and everything that a wonderful woman can ever possess. Those of you who know her in real life will agree. I am a kind of pampered daughter-in-law. Yet, if you ask me how would it be to live together with my in-laws, I would open my eyes wide open and try hard to dig out all the excuses my mind can come up with – short skirts, late mornings, skipping meals, not dressing up the kids, whiling away on the sofa – I may have to forego such silly everyday life trivialities in a joint family. But, if it were my mom in the house, I can still do all of this. That’s where comes a thin line between your family and the other family. And this line can get into the relationship with your spouse in no time unless you both mutually remain wise to the after effects of it.

H asked me in the morning if today’s post was on I for Intimacy. Yeah, I know the posts from A to H were heading that way 😉 Earlier you assumed that when you come back tired from office, she will open the door with a beautiful night’s plan. May be she did for a few days. But, she’s not going to do it forever. And you both are not going to whisper sweet nothings into each other’s ears f-o-r-e-v-e-r! Yes, the next eye-opener in the reality of marriage is I for Impermanence in Intimacy. Not that it must necessarily get lost, but it may fade in its intensity with time. Though there are a lot other aspects which your married life is about, the realization that your intimate life isn’t a thing of magic for long, can build a disappointment in some corner of your relationship.

Don’t be surprised if in a few days after marriage, she hands you over a bucket of wet clothes to be hang-dried when she opens the door for you. She’s done with chores of the day and she wants you to do the rest. Even if it means a harsh welcome back from office. The king of all eye-openers is I for I? Why not you? When you dated, doing home chores together might have sounded romantic in your mind. Let the reality ring and you will realize it’s a thing of horrorful burden. It could be that you are willing to do but you just hope your partner does it all so that you can stretch yourself on the couch. Trespassing your share of home chores is a crime in a relationship and your marital life will soon face its consequences of it.

And slowly, you begin to see marriage isn’t what you thought it to be as! Happily-ever-afters, in reality aren’t actually about happiness or ever-afters. Nevertheless, you still feel the love in your relationship, you still take time to hug and kiss each other and you still hope things shall get better. Well,it’s just the beginning. There’s more eye-openers to come in the coming days.

Image Credit – CanStock