LIVING APART IN MARRIAGE !

If hundreds of miles separate you and your spouse, life cannot be a bed of roses. As Shubhi bade goodbye to her husband at the airport, a numb feeling clouded her heart. It would be a long time before she could see him again – the man who mattered most in her life. But her spouse had been transferred to California for three years and the decision to continue with the job was mutual as the promotion and the compensation package turned out to be pretty lucrative. “But what’s going to make up for the physical space between us?” she wondered. Blame it on career demands, parental health, children’s education or other equally crucial factors, millions of married couples are now compelled to stay apart – an ordeal that is fast taking its toll. The geographic divide is a matter of concern but it is the emotional insecurity, the fear of facing the world alone and the daily grind that leaves deeper scars at times. “I cheated on my wife!” Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a young television actor confessed that there were times during outdoor shoots when he had yielded to temptation and betrayed his wife. “When you are young and shooting miles away from your partner, you can’t help giving in to your physical needs. I know I am wrong to cheat on my wife... But it happened only because we were living away from each other for such lengthy periods,” he said. Do people tend to break trust just because they are living away from their partners? Does physical distance essentially lead to emotional distance and increased chances of infidelity? Dr. Rajan Bhonsle, a senior sex therapist and counsellor rubbishes such theories. “It’s a sick excuse given by people who are no longer loyal to their partners. There are no separate set of rules for long-distance couples and the chances of betrayal remain the same in all relationships. We have numerous examples of partners cheating on each other even when they live together. So the whole thing depends on how committed and loyal you are to each other,” he asserts. Long-distance troubles For Prachi Malhotra, the staying away has been far from easy. After two wonderful years of marriage, Prachi and her husband had to remain an ocean apart as he got a job with an international cruise liner while she was land-locked as a school teacher, and that was when things began to fall apart. “For days together, we were not in touch and I felt totally miserable pining to hear from him. Soon frustration crept in and even before we could realise it, our marriage was on the rocks,” she recollects. Though frequent visits to a marriage counsellor helped them survive, the terrible ordeal still haunts her.