One of the most common questions that I am often asked is – ‘I loved her (or him). She (or he) loved me too. But now she (or he) is marrying another man (or woman) chosen by her (or his) family. I am heart broken. Did she (or he) really love me?’
This is a very difficult question to answer. I have talked about love a lot on Womanatics and I sincerely believe that love keeps evolving over a period of time. People change. Their priorities change and with this, the relationship two people share changes as well.
But when we are heart broken, it becomes almost impossible to understand the reasoning from other person’s point of view. Once we are left alone, all we want to know is – was I really loved in the first
place?
Neil Menon has answered this question beautifully on Quora. I don’t think I would have answered it with as much maturity as him. I am reproducing his answer here for you. He narrates his own story in the answer to possibly explain that probably yes, she loved you but she fell a victim to circumstances. Here is what he has to say:
She said she loved me more than her parents but now she is marrying a person chosen by her parents. Did she really love me?
“I was 5 years into my relationship with my ex girlfriend when she decided that it was time to meet her parents. Both of them knew about me, but we had neither met nor spoken.
So, I flew down to Mumbai, wore the white checked shirt she had bought me for this very meeting, wore formal black trousers and formal black leather shoes.
“You’ve gotto dress up human before meeting them,” she had told me. “Captain America and Batman just won’t do!”
Fine!
Her father was a corporate heavyweight in top level management for a multinational brand and was the head on its Indian operations. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. Of course I was!
Me and my ex had already planned an elaborate future together – a simple wedding in our backyard, a reception by the river, going to the Bahamas for our honeymoon, me going to the US for my PhD, bringing her over in a few years, kids in 3 years, stuff like that. So yes, given what lay at stake, I was seriously nervous.
So, I reached their place at 8 in the evening. They lived in a swanky high rise in one of Mumbai’s plush suburbs. I took the elevator to their 9th floor apartment, and rang the door bell. My gf opened the door. She was smiling nervously – the moment had got to her, too!
I took off my shoes and walked in. Her Dad was sitting on the sofa going through some files. Her grandpa sat on the couch beside him, watching KKR play in an IPL match, and her mother was in the kitchen. The moment I walked in, her mother came out to greet me.
“Hello, Aunty,” I said, smiling as wide as I could. Her Mom was my only hope!
“Hello,” she replied. There was no smiles returned. Fuck!
Her father merely lifted his head from the bunch of papers he was scanning through, and looked at me over his reading glasses. “Come and sit,” he said, shifting the papers around, making space for me beside him.
I gulped.
The moment I sat down, the interview began. It was not a social dialogue or conversation that we were having. It was a corporate interview for the post of a fresher in data entry.
“Where do you see yourself five years from now?” “Why do you want to be a physicist?” “Are you sure you want to be a scientist?” “Have you ever been abroad?” “How much are you paid now?” “Are you sure you can sustain the lifestyle my daughter has with that kind of money?” “Is this your true calling?” “Are you willing to change your profession?”……
Well, needless to say, that meeting didn’t end well. Even an attempt to butter up her grandfather didn’t work. “I don’t know why KKR insists on keeping Yousuf Pathan! He’s a useless player,” I said, managing a chuckle. For a die hard KKR fan like me, that was as good as blasphemy! Her grandfather just glared at me.
Half an hour later as I walked back to my hotel alone, my girlfriend called. Things hadn’t gone well. Her father had asked her what exactly it was that she saw in me the first time we met. It even went up to the extent of him telling her that after 5 years, it was possible that I had manipulated her into falling in love with me. Her grandfather called me a madarasi(racist term for a South Indian) and asked her what was so special about me.
My only hope, her mother, also seemed to take her husband’s side and said that he’s from ahi-fi family and is an atheist while they were staunchly religious.
“Don’t worry, shona,” she told me before we ended the call, “it’s with you I want to spend the rest of my life with. I don’t care what they think. Every night, it’s with you I’m going to go to bed with and every morning I’m going to wake up to you, not them. I don’t care what they think. They’re just trying to rattle me here, but don’t worry hon, I’m not going anywhere!”
Well, she didn’t! At least initially, she didn’t. She did stand up to her parents and defended me. Her brother and I were also friends and he supported us too. Her parents weren’t happy with her decisions. However, it did seem like they would accept her way eventually.
But then, the next year, she got through a fancy B-school and her Dad ended up paying for her entire tuition (close to 12lakh rupees) on his own. Now that’s a lot of money, and this had an effect on her. Suddenly, she felt obliged to her parents. Suddenly, she was not all that firm in her stance anymore. Suddenly, she was confused.
“I don’t know, Neil,” she told me one particular day when I decided to confront her. “My Dad has invested so much money here. It’s seriously a lot of money and I feel I owe him. I still want to be with you, but now there’s this big debt I feel hanging over my head.”
I understood her perspective and gave her time to think. I was in no hurry either. I was there to support her all the way.
But then, unfortunately, with time, this feeling of owing her father kept getting heavier and heavier until, one day, it was all over. One thing lead to another and yeah, we were done. 6 years of magic gone in one night of madness.
And now, she’s married to another MBA. Love marriage, actually – her senior from the B-school she went to. Her parents didn’t exactly have to find a groom for her because, apparently, this guy checked out all their boxes. North Indian, a little religious, MBA with a more than decent salary, fair, whatnot.
So, when she said she loved me, was she lying? NO, she wasn’t.
When she said she loved me more than her parents, was she lying? Well, the way she stood up to them, I did feel she loved me, if not more than her parents, she loved me as much.
So what happened? She fell a victim to circumstances. I don’t blame her for what happened. Could she have handled the situation differently? I doubt it.
So, there you go. In my experience, no she didn’t lie.
She probably was another victim of her circumstances – something she didn’t know how to handle, and honestly, not many people know how to handle a situation like that.
Perhaps, neither do I.”
This answer has originally been published on Quora.
Wow awesome ������
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