Society: Should Marriages Be Saved At All Costs?

I remember an old incident. There was a viral video being shown on TV and circulating in the media at that time. It was a scene from CCTV camera of some home in Gujarat where a daughter-in-law was beating up her mother-in-law with a wooden stick. The old lady was sleeping on a cot when the daughter-in-law enters and starts beating her up brutally with a wooden stick. She beats her up black and blue. The incident had invited large scale condemnation. To that, one person said something which remained in my memory forever. He said, “When the man tries to save his marriage at all costs, such things happen”.

I think what he would have tried to say was that every big incident had some background. If a person does a small wrong thing and gets away with it, the person may be encouraged to feel safe and might do a bigger wrong deed next time. If that is also ignored by others, the person may do still bigger act next time. This goes on and one day we hear news like the above incident. No one becomes a hardened criminal at once – normally there is a “background”, as we see in the movies too.

Realizing this, it can be argued that the above woman may have done some smaller sins before and would have gone unpunished. Hence, she would have ended up doing the above. What is the message for married people from this?

The message is that one should not ignore small incidents of bad behavior from one’s spouse. It is true for men as well as women. If they would ignore small incidents of abusive behavior, the spouse may be encouraged to do worse next time. The idea is to stop the evil from sprouting into a big tree by stopping it while it is just a small thing.

At the same time, if the threshold has been crossed, one should have the courage to “let go”. One should not tolerate abuse just to save one’s marriage. Of course, this does not mean that one should always expect “perfection” from one’s spouse. Mistakes happen and we all do mistakes. But intentional abuse is a different thing and we all can identify when it happens. In such cases, one should be ready even to sacrifice the marriage rather than keep tolerating the abusive behavior from one’s spouse. What is the threshold and when to know that time is up? It is an individual case and one can decide this for oneself. And of course, never feel shy to take expert help from others before making the decision.

- Rahul Tiwary