A Happy Marriage (Chapter 1)

Marriage is not the happiest thing for everybody, mine, very certainly was not the slightest happy.

They say, marry your best friend, marry him because he knows you the best but knowing someone a great deal has to be a curse disguised as a blessing. I married my best friend 8 years ago, but it did not turn out to be happy

*"Ananya, we will be late, come on let's go ", murmured Shanaya.

"I don't feel like hiking up the mountains right now, I will have a cup of coffee and enjoy the view from my room ", I retaliated. 

"Come on Ananya, you will miss out on a lot of stuff, we don't want to leave you alone at this place ", said Ashish.

"Nothing's gonna happen, chill out, you guys go and enjoy, I will see you guys later tonight." I held all of their hands and pushed them out of my room. I jumped onto the bed and looked out of the window, it was a hauntingly beautiful view with snow on all the trees nearby, and a complete white sheet spreading across the land.

 Ashish and I have been married for quite some time now, and he was one of the most wonderful people ever until he wasn't. We have been a troubled marriage lately, the reason for which I did not know for a long time. This trip was one of our last hopes to save this marriage and we were counting the last bit of hope to save us from the extremities of life. 

You already know what the ending is going to be like, but you keep repeating things to yourself, it will be fine, it will be okay. Because as humans, we are designed to hope. Hope about the most novice things.

I decided to have Shanaya with me on this trip because of two reasons: one, she has been my best friend for all my life and two, I did not want to get hit by my husband while on a trip.

Shanaya and I have been best friends since childhood. She has been one of the few people who have witnessed me grow and watch my life take a 180-degree turn yet be diligent enough to walk through that thorny path for me. She couldn't have found a better man for herself than Arjun. They introduced me to Ashish a couple of years ago. Ashish and Arjun were what I and Shanaya were but with opposite genders. They were planning to get married in a few months and this was the last trip they were taking as bachelors. 

When Ashish came back from his usual day out, he had a lipstick stain on his shirt. I was agitated at him and as usual, we fought. Not that it was something unusual for both of us. We were facing trouble within our marriage and our haughty personalities made it difficult for us to talk and exchange glances later on. Upon questioning he brought up things about my mental health. My self-respect was shrouded and buried under his feet, and I was nobody but a broken consort to a man who did not care enough to accept and own his mistakes. 

"What are all these stains on your shirt ", I questioned.

"Oh, a lady was buying lipsticks for herself at the local market and all of it got stained on my shirt. You don't have to worry about it, darling ", Ashish insisted.

"Do you think, I am a fool? There are stains on your shirt of a lip, demarcated lip, and you think I am blind enough to trust you?"

"YOU BETTER WATCH THAT MOUTH, ANANYA!"

"OH, SO YOU CAN GO AROUND CHEATING ON ME WITH THE ENTIRE WORLD, AND I SHOULD BE THE ONE KEEPING A MUM ! Wonderful !", I spoke brusquely. And in that moment, I felt a thump on my cheeks.

 I had a panic attack in the middle of the fight, and I was completely perturbed by the way my husband acted. 

"Oh, not again!", and he walked away. 

I completely broke down. I had lost all my trust and respect for the individual who once was my love, the love of my life and the father of my dead child. I did not understand for a long time why women chose to stay in unhappy marriages when they had the option to walk away and build a beautiful life and career for themselves. If I were the same Ananya Sajdeh, I certainly would have never allowed myself to live in the state that I was currently in. The vehement state I was in made me into a carcass. Certainly, I realise now why women choose to stay in unhappy marriages. They do not think of themselves as a solitarily crafted individual but somebody who needs to carry the weight of failed relationships and somewhere they feel it is their responsibility to stay rather than getting out of a failed equation and finding the right situations for them. As if society has already burdened them with the expectations of being the flag bearer of successful and happy marriages, how do they say it? "Learn to forgive and forget things, things happen in marriages "

I looked at myself in the mirror and hated everything about myself in that moment. He had a habit of calling me an inanity and my actions stupid, but things went out of hand today. I could feel the hotness of my cheeks and the bruises that hurt. I touched my face and it made me hate myself a little more. How did I give away so much of myself to a man who thinks he has a right to slap me whenever he wanted? When did I go from a girl who was brave enough to fight the world to a woman who was getting beaten every night by her husband?

At that moment, I heard a familiar voice. All the females who are like me, who go through such abuse listen to this voice every day or whenever they are hit. 

It reminded me of something familiar. Something I did not want to think of something that made my heart bleak.

"He slapped you because he loves you. He is just a little mad, as women we need to adjust."

the voice faded quickly, but the aftermath stayed. did he really love me? and my heart went back to the days when we were still young and full of innocent love. 

I told myself, it was okay. And I went on to the dressing table to conceal my bruises.

* "How can he touch you and slap you this way, Ananya you better walk out of this thing and move on ", spoke Shanaya.

"I cannot do this Shanaya and you know it. He loves me, he is just a little mad ", I murmured.

"How stupid you have to be to not see through this thing, he hits you whenever he feels like. He hurts you and yet you think he loves you? You are blind. I cannot let this happen anymore and now you're going back to home with us "

When Shanaya and Ashish finally faced each other, it was a sight of hot flames, but with no actual flames in sight.

"How dare you touch her this way, you better leave her alone and do not dare come near her ", Shanaya spoke roundly.

"She is my wife, and I will do what I please. it will be good for you and your partner to leave and not interfere with our matters ", Ashish looked at me for a nod.

I was confused, diced up because on one end lied my truth, that I was tired, tired of being beaten every day, tired of seeing him walk up to other women while I was supposed to be the one he looked at; and on the other end, lied hope. On the other end lay the fact that I was his wife. That it was he who had loved me for all those years and had kept me going when I was at my lowest. I hoped that maybe if we gave this relationship a chance, I would have him love me again. Things would get preferably better.

And I did it again, I proved that the power of forgiveness has always been superior to the feeling of vengeance. The virtue of letting go and accepting people even though they have hurt you multiple times is something I learnt from my mother, and she learnt it from her mother. Have females always been the type to acquit or do they learn it because men will never understand what is it like to own their mistakes? Why is it that we, as females, learn to acquire less space and do not want to be the person who leaves first? I will never know, mostly because I could not ask these questions to anyone. Nobody was brave enough to be a little more answerable to a 37-Year-old woman who died craving for love and kept begging for it at her lover's doorstep.

I could only utter a few broken words in that moment, a few of them which I remember vaguely. 

"Shanaya ......please ...leave..." and I broke down in the most frantic weeps the walls of the room would have ever listened to.