I’m one of those people who are a very firm believer of… it doesn’t matter where men come from, and where women come from. Mars, Venus, wherever… Eventually, marriage has to be practiced on Earth.

So that has to be got right. And I’ve experientially realized this, because, when I got married to my wife, and I really believed I got married to my wife, I didn’t realize, I didn’t get married to her. She didn’t get married to me. Twenty-six years of my past got married two twenty-three years of her past. Two conditionings got married, we didn’t get married.

Because I had come from a very impoverished background, it was a very different environment in which we had grown.

We never had enough clothes to wear, so we never knew there is something called choosing the right dress for the right occasion, that you need to have enough dress for that, and enough people should call you to attend occasions. Neither happened. So somewhere it’ll be there, and the one at the top, you always wear and go.

My wife came from an upper middle-class background. Her father was very prudent, as far as saving is concerned. So, they always had some sort of an economic backing. So, she came from a background where it seems they have to attend a function. The family used to discuss together, what you are going to wear, what I am going to wear, the daughter has to wear something contrasting to what brother wears.

So, she came from a different background. We got married. And it so happened, one day after the marriage, she wanted to go and visit her mother’s place, and I said, “Let’s go.”. So, I went inside my bedroom and on the cot, I saw three different salwars were kept. I thought she had not yet made up her mind. I went inside. I dressed up, got ready and came out. The moment I came out, she asked me, “You got ready?”. I said yes. From her face, it was very evident something was not okay.

From the beginning, my self-image has been very intact. So, when I saw her upset, I thought my mother should have said something, because of which she is upset. It didn’t even occur to me, the cause is me. But I knew she was upset, and it’s not difficult to understand a woman is upset, because when a woman is upset, she walks at about four hundred kilometres per hour speed. So when you see that speed, you know that something is upset.

Anyhow, I used to have a Suzuki bike during those days, and it was confirmed when she sat on the bike, she preferred to hold the rim in the bike, and not my shoulders. My conscience kept telling me, “Apply sudden brake.”. But, second day, you always want to show your best self to her. So kept driving, but I didn’t know this whole thing, what had upset her, till next day morning.

In a week’s time, I was going for my honeymoon. So, I had some pending things to finish at work. So next day itself I was going to go to workplace, and I had already worn a shirt. I had not yet worn my trousers. Don’t visualize, okay?

But I had already worn my shirt.

And from somewhere she came, and she said, “No, no, no, today, you are not wearing this shirt!” and she started removing the buttons of my shirt. I told myself, “You’re gone.”. You’re married to a woman who is not even going to allow you to wear the shirt you want. That day, I decided to wear white. Ever since, I’m wearing white…

Now, I allow her to choose which white shirt she wants me to wear. She decides, I don’t decide. I wear that, and I move around.

Now, I had no reason to understand, my dear couples.

She was brought up in an environment where, her family always expressed their love to their daughter, by choosing a dress for her to wear. That was their expression of love. So to her, if you really love, then you come and tell her, “Darling, I want you to wear this, and you look best in this.” and to her, it’s an expression of love. So when I was going to work, she was forcing me to remove the shirt I was wearing, because she believed, by she choosing the shirt for me to wear, she was actually expressing her love for me. I saw that as a very nagging experience…

I thought, because I came up in an environment where expression of love was never like, you have to wear this dress. Expression of love means they will call you once or twice, buffalo, get up, useless fellow, that means my father loves me.

Now, I have never had this experience about you have to wear this dress only, because my father used to think if we start selecting all this, then your expenses will go up. So my father never, ever got involved in that dress issue at all, so I had no idea. In fact, the way I was thinking was, if I start choosing the dress that she should wear, she might believe that I am trying to be a dominant husband. I thought giving her the space, giving her the freedom for her to choose what is good for her, was an expression of love. So it is not that I was not loving her, but to the background she came from, it appeared I was indifferent. I was not even interested in seeing her beautiful.

The first lesson that I learned experientially on building relationships, not just marriage, relationships is, people love you, but they don’t know to love you the way you want to be loved. The first lesson that I learned on relationship is, people do love us, but they do not know to love us, the way we want to be loved. They can only love us the way they understand love.