Marriages and other topics

I was reading about ‘marriages’ and I came across these points:

Someone can behave badly and still be understandable.
Someone can love deeply and still hurt the person they love.
Someone can be intelligent and still be terribly confused.
A marriage can be loving and still have regrets.
Two people can love each other and nevertheless be unable to make a life together.
And sometimes there simply isn’t one person to blame.
Where does your marriage fit in?
Think about it and share only if you will
2
Nisha says:
This is called the irony of marriage it’s quite quirky & strange but it’s true…It’s an amalgamation of all this & more everyday teaches you something & with a right attitude one tides through it all …hence we are here to learn grow & evolve 🙏
Roshni says:
Marriages and indeed relationships are so unique.
3.
Deepika says:
Marriage is a surrender …n an adoption of the unknown.One needs to flow like water and adapt to the newness n still keep on adapting as so will your partner.Its a rosey Rose 🌹 with the thorns.
Just let the Rose bloom without touching the thorns…once you prick it takes days to heal.
Be grateful for the soulmate God has gifted you….n play along once you are one without words nothing else matters…
I, shakun
have often wondered why our scriptures speak of the pativrata woman as possessing great spiritual power. Perhaps one reason is that a truly committed marriage can itself become a form of tapasya.
To remain loving and loyal to another human being, knowing that he is not perfect, requires patience, forgiveness, restraint, acceptance and the surrender of one’s own expectations. It means learning to love a person as he actually is, rather than as we wish him to be.
That inner discipline can become tapasya. And tapasya, when undertaken with awareness and without resentment, can generate tremendous inner strength and spiritual power.
This does not mean that a woman should silently endure cruelty or injustice. Dharma cannot mean destroying oneself. But where there is an ordinary human being with ordinary faults, and a woman chooses to respond with understanding rather than constant resentment, perhaps that very process transforms her.
So perhaps the spiritual power attributed to the pativrata is not a reward for merely remaining married. It is the power that can arise when love, loyalty, self-discipline and surrender are practised through the difficulties of marriage.
In that sense, marriage can become not merely a relationship, but a sadhana.

Aasha says:
Yes was about to expand on this. I think in marriage it works both ways. It’s an equal partnership involving give and take.
Give love , respect, patience and support and receive the same from your spouse. I feel now the days of wife surrendering to husband are long gone, it’s a mutual unspoken commitment to each other, accepting the flaws and the virtues of the other partner with a good sense of understanding and love. Only then can you nurture this lifetime relationship.
I also believe that some degree of adjustment is necessary in every relationship if we want it to work. No two people are exactly alike, and living together inevitably requires understanding, compromise and the willingness to accommodate each other.

I Shakun believe:
In fact, adjustment is a part of life whether we are in a relationship or not. If we have a partner, we learn to adjust to another person. If we live alone, we learn to adjust to our own circumstances and to the absence of a partner.

Perhaps the real question is not whether we have to adjust, but what we are willing to adjust, and what we should never compromise. We can adjust our habits, expectations and preferences, but we should not have to compromise our dignity, safety or fundamental values.

Life is not about having everything exactly as we want it; it is about learning to live gracefully with what life gives us. 😊

Huri says:
I SAY WIVES STILL GIVE IN MORE EVEN TODAY, COZ WE WANT LOVE PEACE HAPPINESS FLOWING IN OUR LIVES

Aasha says:

Yes 🙌 if life gives us lemons we must learn to make lemon juice 👍

Lakhi says:
I need urgent help.
I fully agree that the time of wife surrending to her husband is long gone
Now the husband’s are surrending😔
I
😂😂 I, Shakun think both Huri. Aasha and Lakhi have made an important discovery—perhaps surrender has become a two-way street! But seriously, I don’t think surrender is about wives surrendering to husbands or husbands to wives. It is about both surrendering their egos, expectations and need to have their own way. That might actually be the secret to peace in a marriage! 🙏❤️”

A man once went to a Sadhu and said: “Please give me a mantra to control my wife.”
The Sadhu smiled and replied, “If I knew a mantra that could control a wife, do you really think I would have become a Sadhu?” 😂🙏

And of course, it works equally well if the wife asks for a mantra to control her husband! 😄

And then there is that old saying about marriage: “Marriage is like a laddoo—if you eat it, you may regret it; and if you don’t eat it, you may regret that too!” 😂

So, after all our discussion about marriage, surrender, expectations and who should surrender to whom, what conclusion have you all arrived at? 😄

Is marriage a laddoo worth eating, one to be avoided, or perhaps a laddoo whose sweetness depends on how we choose to eat it? 🙏😊

Lakhi says:
Even Google doesnt have an answer
& you are discussing ladoos😔
I, Shakun reply:
“Lakhi, that is why we have stopped looking for answers and moved on to discussing laddoos! 😄
Google may not have the answer, but perhaps after all our discussion we have discovered the real secret: there is no universal mantra for marriage—only patience, humour, love and a good sense of humour… especially the good sense of humour! 😂🙏”

Mani says:
Marriage is the playground and also the battlefield for each one of us to conduct themselves as for the laws of karma, exactly as Krishna described to Arjun on the battlefield , and as Krishna played with the Gopies when he was in his younger days . Everything is a learning lesson. Every experience teaches us right from wrong. It is a wonderful thing that in later life one realises exactly where one has gone wrong. That realisation acknowledge the fact that yes I was wrong. I could’ve done it in another way. But what if there was no other way there are so many dilemmas so many questions and so many doubts that every stage and every step of the way . As you say, do your best and leave the rest.

Huri says :
EAT IT ENJOY N NOT OVEREAT
So I, Shakun asked :
Overeat means don’t marry more than once? 😅
And Huri replied: Ha Ha Ha 🤣

Aasha shares the thought of Neale Donald Walsch that states that :
‘Relationship generally does not complete you, but to have someone with whom you can share your completeness !

I Shakun say: And that probably is the bottom line of a relationship !

Mala says:
Haha . Love the insights. What more can I add , i wonder.
Bring into your relationship what you want from it.
If i want to be loved & respected. I give love & respect in all my relationships.
Ive seen things change when i consciously do that .

I, Shakun , am sharing an excerpt of an article i had written years ago on
‘Thoughts On Man, Woman and Marriages’
A sad thing is happening now-a-days…More and more marriages are breaking up! What is the reason? Perhaps a little effort to understand, will help! Maybe marriages were fractured during earlier times too…but there must have been an invisible bandage on them! Why invisible? Because there was minimum interaction between man and woman. An ideal woman should be seen, not heard! That is what most mothers-in-law and husbands believed! Some believed that, a woman should not even be seen! But today, a man wants an intelligent and thinking wife, by his side.
What does a woman do, to attract a man? Act dumb or smart? Being true to herself is the answer.
And by and large, a woman is essentially a soft sensitive creation.
Boys talk about wanting to marry career women…yet they are finding it harder and harder to make a commitment to marriage.
Women are confused between opting for a marriage and/or career…Would it have been better if they did not have a career, and they had no choice but to get married and consider their husbands their Pati Parmeshwar.

I don’t think so, because, then, they would be totally dependant on the man…or to the male figure in their lives, if the husband died or deserted them…

Yet do they have to spend their lives, not marrying, just because they have a career and can financially support themselves? That, does not seem to be the answer…As Christ said: ‘Man does not live by bread alone…’ What can be more satisfying than a loving and supporting spouse and kids?
So where lies the answer?

Deepika says:
Countries like Japan n Korea n now even China are experiencing no marriage ,no children
Burden of modern life …..stress in all forms…no time for love….only live in.

Marriage is dying ….there are few takers …it’s a trap for insecurity in its myriad ways

The world over has renounced the sacredness of marriage.
Now even in India
Gay weddings are normalising
Lesbians are happily married.
Sareogacy is permissible.
Single men n women are parents to unknown sperm’s.

It’s all becoming unnatural.
Women can freeze their eggs n become unwed motheres….I know of two educated ladies who are parenting their children like this method.
Men are scared of women.
Laws have changed.
Women are also taking advantage.
Being independent is coming with a price.

Marriage is now a forbidden ladoo
You can bite into one anytime in any place as a live in …try n test..n leave n make a new nest….it’s a circle which has no happy ending.

Young adults ask a question ❓

I get everything without marriage….with less stress n fear…. anyways so why Marry

Earlier we feared not being married….social pressure…n have to work it out anyhow.
Now it’s unheard of.
As our sanskriti has changed…. marriage has no value left…it’s sad but true.
I Shakun say:
I agree that marriage is changing and that modern life has put enormous pressure on relationships. People are marrying later, having fewer children, choosing live-in relationships, and in many places marriage is no longer seen as the only way to build a family.

But I don’t agree that gay or lesbian relationships are “unnatural.” Human beings have always experienced love and attraction in different ways. Something being different from the traditional model doesn’t automatically make it unnatural.

Perhaps what is changing is not the human capacity to love, but our ideas about what a family or a marriage has to look like.

And I would be careful about saying that marriage is simply “dying.” Maybe the old institution of marriage is changing because people are questioning what they are willing to accept in a relationship. That can have both good and bad consequences.

For me, the real question isn’t whether a relationship looks like the traditional marriage. It is whether there is love, honesty, responsibility, respect and commitment between the people involved.

And perhaps that is the more important thing to preserve—the sacredness of love and commitment, rather than insisting that they can exist only in one particular form. 🙏
I have read in one of the original translated Hindu scriptures a thought that stayed with me: what may be considered wrong or unnatural at one point in time is not necessarily inherently wrong. As society evolves and our understanding changes, our ideas of what is acceptable can also change. Perhaps we should therefore be cautious about declaring something “unnatural” simply because it is different from what we have traditionally known.

Huri says:
FOR PRESENT TIMES MARRIAGE IS SACROSSANT
I, Shakun say (Sacrosanct meaning is it is too important, special, etc. to be questioned or changed)
Marriage is certainly sacred, but I sometimes wonder whether we have made the institution sacred while forgetting the people within it. What makes a marriage truly sacred is how two people treat each other. 🙏

Aasha says:
Times are a changing and our views and opinions have to move with the times. What is acceptable today was not so a decade or two ago . Let’s just see the change unfold. 🙏

I, Shakun say:
Absolutely. 🙏 I think the important thing is to remain open-minded and not be too quick to judge what is different from what we have known. Times change, societies change, and our understanding evolves too. Perhaps our role is not to resist every change, but to observe it with compassion and discernment and see where it takes us. 🙏