होणा-या 'लाडक्या' बायकोसाठी

Dear Wife,

Greeting from your future husband.

I don’t know if we have met till now. I might be someone you know really well or someone you have just met. I hope it’s the former. One thing I will make sure is that you are not forced to do anything. Free will is the right of every human being irrespective of their sex.

This is not a romantic letter. This is a monologue about what you can expect in the future. Between the time of writing this letter and meeting/marrying you, a lot of things might change. We will change and our perceptions of a lot of things will change and that’s alright. Change is good.

I wrote a letter to our future daughter/son a few days ago so I guess reading that first would tell you a lot about how I think.

The things stated in the above the letters are just the things I want to do. There will be things that you want to do. We will work together to make a list that we want to do. This is not limited to just this aspect of our life. It will be followed universally.

I sincerely believe that our country is a very difficult place for women. One of the biggest sacrifices that women in the country have to make is to give up on their dreams or align their dreams to their husband’s or the husband’s family’s dream. It will not be the case with us. Like everything else, your dreams and my dreams will have equal importance. Sacrifice is a big part of any relationship and I assure you that I will make my share of sacrifices.

I promise to do my best in everything but if I drop the ball at some point of time, please ignore it. I will have phases of madness. I might say things that I don’t really mean. I might do things that are not really my nature. I apologies for those right now.

I must also warn you that I am a little (a lot) possessive. By that don’t in any way mean that think of you as a ‘thing’ that I possess. I am just a little over protective about the people I care about and love. It might get a little frustrating sometimes so please tell me as soon my protectiveness turns intolerable. But always remember that my heart will always be in the right place. The intention will never be to restrict your freedom or to snoop on you. I might mess up the way in which I show this side of me but that’s just because I am still learning how to do it properly.

Having said all this, I think you should know that I will come with my set of quirks. I will want some time to myself. I will always have friends who will be very close to me. I will want to do illogical things. I will need my personal space. I will have inhibitions about a lot of things which may or may not go away with time.One thing that my parents have taught me is that the secret to a successful relationship is dividing work but not responsibility. Just because you are a woman, doesn’t mean I won’t ever come into the kitchen. I have not learnt how to cook (yet) so I might not be a lot of help but I believe just being there when someone works and doing small things for them is good enough. For everything that you do, I will be right by your side.

It will take time for you to figure me out as I am sure it will take me to figure you out. But isn’t that the beauty of it? Would it be interesting if it was there was no sense of unpredictability? Sure we might find a few things we don’t like but that’s just how everyone is wired. I will respect and work around all your quirks and I would expect you to do the same.

There are, of course, a lot of things that I am looking forward to in the future. I am looking forward to sitting with you for dinner and talking about what we did all day. I am looking forward to just sitting and watching movies with you on weekends. I am looking forward to raising our children (or child, let’s talk about it later!) together. I am looking forward to travelling with you. I want us to never get bored. I want us to always keep smiling. I want to write letters to you and read books with you. I want to make sure you never regret the fact that you got married or that you got married to me. I want to keep you happy.

I believe that when we are old, if we can still sit and chat for hours and not get bored of each other then everything else will be manageable. Everything else is transitory. I hope we both find each other interesting.

My friend Mr Friedrich Nietzsche once said that a successful marriage depends on two things: 1) Finding the right person and, 2) being the right person.

All the things I have written above are essentially my version of what marrying someone would be like. I am sure you will have your own version of it too. Let’s make our version of it a success.

Looking forward to our future together.

Your loving husband.

Link - http://www.youthconnectmag.com/2014/06/30/letter-future-wife/