While everyone was sipping on to their coffees and complaining about their in-laws, kids and husbands, I was engrossed in my phone. It was my husband, “You looked lovely today. Let’s go out for a nice dinner. Make your hair the way you did in the morning. Love you.” It wasn’t unusual for me. Our message thread was full of texts like these.Monsoons, a cup of hot coffee and the company of your friends, nothing can match this feeling especially when you are married and have two kids. Sometimes, I just wish I could run away from everything. Leave all these bonds and live by myself. I wasn’t one of those who run away from situations but my husband has turned me into one. He scares me and makes me hate myself.
If you ever read our conversations, you wouldn’t believe me when I say he is the reason I spend my nights crying, or when I tell you he gives me nightmares.
My husband has always fancied the way I look. He has a description for me that would be more like a delusion for people and not to miss the cheesy list of adjectives he uses for me that can drive anyone mad. “You are an apt example of a beautiful body, with not one aberration. Your smooth skin makes my hand glide the moment I touch you. The beautiful locks and curls that compliments your skin tone gives me butterflies. You have the perfect pair of eyes, big, bright, shiny, and full of mischief that makes me stare at you all day long. I was wrong in defining beauty until the time I saw you. You, my dear, are beautiful.”
Seems like a novel you are reading right? Husbands who have been married for seven years aren’t supposed to talk like that. It makes me feel unusual and weird, so I choose not to discuss it with anyone. These women who are my closest friends would call me crazy if I had shared this description with them. They would think I am a great story- maker but I wasn’t. This was all true.
To be honest, I am nothing like that. The mirror that I happen to see every day, reminds me that my husband is living a lie. I am not the radiant beauty my husband defines me to be. I am a house-wife, the mother of two kids. My face is not evenly toned. The skin beneath my eyes has turned dark due to my lack of sleep. Half of my nights are spent wondering about the woman my husband fancies and the other half are spent, putting my 10 month baby to sleep. My curves are nothing to show off, they are not full where they ought to be but are full as a whole.
My pregnancy left me a farewell present and that is why I cannot fit into anything that I owned during the first two years of my marriage. I agree about the hair and eyes but I don’t get a chance to enhance their beauty. My hair is always tangled and arranged into a bun. My eyes always long for some relaxation and cry out to the woman who appears in the mirror. I can’t even remember the last time I wore my stilettoes. I am not what my husband wants me to be.
My friends were discussing how their husbands made fun of their beauty and how they never complimented them. “Why are you quiet?” Kajal asked me. “Well, my husband never points my flaws out, he thinks I still look cool,” there I said it in the most casual way possible.
The women went crazy, “I think he is having an affair.” “What if he doesn’t give a f*ck about you anymore?” “Does he go out on business trips very often?” “When was the last time you guys made love?” I shouldn’t have told them anything. After a lot of discussion, it was time for us to go home. Kajal even shared the number of a lawyer, if things turned ugly.
I was fine with everything they said, but the affair part, was stuck in my head. Was he really having an affair? And is it her face that he is searching for when he looks at me? The mirror tells me the truth. I wasn’t the beautiful woman I used to be.
My husband is either trying to look for someone in me or is too busy to notice the clear signs of aging on my face. My skin is always rough now, my eyes aren’t bright, my hair is not perfect and my curves have those extra kilos of fat. I often get depressed looking at myself in the mirror and then I get these texts from my husband.
It is as if he is making fun of my appearance but when I see it in his eyes, it all seems so very genuine just like it was in college when we fell in love. I asked him one day, “I don’t look the way you describe me to be. I used to but I have changed now.”
That’s when he dispelled my fears with one beautiful reply, “You are the same woman, the same beautiful woman I fell in love a few years ago. I know your eyes have dark circles beneath them, but I find them beautiful. You stay awake taking care of kids that are a part of BOTH of us. Your clothes have become tight and you complain that your weight has increased but these extra kilos symbolize that not just you but our family as a whole has grown. Your hair is not proper, you don’t take care of your skin but that doesn’t take your beauty away, it just adds to it. My description of you might just make you think I am crazy but I just want to remind you that you are gorgeous and this all this define you only. You can easily become what you were. Responsibilities are there but you also have a duty towards yourself. Work for it. You will always be the same beautiful girl I fell in love 9 years ago so please don’t work on your looks for me, work on them for you.”
I realized that day, it was true. I was the one who looked into the mirror and found myself ugly. Maybe I wasn’t, but then I used to miss those curves, those shiny eyes, my lovely hair, toned body, my dressing style, everything! I missed everything about myself.
I started working on myself and today when I look into the mirror I find a woman more radiant than I ever was.
I just wish husbands could be as supportive. I am glad that I was lucky enough to find one.
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