Post: 14th August
Do married couples have these conversations in their heads or just the divorced ones? I mean I talk a lot to myself these days. I sound very calm, composed and collected in my head, especially dealing with subjects I don’t have to deal in any more.
We all marry for reasons that make sense and sometimes for reasons we force fit to make sense. Usually love bears the brunt of this choice. Some are honest enough to admit it was the hormones, for many it’s the persuasive whining of family or an innate need to procreate. Others need to find someone sober to settle down with, because alone and lonely start disconcertingly merging together, too often.
But deep into these relationships, what precisely is it that becomes of this *reason*, this Choice?
It starts on a high, a very high *high*, some would agree. A high which some would again agree, becomes unsustainable. The usual courtship and mating rituals follow and keeping hands off each other becomes practically impossible. (You can see Lothario strut the street style every time the couple enters the room).
The indiscreet pleasure of being able to just hold, touch, caress, feel, is a wonder of wonders. No one seems to have a problem any longer how often you are caught kissing on the sly. The simple thrill of being able to get away with the naughty stuff so often and so easily keeps the couple grinning like imps in the early years, and that secret pleasure is what maketh many a sardonic proverb on this rather erotic yet pious scheme of things.
You hang around each other, you hang on to each other’s words, hang on to those clandestine urges, you hang on to your mobile phones, your senses soaked in pheromones jumping all over, thanks to an unchecked and fire at will libido. How much better can it get. She makes the tea and he tosses the eggs. You can almost hear the harp playing in the background.
But then again, there is a damn good reason why they anointed this phase *honeymoon*. I love the energy with which young couples talk about weddings. Honestly, it’s so fetching, so Karanjohar in your living room.
It starts very small. Tiny adorable arguments. Small stolen moments of freedom between urgent emergent lists of to dos. Quick romantic dinners sliced between school fees and EMIs. Holidays in between year ends and budgets. It goes on for a while.
Time passes. The lacy stuff goes to the back of the drawer. The Jockeys come out in full freedom and flourish. Time brings home a new friend from work one day. He's cute, chubby, smiles a lot, loves your Jockey collection and an untimely snooze. Enter Comfy.
Now this fellow, he has a very persuasive voice. And it makes sure he befriends you. He also is the sibling Abel to your Libidinous Cain.
Some find a sense of purpose in explaining why Comfy is always welcome everywhere, even in the bedroom, where Libido marked his territory with random ease, once, in a galaxy far far away. Some make it their life’s mission and some have children to explain his intrusion. He is so, you know...comfy. This pattern is not unhealthy, nor unusual. It’s what makes the first few years seem memorable in hindsight. Circa 20 something B.C (Before Comfy).
.
Creepeth the hour, cometh the boredom. And one fine morning, you start feeling it in your bones. The slow and drugged walk of the everyday. The silent march of routine. The monotony of shopping. Deciding what to make for Dinner. How the weekend could be, should be something more. Movies, endless chatter about the hottest series downloading impatiently on your #Netflix. The unending spinning cycles of this and that. Books, music, friends, Facebook, family, alcohol and food. They add up the equation beautifully.
So the partner has downloaded stuff for you. It’s a movie night. No wait, what the hell, it’s a documentary. Damn, it’s 10.30pm. You are eating, slowly, very slowly, masticating every morsel...sneakily watching the hands tick past...you are observing your food ingredients with great intent. Naturally, you have missed 3 big end-of-the-world punch lines by Sir #DavidAttenborough in the meantime. You swear under your breath. This wouldn’t happen if it was #BenedictCumberbatch now would it, but no, let’s do wild life nights. You have ideas of a certain kind of wild life of your own, which your mate simply won’t comprehend anymore. He sits fuming under the kebab rolls. You settle the dishes and plonk on the warm little hole you dug for yourself earlier. The silence of the TV is matched evenly by the two souls trying to pretend how urgent tomorrow morning is going to be.
You know it’s disconcerting how No one ever ever ever ever talks about which partner farted or burped first and openly in the bedroom. Now that’s a huge Mount Sinai right there!! And who do you think got you past that? Eh? Eh? (*notice the smug look on Comfy’s face?).
Maybe this chubby happy go lucky fellow eats conversation for appetizers. Big appetite the bloke has. You feel no great need to speak of the irrelevant stuff anymore. I mean, seriously, what would she care about the moron at office who simply won’t fix the printer or the moron for that matter you have to call Boss every day...In any case one prefers the sports channel or NGC, or maybe she is on that episode of #Suits where Mike gets arrested. (Now I would love to tell you about Sasural Simran Ka here, but I haven’t the foggiest, so I am guessing it has its moments). And all these episodes, sans interruption, it just sums up the day so perfectly. Like that neatly tied bun on her head. So tidy, so effortless, so er...not sexy.
Thing is she just served dinner. Everyone looks fed and peaceful. The house smells of contentment and roasted cardamom. Sounds have petered out. Even the In laws look stoned, the curry was that good. You deserve this hour with your book and your music and your TV. But you are not out of the woods yet. One partner for sure will give the horny look. Some people just don’t believe in that childhood *early to bed* axiom. You still have that presentation to wrap. Sir Libido flexes his muscles in full abandon. It’s going to be a long night.
You don’t wake up very fresh. You make a mental note to tell the other how this exercise must commence sooner and definitely before dinner! What do they know of deadlines??!!
Gone is the need to be stupid, to indulge in the banter, the teasing, the touching… feels meaningless somehow to repeat the obvious with someone you know will respond in a particular way to a particular stimuli. The once shiny New has left and with her walked out her petulant child, Libido. Comfy owns you now. You are comfy. Your pyjamas are divinity itself. Believe me it is damn inoffensive and deeply comforting to be in bed with your life partner. In bed, and to be fair not always trying to adapt the latest paperback of ‘’Kamasutra for the uninitiated’’.
You see, it is after all, school night.
I reckon this of anyone 10 -15 years into their wedlock and the answer will likely correspond with,
- that’s not fair, it was just one match... Manchester United Vs Chelsea, I mean c’mon!!
- of course she is still hot, but, I mean it’s her, what’s the big deal? We still do it once a week anyway
- it’s the kids, you know, ever since the second one...
- yes he looks fit but you know, I get so tired by the end of the day
- but we just had dinner and I get all gassy you know right after…
Let’s not get judgmental. It is effing unfair to poke horny fingers at people who see each other dressed like delinquent inmates, intermittently released on parole, desperate for a bunker, on a self-styled prison life term.
The morning after, you start with a whimper. It’s a toothbrush and loo chatter that coalesces at a table of bread and #Kellogg and usually ends with speed marching to an #uber or a car. Sometimes a metro or even a brisk run. Now sexy couples and some determined souls don’t give in so easily... they keep on trying. So amend that stuff above and add this. A quick peck or sometimes even a friendly hug followed by a fussed over lunchbox usually kicks off this delightful routine of *I still love you*.
This pattern is sometimes broken by a sudden and recurring urge. She is wearing this beautiful dress and looks terrific in it. He smells good. Some old things get rekindled. You both smile at each other a lot. You both walk home from a movie. You dump the kid at the grandparents and sneak off for the weekend. This happens. A lot. It keeps the oxygen supply to the ”bleary which” project going. It’s that charming god particle I think that has been observed as the single biggest religious cause for content grey haired mildly out of shape fifty somethings looking at their spouses with deep affection at weddings and other collective gatherings.
But the following day pattern, by now so ingrained in the life of, sets in. One doesn’t even realize how efficiently the banal has overpowered the adorable, the cute small stuff that made this adventure all so exciting in the first place. The office hours and the chores of the day take up the big half, the rest of the space gets Venn-diagrammed between the kids while the remaining quarter, earlier saved sacredly to risqué chats and hush-hush giggly plans of *let’s do that right after…* gets gently swallowed by silences.
The way home is an unusual space for the employed. It varies between a dreary walk back to a house which has too little and nothing new to offer or an exhausted march to get a cup of tea with the family and some much needed R&R. Some lucky people love this trudge home. Home. Where the other waits. Smiling. But it’s rare.
Chop chop to the majority. This walk home can get really long if your partner doesn’t share your interests or looks down on those tiny windows of all that inanity that made you whole once, but now seem unbearable or plain juvenile. Your space, that box of *today I want to do this* gets slowly corrupted with ideas of what suits your partner. You seek your space to simply be. You start making check boxes of things. You work at it. Relentless to please. Or you simply take a detour for that drink or a cup of coffee with someone, someone who likes talking about the latest gaming console or some such.
For those who miss the attraction the most...the drift settles in rather rapidly. They usually find excitement elsewhere. Some look for love in people while others sort trinkets and expensive baubles when the partner seems too distant to bother. And some just walk a lonely path back and forth from the kitchen to the bedroom each night.
Marriage is beautiful for millions, make no mistake. And I for one, have always wondered what is it that makes these two divergent worlds of almost perfect and utterly boring, spin differently from the other. And it has forever escaped me, while I was happily married, what was it that couples forgot to do. What is it that one could do different? Was it just the loss of attraction? Was it important to keep saying those things that were so casual and yet pleasant to the ear? Is it that important to seduce or be seduced from time to time? How important are looks, is it key to stay in shape these days? Do children bring in a whole new dimension that makes sure the partner starts looking at you differently? Is it the whole family thing?
Surely, it must be wonderful to come home to something as welcoming as a family. But why does Libido keep walking off in such a huff? What’s his problem anyway?
Or did you just grow up? You now understand and appreciate what’s really at stake? Does reality bring in a status check on what’s truly important? Education, health, celebrating the small stuff ...forgetting yourself for the larger audience? The smile that lights up his face when you bring home that lemon tart which he loves to eat...now that smile right there, how do you beat that?
For some this comfy chap brought in a much larger slice of life...he simply taught you to fall in love with the teddy bears on the pyjamas. For some this gap between pyjamas and passion only split the two siblings, into parallel universes. Do some of you now exist in your own separate solar systems? I don’t know. I am not on that trajectory anymore. But it would be an interesting and rather liberating evening, to have an uninhibited chat with my muchly married friends on what they feel, sometime soon.
Do married couples have these conversations in their heads or just the divorced ones? I mean I talk a lot to myself these days. I sound very calm, composed and collected in my head, especially dealing with subjects I don’t have to deal in any more.
We all marry for reasons that make sense and sometimes for reasons we force fit to make sense. Usually love bears the brunt of this choice. Some are honest enough to admit it was the hormones, for many it’s the persuasive whining of family or an innate need to procreate. Others need to find someone sober to settle down with, because alone and lonely start disconcertingly merging together, too often.
But deep into these relationships, what precisely is it that becomes of this *reason*, this Choice?
It starts on a high, a very high *high*, some would agree. A high which some would again agree, becomes unsustainable. The usual courtship and mating rituals follow and keeping hands off each other becomes practically impossible. (You can see Lothario strut the street style every time the couple enters the room).
The indiscreet pleasure of being able to just hold, touch, caress, feel, is a wonder of wonders. No one seems to have a problem any longer how often you are caught kissing on the sly. The simple thrill of being able to get away with the naughty stuff so often and so easily keeps the couple grinning like imps in the early years, and that secret pleasure is what maketh many a sardonic proverb on this rather erotic yet pious scheme of things.
You hang around each other, you hang on to each other’s words, hang on to those clandestine urges, you hang on to your mobile phones, your senses soaked in pheromones jumping all over, thanks to an unchecked and fire at will libido. How much better can it get. She makes the tea and he tosses the eggs. You can almost hear the harp playing in the background.
But then again, there is a damn good reason why they anointed this phase *honeymoon*. I love the energy with which young couples talk about weddings. Honestly, it’s so fetching, so Karanjohar in your living room.
It starts very small. Tiny adorable arguments. Small stolen moments of freedom between urgent emergent lists of to dos. Quick romantic dinners sliced between school fees and EMIs. Holidays in between year ends and budgets. It goes on for a while.
Time passes. The lacy stuff goes to the back of the drawer. The Jockeys come out in full freedom and flourish. Time brings home a new friend from work one day. He's cute, chubby, smiles a lot, loves your Jockey collection and an untimely snooze. Enter Comfy.
Now this fellow, he has a very persuasive voice. And it makes sure he befriends you. He also is the sibling Abel to your Libidinous Cain.
Some find a sense of purpose in explaining why Comfy is always welcome everywhere, even in the bedroom, where Libido marked his territory with random ease, once, in a galaxy far far away. Some make it their life’s mission and some have children to explain his intrusion. He is so, you know...comfy. This pattern is not unhealthy, nor unusual. It’s what makes the first few years seem memorable in hindsight. Circa 20 something B.C (Before Comfy).
.
Creepeth the hour, cometh the boredom. And one fine morning, you start feeling it in your bones. The slow and drugged walk of the everyday. The silent march of routine. The monotony of shopping. Deciding what to make for Dinner. How the weekend could be, should be something more. Movies, endless chatter about the hottest series downloading impatiently on your #Netflix. The unending spinning cycles of this and that. Books, music, friends, Facebook, family, alcohol and food. They add up the equation beautifully.
So the partner has downloaded stuff for you. It’s a movie night. No wait, what the hell, it’s a documentary. Damn, it’s 10.30pm. You are eating, slowly, very slowly, masticating every morsel...sneakily watching the hands tick past...you are observing your food ingredients with great intent. Naturally, you have missed 3 big end-of-the-world punch lines by Sir #DavidAttenborough in the meantime. You swear under your breath. This wouldn’t happen if it was #BenedictCumberbatch now would it, but no, let’s do wild life nights. You have ideas of a certain kind of wild life of your own, which your mate simply won’t comprehend anymore. He sits fuming under the kebab rolls. You settle the dishes and plonk on the warm little hole you dug for yourself earlier. The silence of the TV is matched evenly by the two souls trying to pretend how urgent tomorrow morning is going to be.
You know it’s disconcerting how No one ever ever ever ever talks about which partner farted or burped first and openly in the bedroom. Now that’s a huge Mount Sinai right there!! And who do you think got you past that? Eh? Eh? (*notice the smug look on Comfy’s face?).
Maybe this chubby happy go lucky fellow eats conversation for appetizers. Big appetite the bloke has. You feel no great need to speak of the irrelevant stuff anymore. I mean, seriously, what would she care about the moron at office who simply won’t fix the printer or the moron for that matter you have to call Boss every day...In any case one prefers the sports channel or NGC, or maybe she is on that episode of #Suits where Mike gets arrested. (Now I would love to tell you about Sasural Simran Ka here, but I haven’t the foggiest, so I am guessing it has its moments). And all these episodes, sans interruption, it just sums up the day so perfectly. Like that neatly tied bun on her head. So tidy, so effortless, so er...not sexy.
Thing is she just served dinner. Everyone looks fed and peaceful. The house smells of contentment and roasted cardamom. Sounds have petered out. Even the In laws look stoned, the curry was that good. You deserve this hour with your book and your music and your TV. But you are not out of the woods yet. One partner for sure will give the horny look. Some people just don’t believe in that childhood *early to bed* axiom. You still have that presentation to wrap. Sir Libido flexes his muscles in full abandon. It’s going to be a long night.
You don’t wake up very fresh. You make a mental note to tell the other how this exercise must commence sooner and definitely before dinner! What do they know of deadlines??!!
Gone is the need to be stupid, to indulge in the banter, the teasing, the touching… feels meaningless somehow to repeat the obvious with someone you know will respond in a particular way to a particular stimuli. The once shiny New has left and with her walked out her petulant child, Libido. Comfy owns you now. You are comfy. Your pyjamas are divinity itself. Believe me it is damn inoffensive and deeply comforting to be in bed with your life partner. In bed, and to be fair not always trying to adapt the latest paperback of ‘’Kamasutra for the uninitiated’’.
You see, it is after all, school night.
I reckon this of anyone 10 -15 years into their wedlock and the answer will likely correspond with,
- that’s not fair, it was just one match... Manchester United Vs Chelsea, I mean c’mon!!
- of course she is still hot, but, I mean it’s her, what’s the big deal? We still do it once a week anyway
- it’s the kids, you know, ever since the second one...
- yes he looks fit but you know, I get so tired by the end of the day
- but we just had dinner and I get all gassy you know right after…
Let’s not get judgmental. It is effing unfair to poke horny fingers at people who see each other dressed like delinquent inmates, intermittently released on parole, desperate for a bunker, on a self-styled prison life term.
The morning after, you start with a whimper. It’s a toothbrush and loo chatter that coalesces at a table of bread and #Kellogg and usually ends with speed marching to an #uber or a car. Sometimes a metro or even a brisk run. Now sexy couples and some determined souls don’t give in so easily... they keep on trying. So amend that stuff above and add this. A quick peck or sometimes even a friendly hug followed by a fussed over lunchbox usually kicks off this delightful routine of *I still love you*.
This pattern is sometimes broken by a sudden and recurring urge. She is wearing this beautiful dress and looks terrific in it. He smells good. Some old things get rekindled. You both smile at each other a lot. You both walk home from a movie. You dump the kid at the grandparents and sneak off for the weekend. This happens. A lot. It keeps the oxygen supply to the ”bleary which” project going. It’s that charming god particle I think that has been observed as the single biggest religious cause for content grey haired mildly out of shape fifty somethings looking at their spouses with deep affection at weddings and other collective gatherings.
But the following day pattern, by now so ingrained in the life of, sets in. One doesn’t even realize how efficiently the banal has overpowered the adorable, the cute small stuff that made this adventure all so exciting in the first place. The office hours and the chores of the day take up the big half, the rest of the space gets Venn-diagrammed between the kids while the remaining quarter, earlier saved sacredly to risqué chats and hush-hush giggly plans of *let’s do that right after…* gets gently swallowed by silences.
The way home is an unusual space for the employed. It varies between a dreary walk back to a house which has too little and nothing new to offer or an exhausted march to get a cup of tea with the family and some much needed R&R. Some lucky people love this trudge home. Home. Where the other waits. Smiling. But it’s rare.
Chop chop to the majority. This walk home can get really long if your partner doesn’t share your interests or looks down on those tiny windows of all that inanity that made you whole once, but now seem unbearable or plain juvenile. Your space, that box of *today I want to do this* gets slowly corrupted with ideas of what suits your partner. You seek your space to simply be. You start making check boxes of things. You work at it. Relentless to please. Or you simply take a detour for that drink or a cup of coffee with someone, someone who likes talking about the latest gaming console or some such.
For those who miss the attraction the most...the drift settles in rather rapidly. They usually find excitement elsewhere. Some look for love in people while others sort trinkets and expensive baubles when the partner seems too distant to bother. And some just walk a lonely path back and forth from the kitchen to the bedroom each night.
Marriage is beautiful for millions, make no mistake. And I for one, have always wondered what is it that makes these two divergent worlds of almost perfect and utterly boring, spin differently from the other. And it has forever escaped me, while I was happily married, what was it that couples forgot to do. What is it that one could do different? Was it just the loss of attraction? Was it important to keep saying those things that were so casual and yet pleasant to the ear? Is it that important to seduce or be seduced from time to time? How important are looks, is it key to stay in shape these days? Do children bring in a whole new dimension that makes sure the partner starts looking at you differently? Is it the whole family thing?
Surely, it must be wonderful to come home to something as welcoming as a family. But why does Libido keep walking off in such a huff? What’s his problem anyway?
Or did you just grow up? You now understand and appreciate what’s really at stake? Does reality bring in a status check on what’s truly important? Education, health, celebrating the small stuff ...forgetting yourself for the larger audience? The smile that lights up his face when you bring home that lemon tart which he loves to eat...now that smile right there, how do you beat that?
For some this comfy chap brought in a much larger slice of life...he simply taught you to fall in love with the teddy bears on the pyjamas. For some this gap between pyjamas and passion only split the two siblings, into parallel universes. Do some of you now exist in your own separate solar systems? I don’t know. I am not on that trajectory anymore. But it would be an interesting and rather liberating evening, to have an uninhibited chat with my muchly married friends on what they feel, sometime soon.
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