Emotional Needs Frustration - A Nasty Example!

Emotional Needs Frustration – A Nasty Example​

Towards the end of discussing last Wednesday’s subject, some ILites expressed doubt about what would happen if the emotional needs are frustrated in a marriage. When we are assured of your daily bread, however hard we may try, we can never understand the situation of persons who are forced to starve.

It has been estimated that on an average we, I mean those living in good countries with a decent standard of living, consume about 100 litres of water per person per day. There are some villages in interior <st1lace>Africa</st1lace> where people have to do with less than 5 litres per person per week. May be we can sympathise with them; but it is very difficult to understand their way of life.

Same is the case with those whose marriages have completely neglected their basic emotional needs. This week I am forced to give a nasty example of that genre.

I know many couples for whom marriage is virtually nothing. One of my clients told me that he stays away from his wife for the whole of the week and would go home only during the week-end. “This way, I preserve the relationship. Otherwise I am afraid we may fight and lose each other once and for all.”

‘Whatever relationship remains between you and your wife is not worth preserving.’ I wanted to holler these words but since he was my client and since I did not want to lose money for exhibiting my wisdom I just gave the blandest smile possible.

These people do not know one thing. A frustrated emotional need is buried deep down the consciousness. It is like an earthquake waiting to happen and a vulcano raring to erupt. And when it erupts……..

That is what happened in the case of Shiva. (not the real name). Shiva was the son of a rich merchant and had made his millions quite early in his life, apart from the several millions made by his father. Shiva and his five brothers were engaged in the family business silently minting money.

He married Raji when he was quite young. They had a grand wedding. The marriage that followed the wedding was pretty decent. They had a boy and a girl. It was in all possible ways a picture-perfect family.

Ten years after the marriage Shiva and Raji stopped relating to each other. Not that they fought with each other; but the relationship slowly withered away like that between friends who do not have contact.

Shiva would get up early have some breakfast and go to the family shop. There he will stay till late in the night. He never ate food at home after that.

Raji also had a care-free life. She would wait for Shiva to go to the shop. Then she would go around the city meeting friends, signing for new classes, shopping….

She would return home in the afternoon when the children would have come from school. After giving them food she would go for another round of outing and would finally come home around <st1:time minute="0" hour="19">7 pm</st1:time> to settle down in front of the TV.

 

Emotional Needs Frustration - A Nasty Example

Emotional Needs Frustration – A Nasty Example (Contd….)​

Days moved fast. For both Shiva and Raji, the other person was just a fixture in the house like the TV or the mixie. So long as the fixture is intact there was no need to worry. Of course if one of them falls ill the other would with right amount of anxiety take him or her to the doctor, make the right enquiries and then go about their own way.

Disaster struck when a new salesgirl by name Gita joined their firm. Beauty is the word which would never come to your mind when you see Gita. She was incredibly short, lean enough to be a demonstrative specimen of malnutrition and her face was.. welll, it was a face.

Shiva now in his late forties was quite handsome. He was fair with sharp features without any extra fat.

Some senior salesgirl had told Gita to be always in the good books of Shiva for enhancing her career prospects. She religiously followed that advice.

When Shiva had an attack of migraine (which he had once in a month) Gita ran up to him, applied pain balm, ordered coffee for him, called the family Doctor and gave hell to everybody around. Shiva who had never been used to that kind of fussing up with, was more than pleased.

Then started a nasty affair.

After having written some two hundred stories I find real life the most fascinating story written by the most creative writer around – God Himself.

This affair had a hundred lessons buried in it.

Shiva and Gita were in a world of their own. They never got any more physical than holding each others hands. They would be uttering sweet nothings to one another for most part of the day.

They would have lunch together either in their shop itself or at the nearby hotel. The talking would be non-stop.

When Raji came to know of this relationship (thanks to some jealous employees who were not exactly happy to see Gita’s quick raise in her career) she became furious and threw temper tantrums. She took the matter to the other members of the family – Shivas brothers.

They came for Raji’s rescue. Given that kind of money they could do anything. They just fired Gita and also spent some money to ensure that she married somebody in the neighbourhood.

Everybody including Raji heaved a sigh of relief and started going about their way. But the old Shiva had died. The new Shiva, once deprived of Gita’s friendship, was highly irritable, impatient and started behaving in funny ways. Raji thought about a psychiatric intervention but Shiva would not have anything of that sort.

Shiva still goes to the shop and Raji to her regular outings. But both appear aged by more than 15 years after this episode.

The children were also affected in ways not easily explainable. Their daughter now adamantly refuses to marry.

I do not think Shiva would be back to his old normal self again. Nor can Raji retain her earlier composure.

Both of them know that some irreversible change has happened in their lives. Despair is the word that comes to my mind when I see them going about their separate ways.

I do not blame Shiva for his excesses. At the same time we cannot tolerate his relationship with Gita, however platonic it might be, as that would only complicate things.

Nor can I blame Raji for her reaction. A very natural reaction and any sensible woman in her place would have done precisely that.


Something has been lost in the process, I am sure. Or, was something already lost and the loss was realised by Shiva when Gita came into his life? I do not know. Do you?

 

I am Sorry Too!

Dear Sudha,
I am sorry to have upset you with this heavy post. But I needed to get the information out of my system. This was torturing me for months on end and only when I downloaded it on the hapless ILites I feel relieved.
As we all know there is no shortcut to joy. The way to joy is full of sorrows like this. I was reading Nikos Kazantzakis who writes right on the preface that every one has to bear his or her own cross. And the only way to resurrection is through crucifixion.
Agreed, most marriages are not like that. But in many marriages the charm is lost. I just have a simple test to find out whether there is any flame left in the marital relationship.
If the husband comes home after work, after he has not seen his wife for say, 8 or 9 hours, and he says Hi to her then the marriage is pretty much intact. If there is a silent exchange of glances, yes there is still hope. But if the husband comes home shouting about some chore to be done or something forgotten by the wife, and this happens almost every day, well, the marriage is dead.

So long as a third person does not butt in the marriage will be seemingly intact eventhough it is not. But with the entry of an outsider, well the dead marriage is formally cremated.Thanks for bearing with me.
regards,
sridhar

 

A Good Response, Chitra

Dear Chitra,

Most of the marriages today have degenerated to the "Nadaipinam" stage you have mentioned. I am sad to say this but it is true that the proportion of such marriages in metros is much higher.

Of late, I find, that our career, other activities (even something as simple as going around the town) takes up so much time that we do not have time for the basic activities of life, even for something as vital as sustaining one's marital relationship. Added to this are the distractions in the form of TV. Even our children's education demands a lot more of our time than it did for the earlier generation.

With these pressures marriage, one's spouse is taken for granted. Only when somebody like Gita intrudes, will Rajis understand the importance of marriage. Nor is Shiva blameless. It was just an accident that Gita entered his life. If some Vasu had entered Raji's life then the tables would have been reversed.

Shiva and Gita had honourable intentions, just on the face of it. Infidelity is not confined to sexual relationship. The one acid test Shiva should pass is answering this question honestly: If Raji had had a similar relationship how would he react?

We all should realise one thing. In our death beds, in our final moments, we are not going to regret that we had not spent enough time at work, we are not going to grieve that we had not seen the idiot box enough. But we will surely regret that we did not even maken an attempt to understand those who are nearest and dearest to us. We need to act fast if we want to avoid those eleventh hour regrets.
regards,
sridhar