Back in 2001, my parents found someone for me to marry.
I’d never had a real relationship before – I was 24 and immature – so I didn’t really realise what it meant to go through with it.
It may sound stupid, but it’s only 20 years later that I can grasp how naive I was for not realising the severity of my actions.
I grew up watching other family members getting married and just somehow always knew this was the path I was meant to (or thought I was meant) to take.
So in my early 20s, my parents paired me with around 12 different girls. Each time, they’d exchange pictures with the other family, a bit of information about the girl and then everyone would go to meet each other.
We’d all have a brief chat together and either party may decline the union. Sometimes I’d even speak to the girl and ask whether she really wanted to get married or was she just doing it for the sake of her parents – then we’d both agree to just say we didn’t really like each other.
The first time I met my wife, I went to her family home with my parents, where we all drank tea and ate snacks. I had around 20 minutes of alone time with her – job interviews last longer than this.
These 20 minutes were weird, I was on my best behaviour and I couldn’t really be myself – I was just trying to get as much information as I could; it’s like speed dating.
We both said we wanted to get married and I got on with her more than the previous women, so we ended up telling our parents they could arrange the match.
The second time I met her was at our engagement party and I realise now that I didn’t take in the gravity of what was happening. Even then, we didn’t get the chance to speak for long.
For the next nine months – before our third meeting on our wedding day – we had no contact via text or phone calls because she was from a very strict family.
I took my wedding day in my stride but I can see now that I really just had no idea what I was getting into. All my friends and family were enjoying the big party but I didn’t feel anything and just went along with it all.
Before I knew it, I was married.
In the first year, I thought I loved my wife because she is an attractive, kind and a nice person – there was nothing not to like. But you can’t fabricate chemistry and I wasn’t ‘in love’ with her.
She was pleasant and we got along but had nothing in common and were from totally different worlds. There was no spark, nothing that made me smile. I never had butterflies and I didn’t want to spend time together doing the kinds of things that a married couple should want to do – like weekends away, meals out, socialising or holding hands.
We made the mistake of thinking having kids would fix it all
If I had been in any form of a serious relationship prior to the marriage, then maybe I could have realised what it meant to care for someone; to be in love, to be responsible for another person’s feelings.
At the start, we were both finding our feet together. It was all new to both of us and I really did want to make a go of it. I wanted to go out as a couple with my friends that were in relationships; I wanted what they had.
Age-wise, we were only two years apart, but very quickly it became clear that our likes and dislikes were massively different. She is a very traditional Sikh girl, whereas I respect my religion but wouldn’t say I practise it.
She didn’t want to go to bars or clubs and I loved socialising. She was happy being a housewife, but I was adventurous, outgoing and I realise now that my marriage took that away from me.
But we both wanted to make it work, so we had our first child around 18 months into our marriage and then our second about two years after that.
Looking back, we made the mistake of thinking having kids would fix it all. But however much we both adore our kids and are both good parents, it only papered over the cracks in our relationship. We still aren’t a good match.
Most people tend to assume that arranged marriage is fine for the man: worst-case scenario, he divorces and gets another wife. He isn’t ‘tarnished’ in the same way a woman would be, and could always be considered ‘marriage material’.
Of course, there are many ways that women are disadvantaged when a marriage goes wrong – but I’m hurting too. I’m a decent human being: I have feelings, crave real love and want to share my life with the right person.
Being in a marriage I don’t want to be in, I’m stuck in a world where that can’t happen. I feel like a coward. I’m scared of hurting my parents, I fear my kids coming from a ‘broken home’. The idea of upsetting my kids is too much. And so, I stay and live a lie.
Divorce doesn’t feel like an option though.
This is all made much worse by the fact that I now know what real love feels like. I know this because I have it with my girlfriend.
We met four years after my wife and I married, which was six months after the birth of our second child. I worked in a car dealership and she started coming every month, working as a sales rep.
I remember the first time I saw her: she was simply stunning and I melted on the spot – it’s as if Cupid’s arrow had been fired, four years too late.
You can’t help who you fall for. After seeing her coming into my work for a few months, I decided to ask for her number. We got to know each other over the course of nine months, until she finally said yes to a date. By that time, my mind and soul just knew I was in love.
It’s made much worse by the fact that I now know what real love feels like. I know this because I have it with my girlfriend
The more I learned about her as a person, the more I liked her. It’s not so much her qualities – she is lovely, sweet and kind but so was my wife. This girl just got me and I got her.
She did not know my situation but on our date, I told her that I was married, with two children. She said that she was happy to be with me on the basis that I would need to leave my loveless marriage.
It’s been 16 years now and I still haven’t worked up the courage to do it; my girlfriend is patient but getting tired of me not fully committing to her.
I want a divorce but I feel that I have no right to have taken the best years of my wife’s life and then tell her it has been for nothing. With two kids, what are her chances of finding love? What right do I have to deny her the future she invested in?
I do believe she is unhappy, as she can tell that we are not in a loving relationship. She too probably wishes she never got married.
However, due to our culture, if we divorce, I fear she will roam the earth alone not feeling loved or finding someone else to love her.
Year on year, my wife and I argue more often over stupid situations, all because we’ve never had a real relationship.
We don’t open up to each other, we don’t smile and laugh together – it’s like living as flatmates who merely tolerate each other.
I’ve only spoken to one friend about this, but he doesn’t understand or know how to help me. I feel alone.
Parents surely can’t think it’s OK to expect their children to marry a person they don’t know, let alone someone they don’t love? I feel I was brainwashed into an arranged marriage, more than forced.
I understand that folk want to keep their culture alive – ideally, I would like my children to marry in their own religion. But if they found partners and found love, I wouldn’t care what race, colour or creed or sex the person was – as long as they’re happy.
I know from experience that it doesn’t matter: my girlfriend is white Catholic.
I would love nothing more than to wake up to my girlfriend every day for the rest of my life. Yet, I fear that if I did leave my marriage to be with her, the guilt of leaving my wife would ruin the one good relationship I’d ever had.
However, I dread to think what happens when my kids leave and it’s just me and my wife in an empty house, with no love in sight. The thought of it breaks my already delicate heart.
Either way, I lose.
To anyone considering getting married, all I can say is that you need to grasp what you’re actually doing before you do it. Have the courage to speak your mind before you end up in my situation, without the power to change it.
No matter who you may upset, make your own choices, otherwise, you will just upset yourself for the rest of your life. That’s a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
As told to Minreet Kaur
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