Question: Hi! I am a 36-year-old woman married for seven years. Ours was a marriage of convenience by which I mean we met online and since both of us were looking for a life partner and everything seemed to be almost compatible, we got married with our parents’ blessings within a year. It was only after we started living together that we discovered each other’s traits, which wasn’t very easy for us to accept. We are very alike on the surface, but are completely different personalities inside. Since marriage is about adjustment and compromise, I did everything, changed many habits to fit myself into a life now I had gotten myself into. However, despite several years, I still do not feel emotionally connected to my husband, which is one of the reasons why I never enjoyed having sex. He is a very emotionally closed and inexpressive person and I know that it’s useless to want someone to change his core personality, something that I didn’t realise before we were married. I seemed to have lost a part of me trying to adjust to the life that I am in. But there has been a current development, for which I am very scared. I am pregnant and expecting our first child. I am so worried to bring a child to an emotionally deprived atmosphere. I know that there is no going back for me in this situation but how am I supposed to adjust to what the future holds now. I have been very depressed for long and now I am scared. Please do not ask me to have a word with my husband because that’s not going to bear any results. Please tell me what should I do? —By Anonymous
Response by Dr. Kedar Tilwe: Dear Reader, any marriage be it an arranged marriage, love marriage or a marriage of convenience will have some incompatibilities; these require adjustment and compromise from both the individuals involved. It can become an even more uphill task if your spouse is an introvert and stonewalls you by being emotionally withdrawn. You have already shown the resilience and determination required to make the necessary effort and compromise to keep your marriage afloat, albeit at the expense of your habits and lifestyle.
Pregnancy, especially when you are expecting your first child, is almost always a cause for celebration; so please accept my congratulations on the same. It’s been observed that both the parents on seeing their baby for the first time innately start the process of bonding and attachment with their child and that this causes them to mellow down and concern themselves with making a secure and loving environment for their child to grow in. So we can hope that this may cause your husband to mellow down and open up and enrich your relationship.
Remember that you will be nurturing, guiding and parenting your child as he/she grows up. So, in essence, you will be creating the environment necessary for your child to grow up in. And like we have seen earlier, you possess the necessary resilience, determination, and ability to care to do so. Change the narrative by the creation of meaning in your life by focusing on motherhood. You could also consider rejoining a job after the appropriate time to try and have financial independence. Your friends, family, siblings, colleagues and acquaintances are all a part of your natural web of support system which ensures that you are never alone. So reach out to them and enlist their support, they will be happy to help. If you are feeling depressed, do reach out to a psychiatrist nearby so that the appropriate line of management can be initiated.