Is finding the right partner all about Emotional bonding alone or is a Practical approach more desirable?
Author :
Tan
Blog :My Online Space
Date: 12/4/2011 8:21:00 AM
In my mind, I have been debating about this question for quite some time and all the time, I arrive at the same conclusion. According to me, finding the right life partner is NOT JUST about emotional bonding. It is about bonding oneself in every way with a person and his/her family for the rest of your life. So, shouldn’t you think about the practical aspects of that relationship as well?
Now, ‘practical’ is too abstract a word to explain my mind, so let me tell you a love story or rather a ‘love-war’ story. I really don’t have anything against people who fall in love and decide to spend the rest of their lives together; in fact, I firmly support Love Marriage. At the same time, I really can’t understand some emotional fools who purposefully fall into the trap of a lifetime of misery and frustration.
A girl, who is an engineering graduate, was working as a software engineer in a reputed IT firm. She fell for a guy who had come to her office for doing some electrical maintenance work. Their relationship grew and it did not take long for her family to realize what was going on. She was intent on marrying him against their wishes, no matter whatever happened. When her family realized that things were going beyond their control, they had to agree to the wedding. After the wedding, she realized that life will not be smooth for her and that she will not able to lead a life as per her expectations. He had a big family to support that included two sisters of marriageable age. She was not very welcome by his family and was considered a threat to their financial requirements from him; he being the only bread winner. On the other hand, she was brought up in a well educated family where financial constraints were unheard of. To get his sisters married, he had to use her gold ornaments for the monetary needs of the weddings. It might have been the need of the hour, but can you justify his actions? She resented all that he did for his family at her expense and that too when she was not really accepted by them. Finally, after a long struggle, she parted from him. Could she have fallen in this situation, if she had made an effort to think about the future of their relationship instead of blindly following her emotions? Emotions always cloud your thinking.
I understand the emotional bonding that is required in a marriage, but in the long run can that alone make you survive and fight against all odds? When you decide you want to marry someone, isn’t the education and socio-economic standard of the person also as important as the emotional security and bonding you have with him/her? Is really anybody in this world worthy of your blind love? At least, I don’t think so. Let me narrate another case of ‘love-war’.
There was this girl in my school who fell in love with a guy during her college days. She went ahead and married him against her parents’ wishes. When I heard the details of this story, I was not surprised as to why her parents did not agree to that relationship. The guy and his family were socially, educationally and economically very backward when compared to her and her family. The guy had not even cleared his tenth standard exams and made his living by driving an auto. I could find no reason to blame her parents for not accepting that relationship. It is obvious that no parent can allow their son/daughter to get married into a family that is utterly different from them educationally, financially and socially.
I really don’t understand the psychology of those people who decide to take a relationship forward, knowing that the person is not right for them. They are ready to forego all their happiness in the name of love.
When I was doing my engineering, I had this roomie who had a highly possessive boyfriend. He used to abuse her verbally and used to restrict even her basic freedom. That creep never allowed her to wear a good dress that she liked, never allowed her to talk to other guys and restricted her from even performing on stage. Worse, she was not even allowed to appear for a job interview. Most of their phone calls used to end up in her tears and the funniest (or horrific) part was that she suffered all those hardships imposed by him. She would always find reasons to justify his dreadful behavior whenever I or one of my friends tried to talk her out of that relationship. I could never understand her. Recently, I came to know that she is married to another guy and felt happy that she escaped from that relationship at last.
I feel that people, especially girls should think practically when it comes to choosing your life partner. If you feel you have met the right person as far as the emotional bonding is concerned, think whether he/she is fit enough to be your partner in terms of at least the education, job and family background aspects. Matters like religion, caste, etc may not matter in the long run, but education and economic independence do matter all the time. In arranged marriages, the basic requirement that any bride’s parents look in a guy is his education, his job with a decent salary and also his family background. So, why not look for those aspects in a love marriage too? Emotional bonding is highly important in a relationship, but that alone cannot satisfy the needs of a happy married life. I feel a relationship should be acceptable to the brain as much as it is accepted at heart.