If things continue the way they have been going, you become so incompatible with each other that all hope of mending the relationship can be lost. The wise thing to do is seek the right help if you want to salvage your relationship. Counseling or couples therapy be especially helpful in such a situation.
An Incompatible Relationship Takes Its Toll
You and your partner may not always have been incompatible with each other. After all, it’s near impossible to forge and build a relationship in that case. But as you go along, certain differences and irritants can drive a wedge between you. This story of a couple who lost the spark in their relationship and soon became incompatible because the wife was obsessive and always had to be the center of attention is proof.
Everybody’s looking at me!
If things didn’t go her way, she would make sure that everything worked out for her in the end – even at the cost of others’ happiness. “This is nothing. In college, I had four proposals from boys every year.” I should have taken that as a warning sign of her narcissistic tendencies. It ranged from battling apparent unwanted male attention to feeling like she was the target of all lascivious street Romeos singing bawdy songs and that she needed protection when she was out alone. She was one of those simpering females who would gather a troupe to walk to the toilet or water cooler for fear of being eve-teased or approached by senior boys. Other women hate this attention-seeking attitude, but in a guy like me, who always ends up in the friend or bro zone, such women get good bodyguards. Before I knew it, I was buying breakfast, finishing her presentation and being at her beck and call. In hindsight, I realize she possessed a sense of entitlement and imagined I owed it to her. I should have known then that this relationship was going nowhere and could even be abusive. When we started to date, Monisha’s expectations became more grandiose. On her birthday, she didn’t think a chocolate cake for two and a bunch of flowers was romantic. She pouted, threw a glorious tantrum and not so gently reminded me of the party that Namrata’s boyfriend, Sumant, had thrown her after office hours. Sumant needs to be smacked for setting that benchmark.
I felt honoured that she was insecure about my love
If there was a narcissistic pattern in her behavior, I did not pick that up when we dated. I noticed that she never lavished attention on me with grand gestures. However, she showed her love through extreme possessiveness. Funnily enough, I felt good about it, as I felt honored and important that she was insecure about my love for her. She hardly had girlfriends; her entire focus was on me. She would shed copious tears to make me feel guilty when I made plans with friends, and slowly, I began to feel I was being unfair to her by spending time away from her. Our wedding was a grand affair because, according to her, she deserved it. She thought she deserved the world, and everything needed to be served to her on a silver platter. I was the complete opposite. I wanted to keep things simple. This was just one trait that made us incompatible but I failed to confront her obsessive behavior. In hindsight, I should have put my foot down and made my voice heard. The first few months were blissful. Monisha swooped in and took charge of my life. She chose my clothes. She decided she deserved the bigger and more spacious wardrobes and I was relegated to using the guest room wardrobe. But I was happy because she took care of my needs and maintained a perfect home. She expected perfection and took the moral high road when I faltered or sullied her perfect home. She chose the movies we watched, the music we heard and the places we holidayed in. Monisha genuinely believed that it was what both of us wanted, and not just what she wanted.
She decided how we lived our lives
She was still unhappy. She’d met our boss’s wife, a socialite who lived the high life. Monisha imagined that was the pinnacle of self-indulgence, and quit her job. She began to spend her days at kitty parties. Looking back, I realize she never was a hardworking person, but liked to be pampered, and that’s why she gave up on her career. She decided who among my friends were of suspicious character, who was a bad influence or selfish, whose wife was out of her league, and therefore, not worth socializing with, and who was out to break our marriage. She assumed she could make these decisions for me. I would secretly meet my friends because I was ashamed to admit that she had driven a wedge between us. How long can a relationship last like this before both partners become totally incompatible? She hated my parents and my sister. It built slowly. It started with the little things. Like when I bought a sari for both her and my mother. She felt insulted that I had not spent more money on her sari. She was enraged when I bought a watch for my sister. Monisha liked to be the center of attention, so she hated that we celebrated Mother’s Day with my mom before Monisha became a mother. These were the obsessive warning signs I shouldn’t have ignored. People began suggesting marriage counseling at this point. I didn’t take their very valid points into consideration.
The literal breaking point
However, when she became a mother, she was a devoted one. So devoted, that I felt our children would be smothered by her love one day. Nevertheless, I overlooked every aspect of her narcissism, because she took excellent care of them. The children, in turn, worshipped her and I suppressed the feeling that they loved her more than me. When she flew into one of her famous rages, she never hesitated in smashing objects. However, she always hurled the unbreakable or unimportant stuff. The children’s plastic toys or shoes when they littered, a steel plate or a full set of ugly cups that my friend had gifted us. Even though I tried not to attach too much meaning to it, her anger bothered me sometimes and got me worried if she would ever get abusive with our kids. One Friday night, I was working on a presentation. She began to complain about the arrival of my parents to our home for the month because their house was undergoing repairs. I ignored her, saying I needed to finish my work but the truth was I didn’t want to waste time and energy having another argument. As it is, she had shed tears for nearly the whole of the previous week when I had agreed to the arrangement with my parents. Me not responding to the tantrums did not go down well with her. Before I could fathom the mood shift, she picked up my laptop and hurled it out of our sixth-floor window. I had reached my boiling point – this is when I knew we were incompatible. In order to salvage our relationship, we needed counseling.
We cannot go on like this
That was the last straw. For the first time, I felt genuine fury. So much that I was afraid I would do something that I would regret later. So, I packed my bags, took the children and left, because I hated the thought of them being with her when she acted like an obsessive control freak. We checked into a hotel and stayed there to cool off. As it always happened with her, she came to her senses in a few hours. She called me several times and sent several messages apologizing profusely. However, I refused to take the bait. By Sunday night, we went back home, because the children had to get back to normal life. We had a long chat. Were we happy with each other? What will happen to the children if we part ways? This question bothered both of us. Therefore, I convinced her that we should go for counselling. She reluctantly agreed and here we are. I wonder if the sessions will help. Otherwise, I will not hesitate to end this marriage.
