What I learnt in 16 years of Togetherness.. Retrospective Analysis

Leading up to my life changing decisions…..

I was a different man 16 years ago then what I am right now. Some of you may already know my story, but I have lived a life full of struggle, stress, and what not. What you see me now is a lot more different than what I was before and I share this with you to help you use what I’ve learned to make your life better.

Starting Over

As I said, my life has changed about as much as is humanly possible and I’m incredibly grateful to Kinjal for making those visible and Invisible changes.

All I’m saying is that change is possible; huge changes are possible. For anyone.

I’ve spent a ton of time working through my emotional issues, learning more about myself, and growing as a person. I’ve thought about all the things I’ve learned throughout my marriage and I’d like to share few of the most significant lessons I’ve learned.

1. Put yourself first.

This may sound selfish at first, but it’s not. It’ actually quite the opposite. So many men, including me, put their spouses and kids first and anything that’s left over is theirs. The problem is that there is rarely anything left for you at all.

All your work, energy, and time goes into making them happy and unfortunately, it comes at your expense. When we sweep our needs under the rug, and sometimes for many years, it builds up resentment, anger, and frustration. That emotion has to go somewhere and often it leads to passive aggressive behavior, guilting your spouse, and ultimately a huge disconnect between the two of you.

I love my daughter more than anything in the world. I’d die for her without a second thought and have always put her first. And while you may be thinking “you’re supposed to do that, she is your daughter”, you have to look at it in a different way.

Yes, Kids will always be #1 in their father’s eyes. This is true for any good father. But when we focus so much on them, we neglect our own well-being. I believe there is a balance that must be found in order to be the best father you can be.

How can you or I be a great dad when we’re caught up in stress, anger, and emotional distress? We can’t. We have to get ourselves right and keep it that way in order to be the best and most effective parent we are capable of.

Does that mean neglect your children? Of course not, nor would any of us ever consider that. I’m talking about making time for your emotional and physical health and making it your priority.

If you are screwed up in the head, lost, down on yourself, or any of the other things that happen to us when we are stressed, how can we reasonably expect to be at our best as a parent?

Make time for you. Do what makes you happiest, whether that’s playing Candy Crush, being part of a game team, or anything which you need.

Like I found my passion. It was writing and sharing my journey with thousands of like minded people. I loved it and would continue doing it.

2. Communicate.

Yes, it’s a cliche and we’ve all heard it a thousand times: Communication is the key to a successful relationship. I do believe open and honest communication is essential to a successful relationship and of those people I know who are in lousy marriages, they have poor skills when it comes to this area.

Let’s look at the effects on a relationship that has poor communication.

Pls make sure that nothing goes unsaid. This has its drawbacks as well as benefits, but being willing to talk about the hard things serves to make us stronger. Keeping silent on things that you feel but dont want to convey to your partner DOES NOT HELP.

You rather communicate – argue and resolve rather than Be silent and Suffer.

3. Protect your confidence.

When I got married, and I know this is true for many of you, I stopped caring about my appearance. The reason being is why do it? We had found the person we were going to spend the rest of our lives with and they would love us regardless if we looked like a piece of shit or anything else.

Clearly this is not the best way to look at it, but it does happen and often.

The problem, other than the obvious health reasons, is that this is terrible for our self esteem. When we stop caring about our appearance, the other things in our life start to lose their appeal as well. This is bad.

We also slowly start to lose our confidence, which really affects every part of our life from our competence in our jobs to our feelings of self worth as a man.

One my favorite quotes is “The greatest prison people live in is the fear of what others think of them”. “Log Kya Kahenge ?”

In order to protect your confidence, you have to first acknowledge that you, in fact, are really awesome. Then you need to surround yourself with people who agree. People who believe in you and aren’t afraid to tell you about it.

These people are invaluable to your personal growth and can mean the difference between success and failure in anything you do.

Kinjal.. has time and again told me to take care of my Look / Appearance / Skin & fitness. Somethings I have agreed.. Some I have ignored but I do believe what she said made sense.

4. Don’t take it out on your kids.

When we are in a bad place, mentally and physically, we can’t help how we come across to our loved ones. Since we are knee deep in negative emotions, we are blind to it and often times those we love the most get hurt.

My daughter Tanjal is love of my life and I’d never do anything to hurt her in any way. But when I look back on some of the worst days of my life when things are not going right during the day at work, I was silently miserable and everyone knew it. And while they never said anything to me, they had to see just how unhappy I was.

They didn’t deserve to see me so unhappy. They didn’t need to learn that this is how life should be or work should be.

Now that I have cleared my head and can look back at how I was, I feel sad. Sad that they had to go through that and I blame myself for not recognizing it and doing better.

I also know that they do see a huge difference in me now.

That is what they need.

5. Smile.

How many married guys do you know that just appear to be going through the motions of life? Just go to any public place on a Sunday, or a shopping mall and you’ll inevitably see a dad slowly plodding behind his family, carrying all their stuff and looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

I see it all the time and it’s really depressing.

It seems to me that when many of us get married, we start to accept all the things we “have” to do and forget the things we “want” to do. We give up watching cricket for watching Disney movies. We give up our fun night outs with the guys for visiting the in-laws.

And I’m not saying these things are bad and do believe they are part of what having a family means, but I am saying that our personal sacrifices come at the expense of our personal happiness in many cases.

Laughter is one of the best antidotes for this. I distinctly remember losing my sense of humour few years after getting married. I just didn’t find anything funny because I didn’t want to see it. I was miserable and the small things that most people find interesting or funny, seemed meaningless.

Only now, after those few I am really seeing the benefits of laughter and joy in my daily life. I can’t help but feel more positive, alive, and energetic when I find myself laughing so hard that tears are rolling down my cheeks. It just makes us feel good to experience that kind of healthy emotion.

So my advice is this: try to be funnier than you are, goof off and be silly together. It’s really that important.

Your Life

I don’t know your personal situation, but I’m going to assume that you are either happily married or Unhappily married or Going to be married .

My hope in sharing so much of my personal life is to open your eyes to all the possibilities that lie in front of you and hopefully help you avoid making some of the same mistakes I made.

Our lives are only so long and the more time we spend doing things that don’t make us better, the less time we will have when we finally figure it out.

And lastly.. The credits for all above wisdom goes to my Partner in life..Without her continuous nagging about things that I DO NOT DO RIGHT.. or things that I AM SUPPOSED TO DO and NOT DOING IT.. I would not have given myself such thoughts.

So…on completion of 16 Roller coaster years and entering this 17th Anniversary of our wedded life.. I just want to thank her for being there as always.