Why forever-after is a lifetime project: With Love by Simran Mangharam

It takes a subversive storyteller to explore what married life would have looked like, even for the most iconic fairy-tale pairings: Cinderella and Prince Charming, Beauty and the Beast, Pretty Woman and her white knight.

And even the most subversive storytellers can’t match the complexity of real life; the utter confusion that ensues when the very things we loved about a person become the things that can drive us to breaking point.

A recently married couple that I am coaching is in the midst of such a struggle. Aadit from West Bengal fell in love with Gayatri from Tamil Nadu largely because he was drawn to her extroverted nature. She was warm with strangers, ebullient and outgoing, made new friends in minutes. He is now struggling to adjust to a life shaped by those very traits.

Gayatri is hurt and unable to process this. For years, he told her how much he loved these very traits. He still does, he says. But he’s exhausted by the number of social events they “have” to go to; the number of parties they “must” host; and the number of evenings he spends amid crowds of people he barely knows.

Gayatri and Aadit are now working to attain some balance in this area. We are building a framework for a shared, mutually determined social calendar, with room for evenings at home and date nights.

Theirs is a relatively easy tangle to untie, but it has always been interesting to me how marriage alters things between people. How it becomes, so often, a portal into the unknown.

I have a theory about why this happens and it is simply this: Neither person has ever been a spouse to their partner before. Even if they have lived together, it has been in a relatively informal, unstructured format. Tie the knot and decisions and assets become shared; and this, one of the institution’s greatest draws, can also begin to feel like a significant drawback.

Boundaries with the extended circle of friends and family melt away, making room for more affection, but more friction too.

And then, if we’re being honest, there is the psychological adjustment: suddenly, one is looking at a spouse do something only mildly annoying (like drop a wet towel on a cushioned couch) and thinking: “This is it? This is my life now?”

In that moment, it helps to remember that such feelings have occurred at every major turning point in your life. This turn in the road stands out because of its intense intimacy; it’s just the two of you in this bubble. But think back and you will recognise such feelings from early childhood and a new school; early weeks of parenthood; even the initial stages of a new job.

No matter who you marry (or how perfect your child or your job), such feelings will emerge from time to time. If you account for them in advance, they will be less disruptive.

Which is not to say that they ought to be ignored or denied. Keep an eye on them. Let the little stuff go, but when it comes to the big stuff — things like shared money, shared time and sex — try to ensure that you and your partner are changing together. Because change is inevitable. Unmonitored, it can eat away at a bond. Monitored and managed, it can turn a passionate young couple into the kinds of old people that feature in sappy animation films and greeting cards.

And isn’t that the best kind of epilogue to have, at the end of a fairy tale?

(Simran Mangharam is a dating and relationship coach and can be reached on simran@floh.in)