When Marriages Start Feeling Disposable
Somewhere between wedding photographs and WhatsApp forwards, marriages have started feeling fragile. I don’t mean fragile in the dramatic sense—shouting, breaking, collapsing overnight. I mean fragile in quieter ways. In the way people withdraw faster. In the way patience runs out sooner. In the way “this is not working” is said more confidently than “let’s sit with this.” Divorce is no longer shocking. Among Indians—both in India and abroad—it has become familiar. Not always common, but close enough to home that almost everyone knows someone. A colleague. A cousin. A neighbour. Sometimes a friend we never imagined would struggle. People ask, “Why is this happening so much now?” The answers come easily: late marriages, independence, phones, parents, ambition, lack of tolerance. All true. And yet incomplete. What I see, again and again, is something deeper— we are entering marriages with fully formed lives but very little training in how to live together. By the time many people m...