Co-Dependent

Marriage is about becoming a better person together. Apparently.

I have two family members.

This is all the information you are getting.

They are married to each other, which was probably the first administrative error.

I cannot tell you how I am related to them because I would still like to attend family weddings. Not because I particularly enjoy family weddings, but the food is good and I refuse to lose catering privileges over journalism.

Anyway.

The husband and wife have a very interesting marriage.

Interesting here is being used in the same way doctors use it when they see something on an X-ray they have never seen before.

The husband

The husband has a simple explanation for every bad thing he has ever done.

His wife.

He mistreated someone?

Wife.

Stopped talking to someone?

Wife.

Started a family fight?

Believe it or not, wife.

The man has somehow achieved something most of us can only dream of: complete freedom from personal responsibility.

His defence, broadly, is:

हम मऊगा हैं क्योंकि मेरी बीवी हमको ऐसा बना दी है।

I am paraphrasing.

He may have said something more dignified.

He probably did not.

The wife

His wife, meanwhile, has reached the exact same conclusion from the opposite direction.

Why does she fight with everyone?

Because her husband does nothing.

Why does she have to be rude?

Because her husband does nothing.

Why does she have to take a stand?

Because.

Her.

Husband.

Does.

Nothing.

So the husband is an asshole because his wife makes him one.

And the wife is an asshole because her husband refuses to be one.

This is not a marriage.

This is load balancing.

One node goes down, the other immediately picks up the assholery.

They are fault tolerant.

Straight to the face

The wife also has a line she likes to use:

“People don’t like me because I speak straight to their face.”

Ah.

The national anthem of people nobody likes.

I have never met a genuinely honest person who needed to advertise this much.

Nobody says:

“People don’t like me because I think carefully, verify my assumptions, consider whether my opinion is useful, and then communicate it clearly.”

That person is usually liked.

The people who say “I’m just straight to the face” generally mean:

“A thought occurred to me and unfortunately I had access to speech.”

We sometimes mischaracterise speaking without thought as speaking the truth.

I know this sounds like a quote.

You may put it on Instagram.

Please credit Comrade Sarwagya.

Peer review

Anyway, I was explaining all this to my mother and father the other day.

Because this is what Indian families do.

We do not go to therapy.

We sit in another room and perform peer review.

I explained the husband’s position:

हम मऊगा हैं क्योंकि मेरी बीवी हमको ऐसा बना दी है।

Then I explained the wife’s position:

हम मादरचोद अपना स्टैंड लेते हैं क्योंकि मेरा पति मऊगा है।

They had solved accountability.

Completely.

Neither of them was responsible for anything.

He was her fault.

She was his fault.

Every defect had a dependency.

Every incident had a root cause.

Every root cause had a spouse.

I thought about this remarkable system.

And I said:

तो इतना मादरचोद co-dependent हो, तो भोसड़ीवालों सुधरने की कोशिश कर लो।