Happy Marriages?

By Shevlin Sebastian

During Onam, on social media, there were many photos of happy marriages and families. Husband and wife are smiling and so are the children. It gives the impression that everybody is happy.

But are they?

A former colleague told me of a couple she knew, married for over 25 years, who would step out in public, smile adoringly at each other, and sometimes hold hands. But at home, the husband remains ice cold towards the wife, does not have any physical contact, rarely speaks to her and sleeps in another room.

She told me of another couple who had a fractious relationship for 50 years. They rarely spoke to each other and slept in different rooms. When the husband died, the wife did not go to the funeral, so great was the animosity. So, why did they not opt for a divorce? She is not sure about the reasons for that.

A friend pointed out to me a photo of a couple on her mobile phone. It was taken during Onam celebrations. The husband wore a saffron juba while the wife was in a Kerala-style saree, in a pleasing beige shade. Both smiled happily at the camera. “She hates him,” my friend said. “He is a womaniser. But she has no career, hence, no income, and is afraid to leave, for a life of uncertainty.”

This illusion of ‘happy marriages’ is a staple of Kerala society.

The problem is that it is still not socially acceptable for middle-aged and older couples to divorce. So, they live with each other even though there is no love or joy in their union. The thinking is: too much time has passed. What is the point of breaking up now?

If divorce had social sanction, maybe a few would have opted for it, especially if they are well-to-do. In a paradox, Malayali society has accepted divorce among youngsters.

When a daughter wants to divorce, the parents offer support and even encouragement.

Divorces happen often, and on flimsy grounds. “He snores at night,” was one excuse. “He hid his baldness under a wig,” was another reason for the swift dissolution of the marriage.

So, in Kerala, what you see is not what you get. Behind closed doors, a dramatically different drama takes place. But the fear of public ridicule and snide remarks makes all this remain indoors. But fragments of gossip slip out when the wife might tell a friend who might tell another friend and it goes on.

So, how do you gauge whether you are in a discontented marriage?

One of the surest signs is if the husband and wife sleep in different rooms and refuse to have any physical contact.

A few years ago I went to interview a thirty-something marriage counsellor whose clients were couples in the IT industry. She said, “One of the first questions I ask is if they are sleeping together. If not, it is difficult to save the marriage.”

Sometimes, a physical touch or a hug can provide a healing balm. Just sleeping next to each other at night might help. Most problems are minor irritations that get magnified.

But the man-woman relationship rarely works. They are on two different wavelengths. What she likes and desires, he is not aware of, and vice versa. Plus, spouses get bored with each other. The sexual desire for each other has long faded away. In a consumerist culture, this boredom gets even more acute. Sometimes, husbands and wives slip into affairs. All this is simple to arrange thanks to the mobile phone. But an affair rarely brings any form of satisfaction. It ends in recriminations and sorrow.

One is not sure about the impact of all this on the children.

I know of a teenage daughter who was furious with her mother for divorcing the father. Then the girl got even more upset when the mother married again. “I can’t live alone,” she told her daughter. They rarely speak to one another. So it was a surprise to see a ‘happy’ family photo they posted during Onam on Facebook with the new husband, in a crisp white dhoti and mundu, in the centre of the frame.

Most children of unhappy marriages feel relieved when they get away from the family nest. They escape to the wider world and get busy with their lives and careers.

Maybe the time has come, that once the children have grown up and moved away, the spouses could split up in a friendly manner, and go off in different directions. Why carry on this agonising relationship till the end of time? Life is so short, anyway. Why waste it in frustration and hatred? What do they gain by sticking together?

It is devastating to see the fake drama of closeness of most marriages at social functions. Of course, body language is a giveaway.

At a wedding reception, a couple, probably married for over 25 years, stood to take a snap. The sign that all was not well with the marriage was when the woman leaned her face away from the husband. Happy couples lean into each other.

Why did she lean away? What is wrong with them?

There is an enormous elephant in the room: domestic violence.

Does he beat her up? Is she bearing up with it, for the sake of the children?

Apart from physical abuse, verbal abuse can be equally damaging. It lacerates the heart.

What are the solutions?

Counselling, of course, can help. Meditation too. An easy one like Vipassana can have a calming influence on the psyche. Finally, the time has come for Kerala society to accept middle-aged and older divorces so that people can have a second stab at this elusive thing known as happiness.

The Chattering Mind

By Shevlin Sebastian

The other day I read that, on an average, according to scientists, we think about 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. I am not sure how they had calculated this. For a while now, I realised my mind was an endless conveyor belt of random, silly, and aimless thoughts. 

One day, for about thirty seconds, I noted down what I was thinking: I roamed through 12 different topics and thought about different people. It would have been more, but my mind had become self- conscious. 

When I told a friend about this, she said, perhaps, the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein would have very few thoughts, hence the clarity of his thinking. One thing is clear: the moment you stop thinking, by listening to your breathing, you enter the silence within you. But to silence the mind is a gargantuan task. I believe I spend one minute out of 24 hours in the present. The rest of the time, I am in the past or the future. 

So, in this state of pessimism, it was no surprise when I saw the book ‘Quiet your Mind by American psychologist John Selby at the Ernakulam Public Library, I grabbed it. There was an urgent need within me to silence the mind and expand the abilities of the brain. 

The book is a simple and easy read. I have taken some suggestions and have tried to implement it. The one good thing I gained from reading the book is that now I am conscious of what I am thinking. 

This slows down the mind.  

Here are some quotes from the book: 

Most of our upsetting emotions are caused not by what’s going around us, but by fear-based thoughts, habitually running through our minds. 

All human beings are constantly judging the world around them through ‘automatic’ thoughts. These thoughts judge present situations based on past experience. 

Our thoughts almost always stimulate emotional responses in our bodies. 

Our chronic thoughts: memories of the past, judgements of the present, and imaginations of the future. 

As soon as you consciously accept the truth of the moment, your heart can open, and your intuitive mind can come into play. 

You cannot change the present moment. But reality is constantly evolving, and you can take part in the evolution. 

Anger is always a response to thoughts running through our minds. 

Our thoughts influence our minds. 

The simple act of shifting one’s mental focus from thinking to experiencing changes one’s basic neurological and physiological functioning.

We should purposefully shift from a negative thought to a present-moment sensory input such as breathing, sounds and enjoyable sights. 

Conscious perceptual shifts can change your inner experience. 

In contemporary society, there is a chronic fixation upon deductive thinking as opposed to intuitive reflections. 

In order to enter the higher states of consciousness, we must shift our attention to the physical sensory realm of immediate perception. 

The shift to sensory awareness quiets the usual chatter of the mind so that a deeper intuitive experience can emerge. 

When your inner voice is habitually anxious, it thinks worried thoughts, and these generate fearful emotions, choices, and actions. 

In every situation, consider to what extent you fully process the actual perceptive experience as opposed to projecting what you expect to see in that situation. 

When thoughts stop, the body knows what to do, and does it with perfection and pleasure unknown to the thinking mind. 

The key to deep sensual release lies in quieting the flow of thoughts through your mind while making love. 

Open Vs Closed Societies

 In his thought-provoking book, ‘Open’, published by Atlantic Books, Johan Norberg, a Swedish historian and thinker, has said that a study of human history has shown that societies flourished when it was open and stagnated or collapsed when it became closed. In a closed society, there is a heightened degree of nationalism, an Us Vs Them mentality and the stifling of all critical voices. 

As authoritarianism grows all over the world and with the advent of snooping software that penetrates into the deepest levels of a person’s life, Johan’s book is an important reminder of the dangers we face. 

A section of the blurb: From Stone Age hunter-gatherers to contemporary Chinese-American relations, Open explores how across time and cultures, we have struggled with a constant tension between our yearning for co-operation and our profound need for belonging. 

Here are some quotes from the book: 

The government’s role in an open society is to protect the search for better ideas, and people’s freedom to live by their individual plans and pursue their goals through a system of rules applied equally to all citizens. 

We all have psychological predispositions that push us towards tribalism, authoritarianism, and nostalgia, especially when we are threatened by recessions, foreigners or pandemics.

By glorifying conquest and national superiority an unceasing culture of blood thirst has emerged that will end up undoing civilisations and will surely end in blood and tears. 

Openness makes us uncomfortable and we search for a kind of certainty and belonging that freedom does not guarantee. 

Two-thirds of the average person’s material worth is determined by where in the world they happen to work. If people were allowed to move to the place where their labour is paid the best, the gains to world income would be astronomical. 

Mankind has always been on the move. We have always searched for a better climate, richer soil, or mate. We have always tried to escape hunger, troublesome neighbours and violence. 

Groups that are too similar are afflicted with group thinking. 

Fire grew our brains since cooked food releases more nutrients than raw food.