Question: I hate how my husband always wants to put up a perfect picture of our marriage in front of everyone, even when deep inside we want to almost kill each other. I hate this fake façade and feel like telling everyone we are a normal couple who fight day in and day out. Should I disrupt my marriage by taking any extreme step?
Response by Dr Ishita Mukerji: Understand the value and objectivity of ‘Marriage’. To my understanding, it is an expression of interest to build a family while exploring and reciprocally accepting the good and bad of your spouse. The ultimate idea is to make it work because frictions smoothen the edges and allows the other soul to come closer.
Sit with your partner and write down in a numbered sequence, everything that you don’t like about each other. Once you’re done, pick the ten that you find the most disturbing. Then pick out the five that you just won’t accept, finally narrowing it down to three if not one that you cannot compromise. What do you think is the purpose of this exercise? The purpose is not to identify the trigger points but to realize that no matter how many trigger points each one of you may have, when needed either of you can overlook many shortfalls in your partner and can make up for each other.
Your partner’s faking may be proof that this relationship matters to him. So take the cue and hit the nail. Show him that instead of investing an effort in faking that everything is ok, let’s actually make it ok as a team. Construction takes days, weeks, months and years. Demolition can happen within seconds and all could be gone at the blink of an eye. Taking an extreme step is always easy but it is a very painful negative spiral. The only people who would suffer would be the both of you. So, take your time and don’t take any decision in haste rather have an honest intention and try genuinely to make things work. If you feel that nothing has worked, do approach a Psychologist who could help you bring peace within each other.