They’ve been married now fourteen years. He plays golf and she hosts great dinners. They have a well mannered daughter who plays the piano. Last year she rebelled for a bit and took on the drums but quickly gave it up when she realized it meant being in the background of the band. She always got good grades and they went for holidays often. They all posted pictures on Facebook. We all thought they looked lovely standing by the Eiffel Tower in Paris, eating pizza in Italy and lazing on the beach in Goa.
However, this year we did not get an invite to their anniversary party. There was no party. There was a divorce.
Up until then most of us thought they had a good marriage. He paid her compliments and bought her flowers. She forgave him when he didnt. He didnt mind she hated his mother as long as she didnt expect him to go along with her to her brother’s. Sure, there were ups and downs. Like the time when he got drunk and she had to haul him into a cab quite forcibly.Or when she couldnt bring herself to make dinner for an entire fortnight. None of us, however, expected it to end in divorce.
From the outside and from a distance it always looks perfect. Perfect marriages, perfect children, perfect families, perfect careers, perfect friends and perfect lives.
Then a divorce comes along and puts things in perspective. Briefly we stop beating ourselves up for our not-so-perfect lives. For a while we stop examining our lives in the halo of perfection that others emanate and console ourselves with “The way he leaves his clothes all over the place he’ll need me to pick up after him all his life!”
We dont know what went wrong with their marriage. Going by their varied accounts neither do they. Nothing as simple as an extramarital affair or bankruptcy. But for now, there are two people out there looking for what we thought they already had.
What do you think?