There are certain things men and women remember differently, and after being married for more than two decades, I can say this with the confidence of a man who has lost many arguments but gained a fair amount of knowledge along the way.
Men remember cricket scores, engine displacement of luxury cars, the route to one restaurant they went to in 2018, and how many runs Sachin Tendulkar gave away in his last over at the 1993 Hero Cup Semi-Final against South Africa at Eden Gardens.
Women remember the tone, actions buried under 100 feet of time, what you said while going to that restaurant in 2018, and the exact moment you said, “Calm down,” in 2021.
This is why marriage is difficult. Men think life is about moving forward, while for women it is all about collecting evidence for the next fight.
The other day, Rekha and I had a small argument. For most men arguments are small as long as they can talk about it the next day. If we can’t talk about it the next day because of severe diarrhoea, or a slit throat then we men classify it as a big argument with wife.
And as in most fights, Rekha and I seem to be fighting it out on two different planes. It was as if I was bowling in Chennai, and she was batting in Adelaide.
When I told her that we were talking about two different things, she refused to agree. She said, “They are all connected!”
This sentence should be printed in every marriage certificate, because in a man’s mind one fight is one fight, but in a woman’s mind one fight is connected to every previous fight, every careless sentence you have ever uttered, every forgotten anniversary, and every time you took a spoonful from her dessert at Havmor.
After ten minutes, the fight ended. Or at least I thought it ended, because for men a fight ends when shouting stops, while for women a fight ends only when the man has apologized, she has accepted the apology, and the agreement is notarised.
Since it was 4 pm, I went to the kitchen and made tea, which is my peace offering. While some men say sorry, some buy flowers, and some write poetry, I make tea and say sorry.
We Rajans believe in practical romance. What’s the point in apologizing with a Rs 700 rupee bouquet when a Rs 10 rupee tea does the same magic?
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Before Rekha and I got married, we had made one golden rule, which was that no matter how big the fight was, we would not sleep without solving it the same day.
At that age, this sounded romantic, but now I realise it was also foolish, because young people have energy.
They can fight till 1:30 am in the night, cry a little, argue a little more, drink water, restart the fight from a different angle, and still wake up next morning and go to office.
For the first fifteen-plus years of our marriage, Rekha and I followed this rule quite seriously. If we fought at 10 pm, we sat and solved it, if we started the fight 11 pm, we still stretched ourselves and solved it, and if we fought at midnight, we still believed in keeping our Golden promise alive.
Then slowly, age came.
Around the time we turned 45, our relationship changed. Earlier after a fight both of us would lie down waiting for the other person to buckle, but now we would just lie down waiting for sleep to take over.
There comes a stage in marriage where you know each other so well that there is no ego, so fights ideally should resolve themselves. But you are also so tired that you don’t care about the fight. That’s when our golden rule began to weaken.
Earlier we would say, “We cannot sleep like this,” but now we started saying, “We cannot stay awake like this.”
Some people may call it maturity, and others may call it Vitamin B12, Iron, and Vitamin D deficiency. We will never know.
These days, sometimes we break our golden rule, and sleep with the fight still open, but somehow, by morning, peace returns.
Not because we have solved everything, and definitely not because both of us have become better at seeing each other’s point of view.
It is because of the Brits. We have to thank the Britishers for bringing peace into our lives after every fight.
Did you know that the British discovered native tea plants in Assam in early 19th century and initiated massive production. A lot of the tea would get exported to Britain, but there was also a lot of surplus. And since there was a very low demand for tea in India the British-backed Indian Tea Association launched aggressive marketing campaigns. They even set up free tea stalls at railway stations and factories to encourage the working class to drink it for energy. And that’s how tea entered every Indian family’s home.
So, thanks to the British, Rekha and I have tea in the morning. Tea may be hot, but it is such a cool ice-breaker.
Since I wake up before Rekha, I make tea for both us by 4.15 am….and then have my cup and wait for her to get up.
When Rekha wakes up, I keep the tea near her, and if she takes it without saying anything, peace talks have started and if she says, “I was going to have green tea,” the fight is still on.
If she smiles and says, “Thanks!” then the troops have been withdrawn and the border has opened and if she says, “you forgot to put sugar,” it means normal married life has been restored.
Over the years, I have realised that not every fight needs a dramatic ending. Leave drama, some fights may not even need an ending…they simply dissolve into morning tea.
Some apologies are spoken, while others are made with milk, sugar, tea powder and ginger.
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Men remember fights like newspaper headlines: “Wife argues with husband over AC temperature,” “Husband has small misunderstanding regarding salt in chicken curry,” “Couple has minor disagreement over who should dry clothes,” etc.
That’s because we men are simple creatures. It is not an excuse…this is how we are built.
We compartmentalise. Fight is fight, food is food, sleep is sleep, and Formula 1 is Formula 1.
If fight is over, we want food.
If food is over, we want sleep.
If sleep is over, we want Formula 1 (or cricket).
This is male emotional processing, which if you ask a man is very efficient and if you ask a lady, very irritating.
And we men are like this because historically, men have been protectors and hunters…. generally focused on tasks, goals, and outcomes. In a fight, we want to know the bottom line…‘who is the enemy?’ ‘is it a threat?’…so that we can address it or dismiss it.
Women are generally expressive and relational. When they are in a fight, they aren’t just evaluating what you are saying but they are evaluating the overall health of the relationship. Deep down they are wondering, “Is this man even worth all this trouble?”
For women emotions are not separate rooms, they are connected balconies.
You say something in the hall, it affects the bedroom. You forget something in the kitchen, it affects the car journey, you make one careless joke in front of relatives, it comes up when you are shopping for a pant in Westside.
What is just one sentence for a man, means the ‘whole mindset’ for a woman.
So there…we men may read only the headline, women remember the whole report under it.
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Very early in our marriage, Rekha and I had discussed one thing clearly: whatever happens between us, our families should not become weapons in our fights.
This is not easy in Indian marriages, because in India nobody marries one person. You marry one person, their parents, siblings, cousins, ancestral property disputes, food habits, and family WhatsApp groups.
In marriage, love is important, but respect is equally important. And sometimes respect simply means knowing which weapon to avoid even when you are angry at the person you love.
Maybe because of this condition we had, our fights were always ‘solvable.’
But Rekha used my family to her advantage once in a fight. Let me explain how.
The biggest fight Rekha and I ever had was not about AC, money, relatives, children, or her ex (someday will share this story!). It was about another girl.
Now, before all of you sit up straight and say, “Aha, finally some scandal,” please calm down. I am definitely not going to share the ‘true story’ because Rekha is going to edit this article before it reaches you.
Getting back…so Rekha thought I was getting closer to another girl.
Was I? Let’s just say that Rekha thought I was.
And if you have been married long enough you will realize that in marriage, what your wife ‘feels’ is also evidence.
Men don’t understand this, because we think evidence means photographs, SMSes, call records, CCTV footage, confession, etc. But women are smarter – they notice change.
One extra smile, one unnecessary mention, one slightly enthusiastic tone, one ‘she is just a friend’ delivered when it wasn’t necessary, or one extra second of silence before answering a question about her.
And once a woman’s antenna goes up, even Elon Musk’s SpaceX cannot compete.
I remember trying to explain, by using all the usual sentences men say during such situations.
“There is nothing going on. You have to trust me!”
“You are overthinking and being unfair.”
“Don’t imagine.”
“She is just a very good friend.”
These sentences usually don’t work but back then I didn’t understand. Because when a woman is already hurt, ‘you are overthinking’ does not calm her down, it makes her feel lonely in her own doubt.
When Rekha is cornered she can be a Tigress. And definitely not a Tigress who will fight the villain alone…she will rope in the whole jungle on her side.
And that’s exactly what happened. Rekha called up my mother and two sisters and got them into the ring too. It was them four, and me trying to explain why I should be trusted.
And trust is a strange thing, because you can build it for years, but one shadow can make both people stand in different corners of the same house.
We men treat suspicion like an accusation, while women often experience it as fear.
Many years later when I think about it, I realize that at that time I wanted to prove I was right, but all she wanted to do was feel safe.
It took us time but we came out of it. None of us was a winner, because marriage is not supposed to have winners like that.
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So yes, men and women fight differently, and also remember it differently.
Men remember that there was a fight, while women remember why there was a fight. We men focus on finishing the fight, while the women wonder if the fight was a result of any cracks in the relationship.
After a few months a few men may vaguely remember the topic, while most women will remember the wound it created.
And somewhere between the man’s forgetfulness and woman’s detailed documentation, lies the perfect marriage which includes a lot of fighting, forgetting, remembering, defending, explaining, and apologising.
And if nothing works, there is always the morning tea.