The shrilling phone woke DG, it wasn’t early but any hour before noon on Saturday is technically early. It was T* hauling her heart out,
T: Are you up?
DG: Yeah sort of, tell me what’s up?
T: Baw, baw, baw….world is an unfair place, there is no God, there is no justice.”
DG: Um (yawning), oh my, what happened? Are you ok? Tell me what happened?
T: You know he is getting married to her today.
DG: Oh, how do you know?
T: I saw they have posted for registry, I saw it on their wall and you know what, I told it to my dad and he had the audacity to ask, “we could not understand what went wrong between you two?” what part he couldn’t understand that he was cheating on me with his ex-girl friend and he married her.
DG: Yeah, that is really insensitive. After all your dad is a man and he is from a generation that thinks woman is responsible for all marital debacles. But why did you go to their wall?
T: All our friends are common so I can see other people’s comments. It is injustice; he ruined my life and now is enjoying himself with her. I wish they should never be happy. What did I do to deserve this? Did I ask anything outrageous, just a marriage, a home and a family life, is it too much to ask?
DG: I can understand your feelings, but it is beyond you and me to ensure their unhappily ever after… This will hurt until you get what you want and move on… Yes, it’s been years since you enlisted on shaadi.com and encountered numerous scum bags. Each time you face an MCP you are back to square one… Give it a break and may be that will make a difference for now…
T: You know that medico I told you about, she filed for divorce because he could not get it up. She has been cursing every one now even she is married and pregnant. When such a negative and jealous person can get remarried within two years why not me? What is wrong with me? I feel like cursing him and his folks…
DG: Love, I do not know what to tell you. If you want to curse him then do it and get over it there after we are not going back there ever again.
Little more crying and sobbing and life went back to normal until another hurt. When ever we so called desi divorcees struggle with life and face social discrimination, it brings back all the bad memories and all the hurts back to life. Life for many of us just stopped (in desi sense) the day we were kicked out of married people’s club. We are not invited to desi gatherings; if we ever get an invite then dirty looks welcome us and keep an eye on us all evening. When some married woman is kind to us her well-wishers especially other women run to pre-warn her of our evil gaze and designs. God forbid if one of their men exchange customary greetings with us they make 100 meter sprint record to stand in between.
At times we pity these so called happily married women who think we’ll be designing to entice their pot bellied, half bald husbands. We may be looking for companionship but definitely not a married man who is straying on his marriage. Those of us with children (especially young or teen kids) see their exes introducing new girl friends to their children as flavor of the month prefer to stay single so that children have at least on stable household.
Dear ladies, if you are so insecure in our presence, then something is definitely wrong in your relationship kindly work on it than painting us black. Some of us still have it in us and getting a guy is not a problem. Yes, we know there are numerous desi scum bags who want to oblige but the ball is in our court. We can get what we want and we’ll not settle for anything less and why should we? One time compromise is enough we do not believe in second and third…
Such are the times when one wants to blame someone or curse the one who put us through this; who could be better than a spineless squid we now call ex. All these feelings are normal but our desi upbringing often makes us feel guilty and then divine wrath scares us, wishing bad on someone begets bad karma.
Ah karma, isn’t it good we are done with it in this life time?
A Desi Girl's Guide to Relationship Survival 
Hi, Not related to this post, but I tagged you to participate in an International Women’s Day blog contest conducted by Indusladies. Details at http://www.indusladies.com/forums/blogs/induslady/indusladies-2nd-annual-international-womens-4493/. Please participate.
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What about Women who do the same thing.. what shud a Desi GUY do then ..
There are similar cases in the opposite gender too? 🙂
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DG getting over exes is tricky heck even if you did not marry them. Also when I read T’s reasoning reminded me of how I was badgering my parents about similar things for the last 2 years wrt work and marriage. I was passing on the abuse meted out to me unknowingly. Today after two years of sifting out my feelings, owning them up and learning to be less naïve, I have managed to come to terms with childhood disappointments that exacerbated the break up pain. What’s funny is I was grieving for a douche bag. And douchebags are sometimes so dense that they believe that a year later if they contact you indirectly, you would jump for joy.
Anyways, DG one of the other aspects in this is that we desis are brought up as comparative individuals (don’t know if its the right usage). Our success, happiness etc is only good if it can be compared to someone else and found better, hence the added pain when douchebags move on and post happy pictures on fb, because we know of the 100 people who knew all about the breakup 80 might now conclude that the one who got someone else so soon is absolved of all faults. Such is the power of comparison and stereotypes.
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Jeeez we’r a grimy patriarchy, doomed to languish in the medieval ages forever…!
the public is getting sensitized about divorce with every urban Indian family having a daughter, cousin, sister, neighbor, friend or relative into a failed marriage.
Ranters however will continue to blame society solely for their ‘datelessness’
DG
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Try telling my mom that about the public being “sensitized” to divorce. She’s terrified of anyone finding out that my father is actually my step-father. She’s convinced that nobody will like her or point fingers at her if they find out her past.
I’ve thought about writing about that in my blog later on-having to pretend that a step-father is your real dad to save face in the Indian community.
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hi dear, divorce is such a trivial setback, mom spending rest of life in denial is unfortunate. But just like common stammering, the more fear and people making fun of ; the more retarded u get. I’ll read ur posts.
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When such a negative and jealous person can get remarr aied within two years why not me? What is wrong with me? I feel like cursing him and his folks…
Dont hold so much hate in your heart that there is no space left for love. Hate for others, however much be deserved, does leave onself’s heart cold and soul empty. Move on. Better things are always there
One question for you DG, the most cases of marriage you describe is one where one partner is clearly wrong. But suppose that in a marriage nobody is wrong, both are good people. It is just that one person feels that he/she got a raw deal or simply that over the time,one person has simply out grown other person. How do you reconcile the differences and dissatifaction. Is it even right to do
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@Milky Chai
That’s just how Desi culture is-The man often gets the upper hand. Some Desis say “Our culture respects women. Stop generalizing”, but there are quite a few aspects that are unfair to women. I have no idea why it’s like that other than the fact that Desi women are expected to act a certain way. Men just have more freedom.
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Why is it that it is ok for desi men to be divorced and then go on to date and remarry but not for desi women. In other words, why is a desi divorced man not taboo but a desi divorced woman somehow is taboo and everyone must stay away from her? It’s weird DG. I’m sorry, it really sounds like it stinks. But then again, when I accompany my husband and daughter to Indian functions they treat me the same way for the most part, especially the Gujarati community. I’ve noticed that only people who are nice to me are usually the South Indians.
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DG : be it marriage or a love affair , life does seem unfair when one person moves on and other is left wondering what went wrong.because its not over just by saying . she understand he is a scum bag and spineless squid , but heart still want that scum bag .its sometimes about ego and mostly about the indian way of bringing up a girl ..her self worth is measured in terms of her guy.if he prefers another , she is a looser .
when her own dad is not able to ubderstand who else will ..a partner who cheats is NOT WORTH IT ..not even the tears and curses ..leave him/ her then and there and be thankful he/she is making somebody else’s life hell not yours 🙂
Desi men / women are both insecure , have you seen men behaving rudely if a handsome guy compliment their wife , they Don’t mind complimenting or commenting on other women ofcourse ( like your example of desi mem) . and the way women cling to their men in presence of single/ divorced women .
You said it sista, they’ll go ahead and compliment other men’s wives but will burn in rage if another man says a kind word their wife. It resonates in their head as “what is this beautiful woman doing with this ogre.” They have such a low self perception or may be that is what they mean when they compliment another man’s wife. That is what DG’s God forsaken now ex meant.
T once told DG how her scum bag threw up a tantrum in the mall when a sales clark complimented her Indian out fit. This is the same man who was cheating on her.
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another desi phenomena discovered. i call it a hypocrisy, but now i know it’s a desi man syndrome. sleep around with everyone, look at everyone, flirt, stare, hell just do it right there with everyone watching in public, but the wife….man, she cant even look at another man.
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Thoughts about the ex and all good times? Envy is like porn dear … doesn’t stop till u pull the plug on the internet connection.
Problem is if fighting a divorce, the effing Indian legal makes u preserve all pics n docs for god only knows how many years.
I’ve done my part deleting all traces of my ex’s like it never happened… Feels better that way. Time will tell if the past catches up with me.
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Hi DG,
As part of moving on, I have decided that I will never look for a future with another desi 37 year old or something, because I am sure that majority of the desi men are either “spineless squids” (i love that expression), or are narcissists. The only decent desi men I have met, were my friends in college, and a few here and there who respected women and so were also good husbands.
So in my match.com profile :), i will weed out all the desi dudes, sorry no offense, especially the desi dudes who have come from india and present themselves as a good mix of east and west. It is time to expand the scope of out choice and date men who respect women. My therapist says the easy way to find out is to see how a man relates to his mother and sisters. And I also feel a mans relationship with his father goes a long way.
As for the ex-es moving on, let them, always remember what goes around comes around, and there is always a higher power we all need to answer to.
Peace
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If a man’s father was a good male model, I definitely think that’s a good sign. As for being close to his mom or sisters, there’s still a chance he will treat his wife or girlfriend badly! A mama’s boy may only have compassion for his mom, but no other woman in general.
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“That is what DG saw over attentive to them and sensitive to their needs and she thought he’ll be kind to her and kids… That was a pretty lame assumption.”
Ha me thought same thing. I had read if a man is good/caring with his mother, then he will treat you good. They should add “if he is not desi” at the end of this sentence.
Desi men are thought to be the ideal sons and brothers, you know what this means? $$$$$$$$$$$$ sister i love u$$$$$$$$mother i love you$$$$$$$$$$. They are raised from beginning to think like this and do this. What is a wife in their minds? I don’t know. Garbage. A financial burden. A disease. Their brains are closed to the fact of the real financial burden. It hurts how the wife is treated like a second, last, or zero priority and mothers, sisters, and other women or other people’s wives come first.
What is a wife in their minds?
In the minds of such in-laws a wife is a sex slave in-laws brought for their sons to keep them from squandering money on multiple unrelated women. This slave also fulfills other functions like, cooking, cleaning, elder care, procreation to name a few.
You are right in the minds of such husbands a wife is an obstacle preventing them from fulling their destiny as ideal sons and brothers.
DG
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