Are marriages failing? Yes! Does it matter if they are love or arranged? Frankly – no. There are only two types of marriages on this planet – no, not love and arranged, but successful and unsuccessful. But the bigger question is – they are failing, and divorce rate has gone up exponentially. India – which was a country famous for it’s long lasting marriages, is seeing a lot more divorces now. I agree that earlier, women couldn’t separate for many reasons – family pressure, no job, lack of independence, which made them bound to their husband and so they couldn’t divorce them, doesn’t matter if they were unhappy in the marriage. But now, even if the couple is fine, they are still asking for divorce, and sometimes, even over something as little as – ‘My wife has pimples on her face!’ – don’t believe me? You can Google this, and you will get the article, where a guy ‘actually’ divorced his wife for her acne.

Shocking, isn’t it?

I won’t say marriages are failing, but rather the ‘patience’ level of people is significantly low! A small argument turns into divorce. A little fight, and wife accuses husband of domestic violence. Something bad happens, and they decide to part their ways. Husband is financially strained, wife runs away as she can’t “adjust” her lifestyle!

Patience level is so low, that of all the answers I read even on Quora, I find maximum people advising the questioner to leave, breakup and divorce the partner, doesn’t matter if the argument happened on something as little as “He didn’t wish me a Happy Birthday!” – very few, hardly a marginal people actually give positive replies, or ask the couple to work on their relationships. Even the mails I get on my Gmail are so full of negativity that the person is just asking someone to ‘agree’ with him to divorce his/her partner, and not seeking out a real solution to actually work on the problem instead. This is heartbreaking!

Even if they divorce and leave their current partners and find someone else, what’s the guarantee that the new relationship will never have any problems? People breakup or divorce in a hope that they will find a better person, but are rather stuck in this loophole forever where their expectations don’t come down, but rather they keep on leaving their partners in a hope of a better one, which they never find! I don’t get the logic of breaking up because of any reason – may it be religion, caste, community, height, money – anything! I mean, when you come in a relationship with a person, you know everything about them, only then you commit to them – what happens when the time of marriage arrives? Why do you suddenly forget everything and decide to go with the parents’ choice? Or why do you suddenly feel he doesn’t earn enough or he’s not tall enough? Didn’t you already know? And if you already knew it, why did you commit in the first place? To break an innocent person’s heart? Wow!

It’s not only in marriages, but also in relationships. I came across more breakups than patch-ups in my (personal) life! We should rather teach both – guys and girls – to be a little more patient, and adjusting. Tell them that life is definitely going to change after marriage! Girls “have” to cook and step into kitchen, and guys “have” to join a job, and support the family, and they may also need to reverse their roles if and when the time demands. It’s just that they need to understand that a relationship, a marriage is much more than a lavish candle light dinner followed by a steamy sex – it also includes making breakfast the next morning, washing dishes and clothes, cleaning the house, and going for boring grocery shopping! You can’t always afford a dinner as well, there can be times in life where you might have to cut a slack for your children’s school fees, by sacrificing your dinners and parties – but isn’t that life? Life is all about sacrifices we make to cheer our loved ones up! And those sacrifices should never be one-sided, that is the reason why relationships and marriages are breaking these days – people demand more, but don’t want to give anything in return!