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When you’re newly married, you dream of the best things in the world. An international honeymoon, lots of shopping, surprise gifts, candle-light dinners - but I got none of those. Nitin booked us a trip to Kashmir and took me for ‘chaat’ to Bikanerwala.
Nitin and I had a love marriage. In the two years that we dated, we used to go out to movies, eat at local cafes and chill a lot with friends. But something changed after we got married. It suddenly started feeling like he couldn’t afford half the things that I wanted. I mean I always knew that he belonged to a middle-class family - but I assumed he must have saved something for us to have a good married life.
In our country, when it comes to marriage, a lot is expected from a girl’s family. Therefore my parents had a separate account just for my wedding and also hosted a very lavish one at a five-star hotel. So when it came to his side of spending like honeymoon, outings, or even gifts - how come they couldn’t afford most things?
My friends’ husbands got them iPhones as wedding gifts, and took them to exotic destinations for their honeymoon - and here was a man I married, who had the most mediocre plans to offer. I got so disappointed in Nitin, that by the fourth month of my marriage, I went back to my own house and told my parents that I wanted to leave him.
‘I deserve better’, I said to my mother. ‘Pragya, tum ne Nitin se shaadi kyun ki thi?’ she asked me. ‘Pata nahi kyun ki thi - pagal thi main’, I replied. ‘That’s not what I am asking. I remember when you told us about Nitin, you said you want to marry him because he respects you and lets you make your own decision. At that time you didn’t mention that you are marrying him for things. Beta, if you compare your life to others then you will always remain disappointed because you’re not enjoying what you have.’ Mom said.
She then went on to remind me how my friends’ parents were pressured to give their husbands' families expensive gifts and cars - whereas Nitin’s family refused to take even clothes from my parents. ‘You are giving us a piece of your heart in the form of your daughter, there’s nothing more precious that we can take away from you’, his father had told mine.
Living in a material world, we tend to undervalue goodness. I weighed my husband’s worth with someone’s bank account and upon realizing it I felt very small. Nitin was a supportive husband who loved me the most in the whole world, we were newly married and had our whole lives ahead of us - that we could build beautifully, together.
The next day, I went back home to my husband, apologized for being so shallow, and told him how much I valued him as a person. It’s been two years, and I sometimes still tend to compare, but instead of reacting, I write down that thing that I wish to do in a journal that I call my bucket list, and every once in a while, I read it out to Nitin. It’s a fun exercise that we do because it sparks conversations and future plans that we really enjoy making together.
