Love & Other Drugs
In India, pre-marital counseling is not very popular. Parents, relatives, siblings and even friends often take on the role of advising a young couple on how to deal with issues. But often, that borders on meddling. It’s hardly ever objective, and inevitably, it’s full of tropes and platitudes such as ‘adjust kar lo’. The genderization of “advice” around marriage also leads to post-marriage depression among many women in India.
The death of a spouse is the most stressful life event. Other than the loneliness and grief it causes, the stress can sometimes take a toll on one’s body, leading to what’s called the ‘Broken Heart Syndrome’ – a condition with symptoms that may feel like a heart attack, like chest pain, and shortness of breath, caused by an emotionally stressful event, not by clogged arteries.
A result of the fight, flight, freeze or fawn response, those butterflies are not telling you you’re falling in love. Instead, they’re asking you to watch out for potential signs of getting hurt by this person.
While having a child may not make a bad marriage good, a strong one can weather the storm, and come out stronger!
Can star-struck women looking to get married now say, ‘I want someone like Ranbir,’ and mean someone who embraces a woman in all her glory, and not his good looks? Here’s hoping…
Such is the power of love – it turns mundane to magic, boring to brilliant, and death to power. So, why should we not be obsessed with love? The irony is, though, that as certainly as we want to love and be loved, as uncertain we are about what it really means. Perhaps these books about love will help you figure some things out.
Although everyone is unique, there are some signs that you can rely upon.
Before you commit to spending your whole life (or even being exclusive) with that person, take a moment to consider if you’ve talked about the important stuff. It’s never easy to have sticky conversations about kids, fidelity, money or where you’re going to live. These conversations can be awkward, but they’re so important! But that doesn’t mean you can’t make it fun!
If you love someone, you set them free. There is much truth to this adage. Love sets you free, it doesn’t bind you. But when a person’s happiness, his needs, and his life, and even his identity revolves around another person and he forgets all about his own needs and his own life, maybe it’s time to take a step back.
Going for couples counselling with the intention of ‘going back to the way things were’ may not be the best idea. While the past may have been a happy place for you, that doesn’t mean you can’t create a happy future that looks different.