Divorce is still a bad word in the South Asian Diaspora. Here, Kavita Chhibber offers a look at a few who courageously defied the stigma, beat the odds, and came out stronger.
Love is a beautiful bird, begging capture but refusing injury” – Kahlil Gibran
What Kahlil Gibran said about love can also be said of marriage and yet, this institution has never creaked so hard at the seams as it has in the last couple of decades. The South Asian community has always been perceived as one with strong traditional and cultural values. Remnants of our old world teaching have carried through with us here. According to these traditional ideologies, roles have been defined wherein woman is the nurturer who is seen but not heard, while man is the bread winner. A woman’s place is in the home – even the educated ones’! Divorce was virtually unheard of, and though there were often ugly whispers of abuse and suicides, and the occasional dowry deaths, not many came forward to claim justice.
The 1990s and the new millennium is an altogether different ball game. The Indian American community has seen its women rise to amazing heights in every field, with education and financial independence being the top priority. Most young women of today have the ability to fend for themselves and not tolerate the abuse that their mothers endured. And yet, surprisingly they are still reluctant and hesitant about breaking such an abusive marriage… because divorce is still a dirty word in the community!
We decided to take a closer look at the dynamics and challenges of failed marriages. We talked to both, men and women who dared to end abusive and emotionally debilitating relationships. The names of the participants have been changed to protect their privacy. What emerged was a disturbing fact – that a good portion of our community here, though highly educated and well off, remains essentially close minded towards divorce among our own.
This cover feature is a chronicle of courage, and a celebration of being a winner when life throws you seemingly unbeatable curve balls. The women and men featured here are from diverse age groups, yet the stories echo the same sentiment – that it is never too late too start again, never too late to stop being a victim, and in this country, never too late to make it.
The feature is also about awakening to our flaws as a community regarding the stigma we have associated with divorce, and the maligning of the divorcée – especially the female divorcée. While it is the strength of our culture that marriage is a valued and solid institution, unlike a flaky experiment that is often the case in the neo culture of the West – we should also realize and accept that there are instances, hopefully rare, where divorce may be the only answer. And that couples in these unfortunate cases have as much a right to acceptance and respect on their own merits as an individual – without the negative stereotyping.
The Stigma
It is such social stigma that landed Jyotsana in a marriage that could have been avoided to begin with. Jyotsana had come to this country when she was a teenager. She is well educated, and independent but when she was 18 she was sent off to a village in India to marry the son of an elite businessman, whom she had never met. She had sincere and strong reservations for Sanjay, the prospective groom. She observed that even her dad seemed to have his doubts. “My father came barely two days before the wedding. I could see from his demeanor that he was terribly unhappy about the choice of the bridegroom, but kept quiet because the ‘family honor’ was at stake. Here we go – social stigma at work. If only the father would have rescinded the marriage in the light of what he saw. Surely the ‘damage’ that he perceived to his reputation had to be negligible compared to sacrificing his daughter’s whole life! “I ended up becoming the sacrificial lamb in an arranged alliance between two families,” says Jyotsana.
Jyotsana tried her best to mould her personality to fit in with Sanjay’s family, but saw their consistent close mindedness. Sanjay’s incompetence as a provider did not help either. The final capper was the suicide of her sister-in-law (Sanjay’s brother’s wife) allegedly for similar issues. Even after that suicide, the in-laws remained unrepentant. “I realized I did not want to end up like her and I did not want my son, to grow up in that environment.”
To her credit, Jyotsana was able to convince Sanjay to come to the US. It did not help, however, as all that he did was live-it-up and increase debt while she slogged long hours at work and home. She eventually ended up divorcing him in three years. Her son Sameer was a toddler at that time. Her brother was supportive of her decision but her mother was very upset. When the family continued to receive a barrage of criticism and condemnation from relatives and friends, they too turned their back on her. After all she had dishonored them and tarnished the family name, by filing for divorce. When she tried discussing the idea of getting her own place to avoid facing the constant negativity from them, that didn’t go down well with them either. She was left vulnerable and helpless.
Sneha, a 65 year old retired physician divorcee, is unabashedly critical of the community’s closed mindedness. She followed her husband to the USA with their son in her early days. To her dismay she was disowned by him in only 15 days. “He married the other woman even though I refused to give him a divorce for 20 years.”
Sneha worked as a physician’s assistant and raised her son, now a physician himself, single handedly. All throughout the only support she received was from the American community. “I see that even today, the Indian community in here is very closed minded, judgmental, and unhelpful.” For years she hid the fact from her parents and the Indian community that her husband had deserted her. Finally her son put his foot down and said, “How long are you going to tell people daddy is in India on a business trip? Don’t be afraid to speak the truth.”
What powerful social mores these are! Individuals have suffered for years together before finding the courage to defy the stigma of divorce. It was 22 years of unhappy marriage before Najma, who is from an orthodox Muslim community, finally found the courage to dissolve it. All this while she had been telling her family that she was very unhappy, and that they were very incompatible, and that they had nothing in common. “But in our culture those things are not important,” says Najma. She was asked to adjust. “You try and the next thing you know you have children and then they say you have children, now you can’t leave. Later they said you have already been married for 22 years, half of your life is already over. Why do you want a divorce?” she adds. While personally she feels great for having eventually freed herself, the stigma still manages to hound her. Says an exasperated Najma, “Socially, one of the first questions people ask when they meet me is, ‘What does your husband do?’ When I tell them that I am divorced, the conversation often stops.”
Often it may not be the family, but rather the individual involved herself, who succumbs to such social stigma. Simran, who had married at 21, while her husband Jay was still a student, worked three jobs to support him while he went to school. In return, Jay was far from appreciative. He was very abusive both physically and emotionally, and her in-laws did not treat her well either. In spite of her parents encouraging her to get out of the relationship, she did not. “There is such stigma attached to divorce, that I felt ashamed to let the skeletons out.”
The Abuse
Another culturally sensitive issue is that of abuse – mental, emotional, and physical. While marital abuse may be universal, it is particularly troublesome in a patriarchal culture such as ours. Culturally inbred submissiveness of women combined with the tendency of blindly and equivocally placing the patriarch on a pedestal, makes it more difficult for wives to speak out no matter how unjust or abusive is the husband.
For Jyotsana who had barely managed to escape her failed marriage with Sanjay, the ordeal was far from over. Even as she was healing from this first encounter, a distant relative, a young eligible guy, Mahesh, came to USA to study engineering and stayed with her family. He was very supportive, the lone voice telling her how brave she had been and that he would stand by her and marry her. Against her family’s wishes she married him only to discover it was all a ploy to use her to get a legal status in the country. When she refused to play along by giving him a divorce, it escalated into several months of such severe physical abuse that she had to be hospitalized on more than one occasion. “If my family had supported me I would have never fallen in to the clutches of this man. I was so vulnerable at that point.” She could not tell her family what was going on as she had left against their wishes in the first place. She did not seek any help. “One is so ashamed of what is going on that it is hard sharing that part of your life with anyone.”
Jyotsana did not seek help until she was brutalized so severely that the physician would not let her go till she saw a social worker. “It was then that I realized that help was available. I would call the hotline number they gave me, when Mahesh wasn’t around. It took me a year to slowly get strong. He was having flings and would come home with numbers in his wallet and blonde hair on his clothes. If I protested, he’d just go into a violent rage and assault me.”
Even though 95 % of the victims of abuse are women, there are men too who have had to suffer. Take the case of Alok, a respected academician, and wife Sujata, also a highly educated professional. The marriage broke up after 6 years and two kids. Alok says his wife decided to pursue further studies and move away from Atlanta. She did not want Alok and the kids to follow her, and told Alok, “If you can’t take care of the kids, send them to my parents in India.” Alok felt the children were their responsibility, and since their second son was only a little over a year old Alok decided to take a sabbatical from his work, and follow her. The arrangement was to be that Sujata would settle down in her program and then visit him and the kids regularly, in their apartment. “We were about an hour’s drive away. She rarely visited us and she refused to move in.” Ten months later he filed for divorce.
Alok also discovered in the interim that she was involved in a relationship with a former boyfriend throughout the time that they were married and the boyfriend told Alok that they had no plans of breaking off the relationship. When he confronted Sujata with the evidence, she did not deny it and refused to break off with the boyfriend.
Sushant was another such male who had the misfortune to be on the rough end of a marriage that was not meant to be. A successful businessman in India, Sushant was quite simply ‘used’ by Jyoti who brought him to the US after marrying him just to get her parents off her back. Given to a life of wanton flings and late night parties, she simply needed a prop husband to appease the parents.
While Sushant was working seven days a week from early morning to late nights, Jyoti was out partying or taking out-of-town trips, blowing up his earnings in a day even as the bills kept mounting. The breaking point came when Sushant’s face was slashed in a hold up at his store. “It required 65 stitches to close the cut and her only reaction was, ‘Oh now I will be stuck with your medical bill!’” Sushant had given up his businesses, house and cars for this joke of a marriage – which he eventually dissolved. “It has left such a bad taste in my mouth. Someone talks about marriage, and I just walk away. Every morning I wake up and think why did this happen, why did she do this?
Children of a Lesser God?
There are diverse opinions on how children of divorced parents cope when their parents separate.
Alok’s sons are eight and four, and he says that the kids do get affected. “It is so easy to get caught up in the emotions of hurt and anger, bitterness and competitiveness, pain and combativeness that one can easily forget about the children. My two kids tell me, even today, they what they miss most is papa and mama being together. Inevitably, even when both parents are very careful, there will be incidents where the papa will say something negative or mama will, in front of the children.
Shailja shares joint custody of her six year old daughter, Neha, with husband Amit. She says her child is very well adjusted. There are times when Amit has tried to use Neha for reconciliation. “She does come up with things like daddy said you are the one who left him. Why did you leave daddy? He said he still loves you. I feel it is not right to put such ideas in a little kid’s head. Then I have to sit and explain to her that mummy and daddy didn’t love each other as other mommies and daddies do. I did not want her to be raised in a family where she did not see her mom and dad talk to each other for months, or even smile at each other. We meet when she has a birthday and at school meetings. Any conflicts are sorted out via email, but we don’t argue in front of her or bad mouth each other behind the other’s back. We see so many kids caught in the middle.”
The older kids tend to adjust better, and even gain some insights. Najma’s sons were 19 and 17 when she and her husband divorced. Her older son Imran, now in his twenties, says that he was very relieved when they divorced and that they should have done it sooner. “Had they stayed married I would have gone crazy. They were so incompatible. It really didn’t affect me as long as I was not asked to be involved,” he says, but adds. “I do feel that these days a lot of young Indian American women who are working and have a career make it a power issue, where they compete with their male partners rather than complement each other. When there is this attitude of I’m as good as you if not better, then the relationships are bound to malfunction.”
Some even come out stronger! Jyotsana’s son Sameer says he never considered himself a child of divorce until it was brought to his attention that he did not have that second parent. He has tremendous amount of respect for his mother, for the struggle and abuse she went through, the courage with which she raised him when the family deserted them. If he could change anything, he would protect her from that. Sameer feels that growing up as he did, has made him a stronger person. “I was a latch key kid since the age of five, and by 6 or 7, I would come home from school, let myself in, make lunch and dinner for myself and sometimes when mom came back tired, I would make her dinner too. I think I am what I am because of the experiences I went through. I have great problem solving skills and I am very independent. Nothing fazes me. I wouldn’t change anything about my past because those experiences have made me the person that I am today and I am pretty comfortable with myself. The divorce really didn’t affect my growth as a person. My parents were totally different people who didn’t jell, and, except for an occasional slip, they never bad-mouthed each other before me. My mom might say she wishes there was a father to share chores with her, because I am sure I was a handful, but personally I didn’t really miss not having one.”
The Legalities: A Maze of Confusion
As if the challenge at hand with a divorce is not debilitating enough, it is further compounded by the legal formalities of a divorce. A maze of confusion even to locals, divorce legalities are often an incomprehensible enigma to South Asians.
Najma says she learnt the hard way that some attorneys are out to grab as much as they can for themselves. She says that it’s wise to interview several of them. In her experience judges hate jury trials and encourage you to settle out of court. Between the two of them, Najma and ex-husband Asif, ended up giving over $55,000 to the lawyers which they could have easily split among themselves.
Alok says he discovered it takes far longer to get a divorce than it appears, especially if the other person contests it. He says although the legal system is supposed to be fair and just, one is just a case number in an overburdened divorce court. “They are very impersonal and callous, and it brings its own indignities to the two contestants. For example, the day before one hearing, Sujata and I had a cup of coffee, and she told me that I was a great father and I had done a great job, raising the children on my own. The next morning her lawyer said I was neglectful and traumatizing my children. I had been looking after them for so long without her help and suddenly I had to defend myself.”
Alok also strongly feels that the American legal system seems to have stereotyped Indian men as autocratic, dominating and controlling, and are therefore biased towards women. “I don’t think laws are pro women, I think judges are,” says Pankaj
We also spoke to Dan Bloom, Magistrate Judge in Fulton county Family Court, who said that even the most highly educated women often don’t know what their legal rights are. Lot of these women don’t file because they are told by their husbands or batterers that they will be deported or their children taken away from them. “We have to convince them that the person who is making these threats is neither a lawyer nor a judge. Since the violence against women act was passed, there are provisions for women to get their immigrant status separate from their batterer, under specific circumstances”.
Dan added that another thing that aggravates him most is to see people hiring incompetent lawyers to represent them. “As a judge, nothing aggravates me more than to see a lawyer taking advantage of his client. They go from being controlled by the husband to being controlled by the lawyer. They hand over money without understanding what’s going on. It is very important to find a lawyer who understands the cultural issues at stake and makes the woman litigant comfortable especially where domestic violence is concerned.”
When asked if there was any truth to the fact that south Asian men feel discriminated against and feel the system is pro women, Dan said, “I think that all men, whether south Asian, American or European, feel that there is a bias against them especially when it comes to issues involving domestic violence. What statistics tell us in this country is that 95 % of the victims are women and only 5 % are men.
Perceptions and Solutions
When asked if counseling could have helped in saving their marriage, the interviewees had a variety of answers. In some cases one of the partners was not ready to go for counseling, in other cases the counselors were found to be inept or perfunctory. Some felt that the mainstream counselors didn’t understand Indian cultural issues – which holds center stage in such divorces.
Alok highly recommends the rainbow program offered by several churches and involves counseling children of divorced parents, to make sure they come out of it in a positive and healthy way.
Again, Dan Bloom adds that the victims “need a community of people to support them and help them follow through with things. It’s also critical that they go through some sort of counseling.”
This is where Raksha, Inc. has stepped in to make a difference. It is to the good fortune of the community in Atlanta that we have a ready, willing, and able organization which among other services, specializes in situations of duress, divorce, and abuse. Being a non-profit social organization, its services are free. Started in 1995, Raksha has done a commendable job of filing a void, primarily in the area of services for domestic violence. Through education, counseling and support services it has proven to be a beacon and a haven for those in distress. Raksha also helps in providing referrals for housing, lawyers, transportation, counseling, and anything else they need help with. “We had a car donated to a woman recently, so she can now drive back and forth to work,” says Rita Patel a volunteer for Raksha.
Sonia Sharma is really happy about the success stories that have emerged “I meet a lot of these women in different places, and its great to see how after the initial struggle they have managed to put their lives in order. We have support group meetings each month where these women share their experiences with others going through similar situations, and encourage each other.”
Making it Against All Odds
The good news in this otherwise bleak arena is that more and more females, as well as males, are ‘coming out’ so to speak regarding their broken marriages. More importantly, they are taking constructive steps, overcoming challenges, and fighting back to rebuild their lives.
Jyotasana, who had suffered not once, but twice, in dead-end and abusive marriages, is one such inspirational example. Her second husband, Mahesh tracked her down even after she left him, and kept asking her to return but she refused. “I took responsibility and decided not to put up with all the abuse. I decided not to walk that path ever again.”
The going was never easy. While she was still married to Mahesh her family kept pressuring her to reconcile with her first husband, knowing very well they were incompatible. No one encouraged her to be on her own and make sane decisions. Everyone just felt they knew better than her. She finally walked out on him, went to school, even while working at multiple jobs. “I lived at one time, in the ghetto, in a little place rented to me by some jailbird. I used to do everything for my son, even sew clothes for him, because I didn’t have the money. Even McDonald’s was expensive for us. If we had extra money we’d go and rent a dollar movie. If Sameer was sick, I’d just wrap him in a blanket and take him to class.”
Her family found out only after three years what she had been going through. Her brother an affluent businessman offered to buy her a business but she refused and decided to make it on her own. “Initially they thought I was crazy to rough it out alone, but when they realized I was very determined to make it on my own, they slowly became supportive and started helping out.” She is happily married now to husband number three, but feels that women who have gone through such abuse and struggle need a spouse who has excellent coping skills. The victim may be more sensitive to certain things that a normal person may not be. “I am extremely sensitive about how people treat my son and I don’t take any crap from anyone. Going through this experience has made me more courageous, and not afraid to take risks. After all what is the worst that could happen? I have already been to hell and back.” Jyotsana is now a successful entrepreneur, and her son is a confident, well-educated young man, now in his twenties.
Simran too surmounted such odds. Amidst her problems with Jay, she had gone to visit her family in India, when he liquidated all their assets, wiped out her savings account, sold their home, resigned from the University where he was teaching and moved to India where he filed for divorce, and sued for child custody. She came back to USA, to find everything gone, and was literally out on the streets. “I went to welfare but they looked at my husband’s records and said I did not qualify for welfare.” Finally in desperation she became a cab driver and has earned her living as a cab driver, since the mid 1990s. “I felt so ashamed, that I stopped talking to my friends, until they finally came to me and said they were very proud of me. As a cab driver I have been mugged on gunpoint, my face slashed. But my husband had not let me study and get a degree. It was his way of controlling my life.” The child custody battle continues, though her twin daughters who are now sixteen, live with her. Her life revolves around raising her daughters, one of whom is a national merit scholar, and an all round achiever.
We leave you with a conclusion best summed up by Alok’s apt comments: “Divorce is perhaps one of the most devastating thing anyone can experience, emotionally, financially spiritually and socially. The choice between splitting a family or keeping a family together where there is constant fighting and incompatibility, are both terrible options, but fundamental personality flaws cannot be changed. When life comes to a precipice and there is crisis and chaos all over, and survival becomes an issue, especially the survival of your children, that is when you come out feeling strong… and very proud to have made it.”