What Obamas can teach you about marriage

Did you see that moment between President Obama and his wife? Of course you did, the whole world did. It was the most private moment on the most public platform — of pure love, respect and sheer gratitude. It is the one you will remember from his farewell address in spite of the powerful things he said about fear and responsibility. I couldn’t control my own tears when I saw this stoic, dignified leader break down as he thanked Michelle for being his best friend for 25 years. Their love story, with heaps of PDA, is what legends are made of.

For the last eight years, the world has had a ringside view of what a good marriage looks like and all that it can achieve. In fact, it can power you to become the most powerful man in the world. It astounds me that given the loose, cynical times we live in and with all the pressure of leading a country, the Obamas have managed to keep it so fresh and untainted while the rest of us are falling by the wayside. You can’t act that kind of love but you can work at it.

Marriage is tricky and such an artificially binding institution — there is nothing natural or organic about it. In the best of situations, one fine day you decide you have met the person you’d like to spend the rest of your life and share your dreams with, although you have no clear idea what you are going  to want tomorrow, leave alone in years to come.

You take some vows (which as it turns out, are pretty breakable), sign a piece of paper, pop some champagne and violà! You are now family. You bathe in the afterglow for a while (if you are lucky for a good many years), where you love and support each other, enable each other’s dreams, laugh till you cry, share secrets, talk in code, dance, travel a lot, eat out all the time and try not to notice that wet towel on the floor or the expanding waist line or the weakening of your own ambition.

Then one day you just can’t ignore that someone is always in your space, using your creams, hogging the remote or in some scenarios the opposite — they are never around and you are as good as eating and living alone. Or the more common case — (s)he’ll come in just as you’ve reached the climax of the film that (s)he’s had no interest in watching and start asking what the film is about and giving you guilt for not waiting to watch it together. Yet be completely AWOL with their phone unreachable when that water pipe bursts or that cable guy is asking you questions and passwords about your internet connection.

Timing is everything, and, when it starts going off, you know the tricky part has begun. You’re still travelling and eating out, talking in code, laughing and crying but just not with each other. If you are not careful with protecting and nurturing this manmade bond with all your heart, it can fizzle and crack, turning corrosive while you are too busy shampooing your hair or fighting over the remote. I’m not talking about affairs and abuse — that’s a whole other thing — it’s the subtler erosion of love and respect in a relationship that’s the malady of our times.

I’ve been a bridesmaid more times than I wish to count, and I must be a lucky charm because all those couples are still together, but their marriages tell very different stories. Most of them married very young. The ones that married their best friends have fared the best.

Sure, I’ve had midnight phone calls of distress and they’ve had their bouts but somehow, the marriage works, because they have a vocabulary only friends have, to communicate heartburn without exploding, to give each other space without fearing, to gauge a mood without being told, and they never stop rooting for each other, which I think is the key.

The ones that married because the passion was overwhelming now resent the vacuum, because of course that high doesn’t last. If they manage to fill it with a new dynamic then it’s all hunky dory, if they don’t, the bitterness can be lethal.

I married late and I didn’t marry my best friend, or out of passion, and sometimes I want to scratch his eyes out, especially after having a child because I know best and I don’t need his interference  — just his obedience. I have no doubt there are days he wants to kill me too, but we survive and make it work because most days life is better with each other than without. Here is what I’ve learnt to keep it together — a single being, especially a man, cannot be your go to person for everything. You need to have your stand-alone posse of dancers, gossipers, film watchers, shoppers and lose-the-plot hedonists that fill your soul.

Take the pressure off your partner (who hopefully is still your lover) and let him join you (or not) at leisure. Lust is ephemeral and cyclical, don’t depend on it to be the seal. But work on it to keep it alive, because the magic of desire will see you through many a rough patch. A well-timed caress can be truly bonding. Touching can have adhesive powers. Don’t be too jaded to hold hands in public or plant a loving peck — just look at the Obamas.

Keep it light and make sure to have fun together. Pay attention to the details of mood, desire and timing. Treat him exactly how you wish to be treated and then demand it. Remind yourself that it’s not the presence of the other that is stopping you from being the superstar you are destined to be.

Empower him to empower you.

(Courtesy: Mail Today)

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