People Throwing A Fit Over The Aamir And Kiran Rao Divorce, You Need To Read This ASAP

The definition of marriage differs for everyone. For some people, basic understanding, caring, and respect is enough. But some people may want more.

People throwing a fit over Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao divorcing. *YAWN!

When will you understand that just because something doesn’t make sense to you, or isn’t what YOU would do, it isn’t wrong?

You can’t imagine why two people who say they still like and respect each other can’t live together anymore, because for you, that’s more than enough to stay married and die married.

You’re just grateful to have a partner you can tolerate and get along with, and don’t feel like killing, and don’t argue with.

You can’t imagine divorcing a partner who you can live with peacefully under one roof, even if in silence as roommates, because you are raising a child together. That’s enough for you.

Maybe because that’s what you are used to seeing with your parents. Or maybe your parents didn’t have even that and still managed to tolerate each other and stay married until one or both died.

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Maybe look at your own marriages first, to see why you think this?

So you look at your marriage and think you have it so much better than your parents’ generation, so what if you don’t really love each other, don’t feel any connection or chemistry or intimacy or don’t even communicate, it’s still good enough.

And you think you owe it to your children to stick together under one roof as a family even if you don’t care much for each other, or aren’t in love anymore or you never were.

So when you see two people divorcing in spite of having a healthy understanding and liking and respect for each other, you just can’t fathom why.

So you weave theories that they may be lying (could be) or they may have found another partner (could be).

I have no idea what’s really happening between Aamir and Kiran but it made me think.

Is it enough to ‘settle’?

There are people who really do want it all. And if they can’t have it, they would prefer to have none at all. Settling for the middle ground is not an option for people like this. They would feel more lonely in their marriage than if they were alone.

Of course, such people could be looked down as ‘immature’ and ‘unrealistic’ by the more pragmatic lot, but this is an immutable core essence of people like that. They just can’t live half-heartedly. It’s all or nothing at all for them.

The definition of marriage differs for everyone. For some people, basic understanding, caring, and respect is enough. But for others, these are things you can get from a friend too, so they expect more from a life partner. Just being friends won’t cut it. Both viewpoints are valid.

You don’t have to live miserably under one roof in order to be good parents. You can still be parents, and sometimes even better parents, while living separately. You just have to do co-parenting right.

People change, relationships change, wants and needs change

People change and evolve with time. For a relationship to last till death, they have to either:
a) Really truly love and care for each other
b) Evolve and grow in tandem with each other

You can last a lifetime if you have either a) or b) and if you have both, wow awesome!

But if you have neither a) or b) then the relationship is dead.

In olden days, such dead relationships still continued till death because of:

• Cultural and patriarchal conditioning
• Familial pressure
• Fear of living and dying alone
• Guilt of leaving a partner
• Getting habituated to a partner and a way of life even if you are miserable
• Loss of self confidence to make a new life
• Lack of resources and support to make a new life

Today, there are people who are peeling off those layers of conditioning or have the resources or the support to leave a marriage because they have grown apart or don’t love each other or for other reasons.

Wake up and smell the refreshing change… else!

This will be deeply unsettling for those who are used to seeing marriages as a lifetime commitment.

You see, the old paradigm was an ‘either-or’ one. You could either be loyal to yourself or be loyal to your family. You had to sacrifice yourself for your family’s happiness.

There are a lot of people who took pride in that sacrifice and created an identity of a martyr. They are the ones who are now shocked when they see people refusing to do that anymore.

Now there are people who are saying, we can have it all, we aren’t going to sacrifice ourselves for our children, AND we will still give them everything you gave your children, but without the sacrifices you made.

We can be loyal to ourselves and still be kickass parents.

I have compassion for those who were suckered into sacrificing themselves, fully believing their kids would suffer if they didn’t, because now when they see people proving it wasn’t necessary, they realize they had wasted their lives.

They can’t face their own selves now. They can’t stand the pain.

So how do they make the discomfort go away?

By making sure nobody else gets away. By pulling down those who do. By villanizing them. Hoping that anyone watching and getting inspired to do the same will back off and never dare question the status quo. The old crabs-in-the-bucket story.

This is why there’s always so much of angst and tantrums when any couple, celebrities or not, announce an amicable divorce with peaceful co-parenting.

They think, so we were scammed into sticking on in our marriages? So we could have done this too? So I could have been happy and my kids could have been happy too? So I didn’t need to sacrifice my happiness for them?

An awakening is inevitable. Change is happening.

Be happy that others got the courage to do what you couldn’t instead of pulling them down with you.

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