Hard Truths and Severing Ties

2019 was a pivotal year. It was the year of hard truths and severing ties.

There are 3 important things in a relationship - Respect, Trust, and Commitment. In the absence of any of these, I believe every relationship is destined to fail. My relationship with Nat was a time tested relationship based on trust. There was no lack of respect either. Ever since we started dating in 2012, she was always vary of the societal barriers she had to marry me. She had once left Kochi to put an end to it. Not respecting her decision and forcing this relationship on to her by following her to Chennai was the first problem. Even though I managed to win her over a second time in 2016, she had her doubts of our future together. When the time for reckoning came, these little once ignored doubts eventually became the deciding factors.

Throughout that year together, we had a lot of difference in opinions about various things. Adding to that, my feelings for her had changed from a romantic one to a mentor-mentee one. All I cared about was her succeeding as a Software Engineer rather than us having a loving relationship because my reputation at work was on the line and I was not about to let anything ruin it. This conflict of interest suppressed the love. This was the second problem.

Not realising the effort it will take to rekindle a relationship when it was at its lowest was the main problem of all. A romantic relationship is put to the test when the couple start living together. That's when reality strikes. It exposes the little cracks in the relationship. Couples have to work through issues to overcome the challenges. For both of us, it was our first experience living with a partner.

These issues piled up over time and after a year of putting up with each other, and also realising that we were never going to overcome these differences, and coupled with that the fact that she had undue pressure to get married, we mutually decided to seperate and move on in our own ways. We were both happy with that decision.

The best outcome of all this is after 4 years of mentoring her, she was eventually ready to take on the tech world by herself which to this day we are both immensely proud of. I'm glad of the fact that her knowing me wasn't all for nothing.