There’s more to love than love alone, says Simran Mangharam

Quite a few people I know are currently celebrating more than 20 years of marriage. That is no mean feat in our times. Today‘s fast-paced, change-prone lifestyles make it easier than before for two people to drift apart. Older challenges that persist range from infidelity to abuse to the host of devastating mismatches encompassed by the grim term “irreconcilable differences”.

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I am currently coaching two women who are in the midst of divorce. One loves her husband, but feels she can no longer share his lifestyle. The other is content in their life together, but is ready to admit that there is no passion where there was once so much of it.

Let’s call the women Malti and Dina. Malti has been married to Arindam for 20 years. They met at business school, are equally successful, and lead a comfortable life. Through decades of raising children, coordinating schedules and planning family vacations, they were largely on the same page. Friends looked at them and saw a model couple.

Three years ago, Malti noticed a change. It wasn’t just that she and Arindam rarely had sex; there was also a distinct lack of romance in their lives. She discussed this with him and they decided to make an effort to carve out time that they could spend together.

Over a few months, these efforts dwindled. Date nights that were scheduled felt forced. “It was like we couldn’t even chat anymore,” Malti says.

She began to feel a sense of relief if Arindam was travelling or not at home; she began to suspect that he felt the same way. It took them a few sessions of couple’s therapy to admit that, though they still loved each other, they were no longer in love. Arindam had fallen out of love with Malti seven years earlier, he said. This happened for Malti more recently. They have applied for divorce by mutual consent.

Dina, who has been married to Jeh for six years, had a very different struggle. Soon after the two met, at work, they married. Around the same time, Jeh quit his job to strike out on his own. He encouraged Dina to do the same, and she did, launching a consulting practice.

In the five years since, money has often been scarce. Dina realised that she and Jeh had very different approaches to life on limited means. She believes in doing without luxuries, if she cannot afford them. He prefers to take on debt to support his lifestyle.

The fallout is that they haven’t been able to start a family as they had intended to by this time.

Her parents tried to mediate; so did his. Recently, her parents suggested that she end the marriage. She insisted that she loved him and didn’t want to leave; she maintains that he loves her too.

Then, a month ago, their car was repossessed because dues on it hadn’t been paid, and Dina stopped trying to save the marriage. She has reached out to a divorce lawyer.

Perhaps there is nothing that would have altered the courses of these four lives. Hopefully, they will find peace as they set out on new paths, separately rather than together.

But stories like these are a potent reminder to all of us, still muddling through our rising tallies, that it takes vigilance, love, and quite frankly at least a little bit of luck, to make these vital, rather magical, partnerships work.

Because not all the material comforts can make up for an absence of love; love alone cannot substitute for a life of balance and shared priorities. What “balance” looks like will vary, and any answer is a good one if two people can honestly say that it works for them.

Just don’t take those hands off the wheel. The ballads may say that love is all you need, and that it will keep you alive. That’s honestly, quite simply, not true.

(Simran Mangharam is a dating and relationship coach and can be reached on [email protected])