My Secret Longing

My clueless wife

Being married to the love of your life has to be the best thing someone can ever hope for. But just four months into our marriage, I screwed up in all possible ways. It had nothing to do with my perfect wife but me. When Bhavisya finally confessed her love and resigned from her job, we had to go to India since she was on a diplomatic visa. Also, we had to break the news to her parents. I dreaded meeting her parents as I got her pregnant before marriage and her being an Indian made it all the more difficult.

But my wife made it easier for me. She simply took me to her home and said to her parents that she loved me and wanted to marry me and, in the same breath, said she was pregnant. I didn't think she would open the matter so abruptly. I simply sat there in their living room, waiting for her father and her uncle to slap me or throw me out of the house, but none of that happened. It had nothing to do with who I am or how rich I am, but entirely because of my wife's conviction in marrying me. I got off that landmine effortlessly but couldn't handle the guilt, which was my own handy work.

For anyone who knew our story, on the surface, it might appear that the Japanese government had wanted something to be done on the matter of the leaked video, and Bhavishya, not wanting to give them an apology, voluntarily resigned. But nobody ever questioned the source of that video or who leaked that. If they had, then they would have known it was none other than me who did that. I executed every tiny detail in such a way that Bhavishya would be pushed into a corner in accepting my proposal. But what I didn't expect was the other option her boss gave her, which was to go to India for a desk job. If not for Bhavisya, who was a stickler to integrity, honesty and blah, blah, then my entire plan would have gone down the drain.

Hence it was my goody-two-shoes wife who saved the day without having a single clue of what went behind her back. I even had pulled strings in the Indian External Ministry to make the issue escalate to make them force Bhavishya to resign. But she shattered all my carefully laid plans into pieces unwittingly. Her words, " I chose you when it came down to you or my career," always resonated in my mind making me regret my actions behind her back.

I finally got her where I wanted, in my home, my bed, but that came with a tonne of guilt. And as days went by, I hoped that she would regret leaving her job for me because that was what I deserved. Instead, she never mentioned it even once, or for that matter, she never complained about anything in the four months she had been married to me and the five months she had been pregnant.

I actually thought that I knew everything about my wife before marriage, but I was totally wrong. Her actual dream was to get a doctorate in community development in third-world countries, which I knew from her cousin while we went to India for our wedding. And it was due to her father and uncle's ultimatum to either get married or stop depending on them for money that she finally got a job.

I knew Bhavishya and her dad had some unresolved issues, and it got confirmed when her father asked to speak with me alone one day while in India. He took me to his room and locked it. I feared that maybe he wanted to stop the wedding, but instead, he abruptly said, " I was a fool. I didn't believe in her, my own daughter. As a father, instead of making life easier for her, I crushed all her dreams. I was worried only about what society may say. But she became a diplomat without anybody's support. I never stood by her. And I repent it every single day. What I ask from you is that please believe in her, which as a father I didn't do."

I had asked Bhavishya about her father and uncle many times, but she always evaded that question. She never told me about what she went through in her childhood or not being able to follow her dreams because she was a girl. And I didn't force her after that.

But after one month into our marriage, she came to me one day and said she had decided to pursue her doctorate at the University of Fortaleza. Even in her fifth month of pregnancy, she went to the university, and she looked at me like a hero for letting her follow her dream. I didn't deserve that, and I definitely didn't deserve her.