During a lazy lunch break, a colleague who is about to tie the knot soon, and was a few of us what married life has been like in our experience. “I would never advise anyone to get married, being single is the best—being responsible for your own life alone is enough. Another person enters your life and only wreaks havoc,” another colleague claimed and a few others chimed in with exhausted agreement. Looking at the poor to-be-groom’s face, I knew I had to voice my disagreement. “That’s not been true at all for me. I’ve been married for three years, and it’s been pretty great. I’m really happy,” I said to the surprise of my fellow colleagues. One even asked me, “How do you make it work?”
I’m not trying to be smug but this is a question my wife and I get a lot. You see, I work in the Merchant Navy, which means I’m away for six months at a time. So, long-distance is an inescapable part of being in a relationship with me. With the reputation that long-distance relationships have earned in pop culture and on social media, we were supposed to be doomed from the start. However, that has been anything but the case so far for us.
In between situationships and the global 4B movement, where women are choosing to abstain from men altogether, 2024 has been an especially grim year for love. The anarchy that dating apps brought in, a general disregard for commitment, technology so advanced that you don’t need to leave your home for anything or unrealistic expectations—who’s to blame? But on the contrary, I’ve been experiencing what some would call matrimonial bliss.
I find myself relating less and less to the seemingly silly but needlessly complicated stories of my single friends navigating through the dating pool these days. Don’t get me wrong, dating in your 20s has never been a field of freshly blooming mustard flowers as Yash Raj and Shah Rukh Khan had us believing. But now, it’s gotten so bad even Bollywood is finding love stories between hookups and one-night stands. And I think the problem lies there. Despite what Rihanna says, you’re most likely not going to find love in hopeless places.
I’m someone who has always preferred serious relationships over casual dating. When I met my wife seven years ago, after getting to know her for a little while I very quickly knew that I wanted something long-term with her. And I expressed that to her very early on too. The case was not the same for her though. Having gone through a toxic long-distance relationship in the past, she needed some time before she could consider our future together and I was willing to wait. After seeing each other for six months, she was finally ready to commit and we started dating on New Years’ Eve—a date I picked solely for the convenience of remembering anniversaries. I knew I had to remember those for a long time to come. So, we both went in with a goal—which ended with marriage and that’s how we treated the relationship.
In our case, the initial phase of dating was pretty rough and the honeymoon period of our relationship started once we got engaged and has been ongoing to this day. The first couple years were spent getting in tune with one another and really getting to know each other—from trigger points and anxiety-causing topics to love languages and food preferences. The thing that worked to resolve the worst fights I’ve ever had in my life? Just sticking around. I never believed in the idea of “taking a break” because to me, it’s just another word for being in a state of limbo, until someone better comes along. Anytime this was suggested, I insisted that if we want to be together, we need to work it out with one another, because a break resolves nothing. And if things escalated to considering a break up, she knows that she’s free to walk away but it would never be my choice or that she would ever hear it from me. In fact, I proudly boast to her that I have never even threatened to end our relationship throughout the seven years.
Before you question it, my wife loves me a lot, (yes, I do) sometimes even more than I love her. I have to admit it but we are best friends and I love being loved by her. When we spent time together, we don’t need to be doing something special, just getting through the day’s chores or rewatching a funny old Bollywood movie and repeating every dialogue, while cracking up like you’re hearing it for the first time, is a genuine pleasure. You know, when you feel this way, there’s very little room left for your sights to yo-yo, because there’s nothing you would want to do with anyone but your person. Loyalty ranked high up on both our priority lists when we started dating, due to a lot of past traumas. Advances made by third parties were never entertained, and then, joked about. We knew early on that being happy in your relationship is what is going to make you want to stay in it.
And this holds true in all aspects of your relationship—right down to deciding how to spend the day together every day until one of us dies. Instead of making compromises, because we do enough of that when we’re apart, we began finding solutions that are a win-win for both of us. Getting to know your partner’s limits and problem areas (we all have them) and respecting them, especially when you’re fighting, is of key importance.
Long distance relationships in their essence are a test of communication, loyalty and compromise. The first month apart, to this date, is always the toughest. You’re not used to not having your person around all the time and that’s already causing a gap. Then add in spotty network, busy time schedules and opposing time schedules and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a disaster. So, in these times, she knows that our conversations are my escape from stress and the chaos of being onboard, and we focus on making every video call a dose of dopamine and a place of love and nurturing. On the rare occasions that we do have a fight, its resolved as quickly as possible because we feel too guilty about adding more to the other person’s plate. And sometimes, if nothing else works I send some dessert her way and then, she’s happy. I also love that I no longer miss out on anything from trending songs to popular memes and even our friend group’s gossip, thanks to regular updates from her.
When you get engaged to someone you can confidently see yourself waking up next to every day, it’s almost like you’ve crossed a difficult level in a video game and attained a superpower that makes you feel undefeatable. When you marry her, you’re only going to grow. Since we got married, my wife and I are stronger and happier than ever in our relationship, we’ve been fit both mentally and physically and most importantly, we still feel the kind of love for one another that has us racing back home to each other every day.
