Love At First Song

Shraddha says: I met Aniket on a karaoke app and we have been chatting for the past two months. He is married with a son. However, his marriage is going through a rough time- he and his wife have been sleeping in separate rooms for the past few years. He seemed nice and very charming and I instantly got attracted to him. It all started with a very healthy friendship until one day he confessed his love for me. He said that when the time comes, he is ready to leave his wife and child for me and marry me and until then we should chat so we can understand each other very well. There is nothing wrong with my marriage. My husband and I love each other. Despite that, I just fell in love with this person. Everything was going fine until recently he pressurized me to send him nude pictures of myself to him and do nude video sex with him. I said NO because I do not want to and I am not going to. He broke up with me. I truly loved him and I was on the verge of committing suicide because I could not digest the fact that he has left me merely for sex. I had to take psychiatric help to get my life back on track.

Shrisha says: Ok, there is something very confidential, and please don't judge me. I don't even know where I'm going with it but I can't ignore it. I have someone else in my life and he is 10 years older than me. Rajesh is a scientist with a space research organization. I don't know what to call it, platonic or more than that kind of a relationship. He has never asked anything from me. We have known each other for over three years now and have been sexting for a year. He is married too but in a bad marriage. He has shown me their picture together. I didn't mean to fall in love but ho gaya bas. No idea whatsoever but he knows that I have kids. I don't think my husband can survive without me. I'm in a pickle. Hum dono kaha aa gaye.. gaane ke bahane mile and what we go in to. He is in Sriharikota, I don't see it possible for the near future but who knows. My husband is extremely possessive about me and has a traditional mindset. I am a sex-machine for him. I remember my daughter asking me one day while I was driving him back from school, "Why do people divorce. You and dad won't divorce, would you?". I don't know what to tell him.

Mayuri says: I was going through severe depression in my married life when I met Siddharth on a karaoke app. His voice pulled me towards him. I was new to this karaoke app. He praised me in a way that my husband has never praised before and you know we are weak and we fall for these things. I used to join all his collabs. We sang romantic songs that brought us closer. My husband asked me once, "Why do you sing romantic songs with this man." I replied, "What can I do if Bollywood songs are romantic?". The man was very clear, he kept his stance and said that we could be friends and sing together but that's about it. He handled me in a very gentlemanly way. I am so thankful to him and we are very good friends today. However, that incident has created a huge rift between me and my husband. Falling in love is easy. But it does complicate things and one has to be prepared to face those complications. Thankfully, it was a short-lived infatuation.

Nowadays, online dating is extremely common, as more and more people meet through dating apps like Tinder or OkCupid. Those relationships are often superficial, based solely on proximity and physical appearance. We all know there’s more to love than that. There are non-dating apps that act as matchmakers. For instance, apps like Smule, StarMaker, TikTok are full of women like Mayuri, Shrisha, and Shraddha who have fallen in love with their fellow singers. It is a different thing that some women are also sexually harassed under the pretext of love. But at the end of the day, between a couple, one of them is truly in love with the other. Who can imagine that a karaoke app can make two people fall in love with each other?

It's natural to fall in love with the voice accompanying you in singing your favorite romantic song and gradually one falls in love with the person behind the voice. Science says that dopamine floods our brains when listening to songs we love. Therefore, it can have the ability to make us fall in love. For example, a Seattle couple met on Smule and got married. But today, we are going to discuss something little different. In the above stories, all these women are married and they fell in love with married men and that too, online. So, why is it that you are falling in love despite being in a committed relationship or a stable marriage? Didn't you join these apps to sing, then what happened?

Extra-Marital Affairs- does it have anything to do with whether you are happy or not in your marriage?

Marriage is a commitment of a lifetime for loyalty, trust, and companionship in good and bad times. But with every passing year, all those become monotonous. Duties and responsibilities take over the place of love and unconsciously we are all looking for something to spice up our lives. This is when you discover the loopholes in your 'happy married life'. And then enters the one person in your life who brings along the word "extramarital affair" with him/her. Everything starts with a curiosity to know each other, then you start enjoying each other's company, you like to spend time with them and once emotions are over-flowing beyond verbal limits, you want to explore the physical aspects of these emotions. You think you can handle it without disturbing your married life but in no time you start getting used to the importance you are getting from the other person. You get addicted to sex, compassion, and understanding that seemed to have gone missing from your marriage. You are in love again.

What is the life span of extra-marital affairs?

Every relationship has a honeymoon period. And after this period ends, it starts to get boring. The same holds for extramarital affairs. Dynamics change with expectations. For a woman, love is a combination of mental emotions and sex. For them, the affair starts by fulfilling emotional needs and then they start taking them very seriously. But for a man, love is all about sex, sex, and sex. Most affairs end due to a mismatch of emotional and sexual needs. For instance, Aniket wanted Shraddha to do nude video sex with him but he broke up with her because she could not meet his overwhelming sexual expectations and desires. That is why women are heartbroken after a breakup. For a man, he can always find another virginia for his duck. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, a married man rarely leaves his life to marry his girlfriend. 

Can extramarital affairs have a happy ending?

Of course. Aditya Chopra and Rani Mukherjee, Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra, Late Sridevi and Boney Kapoor. Love does complicate things. But if two people are deeply committed, then it's better to take the necessary steps and move forward rather than being shackled to a loveless relationship. There are times when you meet someone outside the marriage and you instantly feel the connection. You feel an intense magnetic force pulling you towards that person. I am not talking about sexual attraction here, it is cosmic attraction. You would want to be with this person and won’t find peace unless you indulge in that person in some way. 

What would I advice to a Mayuri, Shraddha, or a Shrisha?

If there is nothing wrong in your existing relationship then there is a high chance that you are probably infatuated towards the other person. But if there is something seriously wrong between you and your spouse and the situation is the same at your lover's end, and there are no chances of having a normal married life with your respective spouses- go ahead with your newly found love. But there are many if's and but's to it. Such as both people have to be equally committed- you can’t repeatedly divorce. Mayuri realized that it was infatuation, so that's okay. 

Shraddha's fake lover sounds like a seasoned sales professional with in-depth expertise and hands-on experience in this subject. He had set targets for her. She didn't meet them, so he closed her account. While she is crying for him, he must be making cold calls to his prospective clients. I looked at Aniket's Facebook profile, it has all happy photos of him, his wife, and their child, family vacays, dinners, parties, etc. Likewise, his wife's page only has her husband's photos and confessions of her love for him. I don't think he has any compatibility issues with his wife. He made up a story to get Shraddha's nude photos. 

Shrisha has never met Rajesh in real life which makes him an imaginary friend. She doesn't even know for sure if that man is a scientist or has a bad marriage, etc. None of this information has been verified in the last three years. People lie. You cannot believe someone without verifying. I don't think she is exactly having an extra-marital affair so there is nothing to feel guilty about. The only thing she should not do is send her nudes to this man. Just enjoy the healthy conversations, cherish the memories, don't set any unrealistic expectations, and no guilt feeling. If ever something happens in real life, that can be handled. Her kids are growing and over time they will become matured enough to under the gravity of things. When a divorce happens that is 'reality'. There is nothing fortunate or unfortunate about it. It is what it is. And, that is much better than living a lie and pretending to be happy. Some people will always be hurt but it’s temporary. One cannot make everyone happy. Common, it is 2020, even LGBT marriages and live-ins are legal. But whatever has to happen should happen cleanly and not in a bitter way. 

I don't think one should be a home breaker. If I am in their place, I would legally disconnect all ties with my husband before having sex (real sex not virtual) with my lover. My family is a strong believer of self-happiness over everything else. If I am not happy tomorrow, they will support me in whatever decision I make. I'm nobody’s property and no one is my master. If I’m not happy, no relationship can chain me up. I can fall in love while I'm already married to someone (it's beyond my control) but sex is a big no for me. That way I won't be cheating on my husband as well as my lover's wife. Let's not mix up love and infidelity.