Damage

Sometime last year, a friend told me her marriage was in trouble. Now, I don’t know much about marriages but I do know that when it gets to a point where you feel like a lesser person and worse, look the same, it certainly could be time to leave.
We’re close, but it’s really her cousin that’s closer. So when she simply talked about what living with someone who didn’t seem to like her much anymore, was, I mostly offered an ear and stayed out of the advice department.
At the time, she also had a little person in tow who seemed to adore his Daddy. The kid was adored right back, I was told. So, I figure, two people with a child in common and who must have liked something about each other at some point, had a fair chance at making it work.
Turns out it didn’t work. Turns out, that verbal abuse, when administered slowly, and over a period of time, works as well as any form of poison. Turns out that this particular brand of abuse is equivalent to any physical damage inflicted and the shape of the scars involved, bear a curious resemblance to each other.
I think that over time, as I heard her out and listened to accounts of what she was going through from other sources, what happened was that I began taking a stance. For me, the issue became less about what the problem was and much more about what she refused to do about it. There lies a curious devil inside some of us, who torments us into believing in false sanctities and instills a consuming fear of external animosities. External animosities and something else. Something completely separated from logic or sanity. A fear that seems to be completely against telling it like it is. A fear that fears truth and freedom. Or views it as selfish.
And that’s just her. Then there is her family, who, after witnessing eight years of the same bullshit, still want her to “work things out”. They cant bear the thought of a divorce and it’s impending doom on their cultural castles. Instead, they insinuate the effect that single parenting will have on a child and seem to liken it to being visually or otherwise impaired.
Okay, I think I’m a little prejudiced. Happiness and ensuring it has almost been a vital organ for me. They’re nice people, and they really love her. There are few parents that feel that much. Whether it’s sharing joy or sorrow, these guys want to do it all, all the time. That’s a good thing most of the time. Sometimes, it can get claustrophobic, if their other children are to be believed. But in my friend’s case, it’s about a life lived for two extra people. Any decision made affects them and their health issues so deeply, that it cannot, at any cost, be an independent one. So she’s reached a stage where she can’t take any.
Dissolution is something she’s been brought to the brink of, every other day. To put it plainly, she’d probably be single if it weren’t for the guilt of what she’s supposedly doing to her son and parents. If it weren’t so sad, it would be laughable that her family want to know, understand and patiently justify what makes her husband irrational enough to not be able to keep a job, treat his wife so badly and be irresponsible with regard to the kid. They haven’t been able to bring themselves to actually talk to him and demand to know why he’s being so rotten to their daughter. Incidentally, she’s the earner in the family. Other little trivia include the fact that he’s plainly suggested she leave (which in my opinion is makes him the most coherent of the lot) and that he makes the financial decisions. It’s interesting to not be able to buy the pants and yet wear them.
This is where I come in. A year down the line, I’ve told her siblings and cousin what I think. And I tend to not be the well phrased, understanding type when I get outraged. To me, they were not just not supporting any decision she could make, but actually forcing a life of unhappiness and more medication on her. She’s hardly over the hill, she’s attractive, smart and can have a great life, single or with a man who can make her happy, if she so wishes.
About the child, I grew up with parents who are terrible together and much happier and better people apart. I was hardly deprived being parented by a dad who taught me Abba and not nursery rhymes, because he knew so few. And he became the foundation of my life. This, in my case, mostly worked great. Example apart, what child would not be healthier in a peaceful home rather than a violent one?
Would it be different if she were male? Are we, as urban Indian women, as victimized as some of our rural counterparts?
I’m so tired of nothing ever happening.