Time went past....... (In case you wish to read this from the beginning please start from 'How it all began...' three posts down)

He had started doubting her every action. As her importance and esteem at her work place increased so did his distrust of her. He couldn’t believe it was possible for a woman to be able to rise so quickly without granting sexual favors. Commitment, hard work and intelligence were not things he thought much about and in case of a woman they were just not applicable was his firm belief.

His distrust was something she couldn’t stand for honesty was to her the core essence of a marriage and if two partners couldn’t be honest to each other how they could be in the same conjugal bed was beyond her. The same belief had led her to speak in detail about her past relationship to her husband before they were even engaged and his reaction then had been of a thorough gentleman saying he was lucky he had her cause most women nowadays had relations before marriage and few would be truthful enough to admit it.

She had been pleasantly surprised and her heart at peace she had prepared for her marriage. She thought to herself even if he was not the love of her life at least he was a man whose heart and mind were in the right place and with time they would learn to love each other. The first night of her married life had lain to rest all such foolish notions when without preamble he had violated her and later when through sobs she had asked the reason for such suddenness, he replied with a snide remark that he assumed someone with past relationships need not be dealt with kid gloves.

She had often wondered what was her husband’s motive for marrying and almost a year into her marriage she had discovered the truth from him one inebriated night. He had been about to marry a girl who had to leave suddenly for her hometown, while she was away her colleague had told him that she had been in a live-in relationship earlier. Hurt and seeking revenge he had planned to marry someone else even before the said woman returned. In such a scenario he had chanced upon her, being from the same community and a fatherless girl he had immediately understood that it would be easy to get her to agree.

She had been easy prey, numbed by the failure of her nine year long relation, nagged by family to agree to an arranged marriage.she had found in him almost a refuge from the world. Her family approved, his though reluctant due to difference in caste didn’t have much say in his matters. So the marriage was finalized.

And now here she was with a marriage negotiating which felt like walking in a booby trap each day, never knowing what new cruelty would come her way. Her husband was the perfect chameleon; no one would have dreamt of the mean beast which lay inside the suave exterior.

Sticking to her ideology of being honest initially she had told her husband about her new found friend, after three calls she had been told to not speak to the guy again but some defiance and possible survival instinct had made her continue. He was her only link to sanity in a world going mad. And she needed to know that someone somewhere would understand how she felt.

Eventually things worsened and her husband found it easy to blame this other man for his troubled marriage, refusing to take any responsibility or promise change in his behavior. She walked out of the home she had pain stakingly put together on the date she had fixed three months before, never to return.

They said she was having an affair. They said she was a woman who needed a new man everyday. They said her motive was to break that man’s family life. They refused to believe she had only one motive – to live the one life she had with dignity and a bit of love and understanding if that were possible.

But it does not matter because she is free now.