Good-Marriage Bad-Marriage

English Edition

Even though they are diametrically opposed, good and bad marriages go hand in hand – they are two sides of the same coin. These two names wobble between the two ends of a continuum. We label them as Good or Bad based on our skills, circumstances, and perspective.

The author draws on his experience as an Adolescent Counsellor and as a Relationship Coach to bring into searing focus the inarticulate pain that children go through in a dysfunctional marriage. Whether it’s an everyday ego clash between wife and husband or a  protracted legal battle for divorce, either can win, but the children always lose.

It is the story of two teenage girls, Mannat and Eva, brought together by fate and the shared trauma of their parents’ crumbling relationships. Their friendship helps them forge tools for survival and delineate identities for themselves from amongst the debris of their shattered childhood. With deep compassion, the author probes their uncomprehending pain and fears, their self-doubt, their loss of innocence, and their anger at a world that has betrayed them.            

The author draws the reader’s attention to the impact of such conflicts on children. He offers perhaps the only possible key to resolving marital conflict in such cases – the understanding that becoming a parent is a choice, not a given. It is a choice that comes with the implicit clause of subsuming one’s own interests in favour of the young life until it reaches emotional adulthood.