Fidelity Isn’t Boring Any Longer

‘Chastity is the most unnatural of all sexual perversions’. It’s a line made famous by Aldous Huxley, and couldn’t hold more truth in India today—more than half a century after the death of the English writer-philosopher. There seems to be an explosion of adultery in this ancient land. A flurry of no-strings-attached, casual sex-oriented, convenient dating apps, Tinder and Grinder, to cite two examples, encourage (like its peers) a popular trend of open relationships, where both partners explore other people, sexually as well as physically, with the tacit consent of their partners. More and more people seem to be venturing outside the stringent and sacred lakshmanrekha of their sacred marriages—an institution increasingly being viewed as an outdated, safe and boring business arrangement, predominantly based on procreation and patriarchy.

So, whether we like it or not, in morally high-handed and chaste India, which still places a huge premium on a woman’s virginity and the birth of a male heir, many couples are increasingly far less burdened with the legal, moral and social criticisms and expectations around marriage that existed, for instance, in our parents’ generation. No wonder then that divorce rates are staggeringly high now. Where the divorce rate was just 1 in 1,000 ten years ago, and is still a relatively low 13 per 1,000—as compared to the US average of 500 per 1,000, a Hindustan Times report of January 2015 claims 11,667 cases of divorce were filed in Mumbai in 2104, up from 5,245 cases in 2010. In 2014, while Kolkata registered 8,347 cases of divorce, witnessing a 35% increase from the 2,388 divorce cases in 2003. Lucknow saw 2,000 divorce cases being filed in the UP capital’s family court in 2014. Of these, 900 were filed by couples married for less than a year. In 2009, the number of cases filed by couples married for less than a year stood at 300. Three more family courts were opened in Bangalore to cater to a growing demand, taking the number of such legal platforms to six.

Relationship counsellors and divorce lawyers attribute a number of reasons for recent collapse of conventional relationships—a declining influence of the erstwhile Bharatiya parivar and the dissolution of the joint-family structure that upheld traditional social values; increasing psychological and financial independence of women; late marriages resulting in a stubborn reluctance to compromise or change fixed ways and lifestyles. Earlier, couples would go to fix their fractured marriages; today young couples actively seek counseling more to convince their family or partner that a divorce is the right decision.

In a consumerist world of instant gratification and social-media dominance, especially for the YOLO (‘you live only once’) generation where relationships are virtual and voyeuristic, fidelity—the word, much like the concept—is largely outdated. At least, in urban India. A survey conducted by Ashley Madison, a global dating website for those who are married or already in a relationships that launched in January 2014 in India, revealed that 76% of Indian women and 61% of men did not even think that infidelity to be a sin or immoral. Responses (from ten cities) were collected for this survey from 75,321 respondents; 80% were married. What’s more, 81% of men and 68% women claimed their affairs have had a positive effect on their marriage.

Modern couples are more acutely aware of the gnawing impermanence of marriage in our transitioning culture, seemingly poised to witness a burgeoning sexual revolution. Yet in this cynical world, not all seem to be jaded emotionally or  are seeking greener pastures. Instead, they are apparently expressing a keener interest in seeking to protect their romantic relationship. How? By renegotiating what they mean by ‘fidelity’, practising what is being termed as ‘new monogamy’, where they still desire a committed monogamous relationship, with the long-term mutual trust, financial and emotional security and unconditional attachment that traditional monogamy promised, even if it didn’t always quite deliver, by modifying what their conditional perceptions of emotional and sexual ‘commitment’, ‘fidelity’ and ‘monogamy’ were, in the first place. Today’s marital attachments thus involve a more fluid concept of connection with each partner assuming that the other is, and will continue as the main attachment, and that outside attachments of one kind or another are allowed, as long as they don’t threaten the primary connection.

Take the case of Sunayna and Nitish Desai, a much-married, progressive, liberal couple based in Mumbai. The 32-year-old wife calls herself a workaholic corporate lawyer, while Nitish, a year older, is into the garment business. A decade-long marriage later, the couple confesses to being on what they term as a self-imposed ‘break’—staying apart for four months to discover how they actually felt about each other. It’s—as they note—a healthy practice that commenced five years ago when Sunayna travelled to Germany for nine months, a trip she claims ‘helped’ her marriage. “Love is a very complex word, which I don’t quite understand. We’ve had our ups and downs and moving out for few months was my idea,” she admits, sans any lingering guilt or remorse. Adds Nitish: “We knew that in this period, we’d meet other people. We were open about it and it did happen. But eventually, we knew we were coming back to each other. The experience has taught us so much.”

To Nitish, marriages move from high level of physical intimacy to friendship and companionship. “Mutual respect is key. In traditional marriages, one partner is the leader and the other the provider. But we are both equal: Sunayna has a great career and she loves her work. When personal growth happens, marriages will also grow,” he explains when asked what keeps the duo committed despite the experimental time out.

“It was a good realisation phase,” agrees Sunayna. “The truth is that if Nitish had a physical relationship with another woman, it wouldn’t have affected me that much. But if he had ended up getting emotionally attached to another woman, I would have been shattered, because that would have ended our marriage.” The new-age couple hopes to move out of their joint-family pad soon, settling into a more nuclear setting. They may even consider adoption in the near future.

Sunayna’s innermost insecurity of emotional infidelity is something that also haunts a lot of Indian husbands and wives who may try living apart to test their couple chemistry­—and prove the age-old adage that distance makes the heart grow fonder, travel solo, and say no to kids as a relationship-spoiler—but are threatened, somewhere at the prospect of their partners finding another emotional cornerstone. Emotions, after all, are the bedrock of most Indian marriages. “Couples who are seeing each other, most of them living with each other, often come for therapy to fight their temptations to beat emotional infidelity,” explains marriage counsellor Sagarika Shah. “While there’s a very thin line between emotional infidelity and being dependent on a friend emotionally, the natural human need to share makes it more challenging to draw a line,” adds the expert, who is a firm believer that no marriage is immune to infidelity—because marriages are made of people and people are vulnerable to external temptations.

“When fidelity is at stake, any relationship is red-flagged. An affair at physical and emotional levels always leads to a relationship distress,” adds Shah. “I am amazed by the changing pattern of issues in couples who approach me. Nature hasn’t made human beings monogamous. Hence it is very normal for every human being in a monogamous relationship to be in a conflict with his/her ethics, social codes, religion and other principles at some point.”

In several polls researching adultery in diverse cultures around the world, repor­ted by Pamela Druckerman in Lust in Translation: Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee, more than 80% of respondents indicated they believed infidelity was wrong. Of those who admitted to having been caught cheating, a majority said they didn’t think of themselves as the “cheating kind”. Apparently, even when we’re committing infidelity, we don’t like to think of ourselves as the kind of people who’d commit infidelity.

However, infidelity does not always signify the end of marriage for every couple, many of whom are discovering a whole new meaning to monogamy. “Sex with one person can be plain boring after a while. We change, our bodies change and physical attraction does happen. Humans cannot be monogamous,” Vedika Patnaik, top advertising executive, reasons. Patnaik, who travels constantly for work, came to know about her banker-husband Jaideep’s affair and admits she was shattered. “We separated for a while and I soon realised that it was a one-off thing. I know Jaideep since our college days and we moved back together. Our marriage has been very strong since then,” she adds emphatically.

Despite the increased risk of physical temptation and emotional entanglements with more men and women connecting at the workplace, travelling together and networking socially and professionally, monogamy hasn’t quite gone out of style, even amongst unconventional relationship. Take the case of Chennai-based lesbian couple, Suchandra Das and Sree Mukherjee, together since 2012, who moved in within a month of their initial meeting in Kolkata.

“We started getting to know each other and our mutual likes and dislikes. In Kolkata however, people would often stare at us, which was unsettling initially,” recalls Suchandra, a professional photographer. The duo eventually tied the knot in an elaborate Bengali wedding in Santiniketan last December. “Our marriage was organised at a very close friend’s place. She and her husband did everything. One of our close friends, deeply spiritual in nature, officiated at our marriage. We did all the rituals like a normal couple. Sree dressed up as the groom and I was decked out like a pure Bengali bride.

Suchandra notes, “Sree is comfortable wearing androgynous clothes, and I am a cisgender female. Apparently, we fall into that heteronormative pattern. But our chemistry is much more than what people can comprehend. Sree is a wonderful cook and cooks most of the time for us, we share our load not because of any particular stereotype, but because we care for each other. It is only love that sets you free. I love waking up beside this woman, watch her drink her coffee in the morning, love to work sitting beside her when she takes a nap or is engrossed in her Kindle, and love that feeling of being whole, of being complete in my love for her.”

“We are like any other couple living together—nothing about us is gender-specific. We have ugly fights, but then we have come to a stage of respecting each other’s differences,” answers Suchandra. The only disturbing aspect for the couple continues to be the bitter legal truth of their marriage. “In India, our marriage is still not legal and buying property is an issue. That disturbs us in an otherwise strong relationship,” adds Sree, a real-estate professional, as Suchandra continues, ‘Section 377 needs to go. People need to understand that it’s not necessarily about homosexual couples. Any form of sex that’s not for baby-making (doesn’t include a penis and a vagina) is a punishable offence under this law, so heterosexual couples also fall into this.”

Is fidelity the bedrock of any relationship, straight, lesbian, gay, transgender or queer? “Let us not separate same-sex from all this. In fact, why talk about sex at all? Can we talk about love and leave sex out if it?” says India’s best-known designer Wendell Rodricks. “What fidelity means to me is of no importance. Between couples, it is what means to them. Let’s just say that by my own standards, and it should not be the standard, sleeping around is not my thing.”

Rodricks says there are challenges in gay relationships that are no different from any other relationship. “The big challenge is to keep respect above all else. If you lose respect for the person you love, it is a disaster. People look at their partners when they fall in love and see 80% good in each other. Yet, when there are problems, that 80% good becomes 80% bad. At each stage I always say my partner is not 80% good. He is 99% good. The 1% I can, and always will, ignore,” he explains.

Based in Goa, the designer admits to living in a happy space. “My partner is not another person. He is an extension of me. As far as being a designer, if there was no Jerome Marrel, there would be no Wendell Rodricks,” he believes.

However, like Suchandra and Sree, the inane visa rules for straight people as opposed to those with other orientations do disturb him. “When I see my model’s husbands get a PIO (persons of Indian origin) card after being together for a year and I cannot get one for my partner of 33 years—it is sad, depressing and unjust,” Rodricks adds. “Also, the fact that India does not recognise LGBT love…all people think of is sex, not love. India is a country of love. We should embrace all people who cause no harm by loving each other.”

Even as the definition of fidelity differs from couple to couple, supermodel Lisa Ray, internationally acclaimed actress of Indian origin, feels it is possibly too strong a word, given the reality of our times. “The word itself sounds strong and over-bearing,” says the TV host and wellness activist, adding that she was once herself dead against the institution of marriage. “I’d run from serious commitment and I had convinced myself that singlehood was the only state in which I could live my life on my own terms.”

A mind space that soon transformed when she fell in love and married Jason Dehni, CEO of a large financial services company in Hong Kong in 2012. “Fidelity has not made us feel trapped or suffocated, but has been a force of freedom. When you are in complete trust with someone, it frees your energy and attention to live a fuller life and invest,” says Lisa who told Jason from the start that he had to forgo all romantic overtures—so basically, no flowers, dinners, spontaneous trips or amorous surprises.

“I wanted to see if we could live together in the relative mundaneness of everyday life. I had led a life before meeting him that cascaded from one huge romance to another and I was not interested in the sugar rush as I call it. I was more into quiet intimate moments,” she states. “Jason, needless to say, was floored, as I’m not sure any other woman had said all this to him. In addition, by nature and culture, he’s a very romantic person. We still laugh about this to this day—but then, here we are.”

So, does her mammoth celeb status in India create any differences? “In Hong Kong, I’m the CEO’s wife. Today, I’m secure and proud enough to take a back seat. It’s a relief,” Lisa laughs. “We used to joke that in India, Jason becomes Mr Ray and in HK, I’m ‘the First Lady, Mrs Dehni’.  There’s no ego and we have found a great balance. But of course, it’s taken a lot of work.”

Lisa, who has successfully battled cancer (myeloma), claims that while she is still living with it, she prefers to look at the positive side of life. Unconditional support from Jason has been a large part of her inner healing. Looking back at the first year of their marriage, she confesses that it was extremely tough and fraught with conflict since she was used to living an unstructured, erratic lifestyle, while Jason’s lifestyle was diametrically the opposite. “I used to say, he’s the planner and I’m the one who screws up the plans. We would plan a vacation six months in advance and I would get a last-minute professional commitment; so he’d either go along or cancel. It was very, very tough,” she says.

Little differences started wearing them down, Lisa recalls. “For instance, after 25 years in the business of being in front of a camera, I prefer to go makeup free and dress down unless I’m working or being paid to show up,” she says. “Jason didn’t understand in the beginning why I would turn up to his events looking like a slob. I told him that getting glammed up is a type of uniform for me, like him putting on a suit. Slowly, he understood.”

Married in 2012, the Lisa-Jason philosophy to a healthy relationship is as follows: “There are three entities: Jason, Lisa and the ‘Us’. Our relationship is about nurturing the ‘Us’, without losing the other two. It works beautifully. We’ve successfully designed our life and relationship according to our values. When there’s true love and respect, you will always find a way. We go on retreats and meditate together as well to find a stronger spiritual bond. I take golf lessons with Jason even though it’s not my preferred sport, I know it pleases him,” she rationalises.

Pune resident Noel James also believes that trust can be regained in a marriage if it fails the fidelity test. “I was completely attracted to a younger woman and my marriage was ending till we saw a counsellor. A questionnaire was given to us—a checklist, candid questions and above all a whole new level of openness,” he recalls. James went to what he describes as an erotic holiday. “I was surprised that my wife Martha agreed to come and we discovered a burning desire to come back to each other and trust each other again. I won’t say all is well now—but it is work in progress,” he adds in the present tense.

Just last year, tabloids in the UK repor­ted the world’s oldest married couple, with a combined age of 213 years, celebra­ting their 90th wedding anniversary. Karam Chand, 110, and his wife Kartari Chand, 103, from Bradford, West Yorkshire were married on December 11, 1925, in a Sikh ceremony in India when the country was still under British rule. Kartari and Karam migrated to Bradford in 1965 and currently have eight children, 27 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren. They live with their youngest son Paul, his wife and two of their four children. Karam, who turned 110 on Nove­mber 10, and Kartari, who turned 103 on November 1, opened a new Westfield shopping center, The Broadway, in honour of their achievement last month. The two local celebrities also led their community in the annual Girlington Parade.

A high degree of open talk, working on ‘us’, temporary breaks from the rigors of domesticity, setting long-term goals and rediscovering hobbies, both as partners and as individuals—modern couples too are using every possible method to stay together, despite all odds. What works for one, may not work for the other.

“Even sociology does not know exactly when marriage came into existence. All we can safely say that marriage is a social institution that has evolved over a period of time. People get married largely due to social pressure, but also to bring sense of legitimacy to their children,” states Nandini Sardesai, well-known sociologist.

She also points out how India still has a few tribal societies that allow multiple marriages (read group marriages) and children out of these relationships. “Such social traditions will be always shown as a proof by those questioning marriage as an institution. Couples experimenting, taking breaks, etc is a very big city phenomenon. India lives in its villages and here the social structures are very strong,” she adds.

A bit like faith, fidelity as a concept is about being open to different strokes for different folks. And while there are reasons to look outside for variety, what matters is staying in, and believing there is a higher purpose to being a couple, other than traditional societal norms and progeny.

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Marriage Is Stablest Of Ties

Couples who stay married for seven years are likely to be together for good. A relationship study group’s report claims couples are most vulnerable to separation and divorce in “four or five” years of marriage. The Marriage Foundation blamed a rise of cohabitation for allowing unsuitable couples to “slide into living together”, adding marriages continue to be much more stable than other forms of relationship. The risk that a newly-married couple will divorce is 39%, said the government’s Office for National Statistics. After ten years, the chance of divorce is down to 20%. Only one in 100 couples who have been married for 40 years will be parted by anything but death.

(Smita Deshmukh is a senior editor, communication expert and partner in Next Level Media Network, Mumbai— a leading media communications company specialising in sports, corporate and entertainment PR)