Till death do us part?

Yesterday didi said something very interesting which got me thinking. She read in the Q&A section of a Bengali popular magazine a quite common question. A lady had posted a query regarding her marital discord. She married someone whom she loved, but after a couple of years boredom set in. At this juncture she met someone with whom she felt the old excitement and charm of being in love. So, she's in a dilemma: whether to continue with her lack-lustre marriage or to walk into the promise of her new life. The agony-aunt of the magazine responded saying that give your marriage a try and if that also doesn't help, come out of it. My didi, being a bit of a puritan, got very agitated at this advice. Then she made the comment: should the marriage vow be changed from ".....Till death do us part" to "...Till I find someone better".

She has her point. She believes that marriage is not just a relation between two people. Two families are involved. So many people are intricately linked with the couple on both sides of the family. Can "lack of fire" be a sole reason to break up a marriage?

My perspective is a bit different from didi. We live in an age of instant gratification. We really didn't have to struggle that hard to get a decent life, unlike our parents. My dad spent his entire life struggling to manage his family amidst a constant threat of lockouts and labour turmoil. I doubt whether he ever thought of love in marriage. On the contrary, our generation do not have the constant financial struggle. We are always seeking out new avenues of happiness. Fancy gadgets, fancy cars, fancy dresses, holidays in foreign shores. But what if by the age of 30-32, you have everything. What if you already own a car, have designer watches & suits, have been to foreign countries more than once and have been married for 4 years? What do you then look forward to? Do we actually hit the mid-life crisis in our late 20s, early 30s?

That's actually where the story goes wrong. At this juncture, an innocuous flirt with a co-worker or a co-traveller can act as a catalyst in magnifying the cracks in your marriage. The temporary high that one can get from the admiring eyes of an unknown person seems more precious than the unflinching love and support one gets from one's partner. Reminds me of one episode from "How I met your mother". Ted brings home a girl whom he had met the day earlier in a wedding and they are getting intimate. Hearing that, Lilly expresses to Marshall that their relationship has lot the charm after 9 years. Now if they want to get intimate, Marshall asks "Shall we do it" to which Lilly responds "OK".
It's essential to keep the fire of love burning. Otherwise, even doing simple things for each other can seem tedious.

So, didi, unfortunately the vow might need to be changed in today's context.