ChicaMarya

So what exactly makes a ‘good marriage?’  In the Chicago area, the news has been covering the search (and discovery) of Anu Solanki.  According to the Chicago Sun Times, “Solanki, 24, who moved to the Chicago area after her marriage in May, was reported missing Monday by her husband, Dignesh, when she disappeared soon after leaving work at a gift shop in the Westin Chicago North Shore Hotel in Wheeling.  Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said early Friday that Solanki appeared to have traveled with Karan C. Jani, 23, who graduated this year from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles… “We believe Anu is, in fact, alive,” Dart said earlier Friday. “She had another relationship with someone.” 

For myself, after a disabling accident in 1991, what was a ‘tolerable’ marriage became intolerable.   While we did a lot of things together, we stayed together because of cultural and societal pressures we felt, and neither of us were honest with each other in admitting that the love was gone, as were gone any sparks and emotional connections.  We had become two friends, not even good friends, who were living together.  After my accident “honesty” was in our face and after a couple more years I was forced to put truth on the table and we split.  It was the worst time someone in my situation could have done this, but it the living with a stranger with no support made life even more intolerable than living on my own again. Because of our personalities, we never overtly shouted or fought, we often usually appeared together at business and family functions and we didn’t put acrimony first in all the years of being not so happily married.  

I’d say for most of our years, we weren’t miserable until the end, but we were ‘tolerating’ each other and at times at peace with ‘being stuck’ with each other until after my accident.  From the outside, people thought we had a GREAT marriage, so when we announced we were getting a divorce, except for my closest friends, most everyone was shocked and could not believe it.  Common comments from people, including relatives, were of the ilk of, “you both always seemed to love each other… you both seemed so happy together, etc.”   After reading comments about Anu Solanki, it brought me back to some difficult years for me in the past, and how we stayed in our marriage because we felt trapped… and how it took a disabling accident to push us to our truth that while on the outside, things looked fine, on the inside life was miserable and we wanted out.  In our case, my accident exacerbated our relationship problems (or lack of relationship) and we divorced before either of us had an affair. 

The experience of staying when ‘feeling trapped’ is something that only those who have experienced it can truly understand why spouses often do the things they do before they decide to separate.  Personally I believe it is one of the reasons so many people step out on their spouses.  Ultimately it isn’t about the other person, ultimately it is about a person being honest with whether staying in a marriage or relationship is for their highest good or if they are just living in a created fantasy of “don’t force me to change my life.”