CantthinkofanameforthisbloG

Cont.. Before you begin reading this article do read part 1 and part 2, mentioned earlier in this blog.

Day two of marriage counseling began with another rant by some religious fanatic on the ‘superiority’ on this particular religion over ‘all’ others. I did not even bother listening so I have nothing much to report. The post lunch session was on the medical aspects of marriage and was conducted by lady who was a retired gynecologist by day and an aging religious fanatic by night. The old lady started by drawing the male and female genital organs on the board (did I mention how much like a classroom this was). Now one would safely assume that a room full of soon to be married people will be fully aware about their anatomy as well as the anatomy of the opposite sex. Turns out one would be wrong. Yes there were a number of people taking down notes and copying the drawing in their books. Imaging these same losers flipping through their notes on their honeymoon to make sure they know where to put it. I mean honestly where do they find these people.

On completion of the anatomy class the next point of conversation was contraceptives and how they inspire the devil in our loins. You see boys and girls, this lady was another who subscribed to the philosophy that intercourse should only be performed in order to beget children. Therefore the act of using contraceptives was frowned upon. Now I’m not going to get into a discussion on this for I fear that there are many out there who feel the same to some capacity. Day two draw to a close.

Day three. This day was set aside for the examination of the legal aspects of marriage. Let me remind you about the environment. This was a claustrophobic room filled with about a hundred conventional couples (here conventional means male-female and no other combination). Bering that in mind this senior preacher in the religious institute decided to lecture us for about two and a half hours on the ‘evils’ of homosexuality. WFT, where’s the relevance you are. None whatsoever would be the response. This old fart went on forever on how the ‘love of a man should not be expressed to another man’ bla bla bla. Then he opened a scrapbook with newspaper clippings of various articles of homosexual-phobia and started reading each one out. If this was not painful enough he started telling us how societies abroad have brought in homosexuality to this country (which is a load of rubbish) and how legalizing such ‘unnatural’ activities will lead to the ultimate degradation of our society (more rubbish). Did I mention how much I hate bigots, religious bigots even more so. Some the guys priceless statements were – “mans inclination towards another man is accidental, it is abnormal. If it happens then the institute of marriage will be in the dustbin”. Another rather vague statement went along as follows- “the whole of life should not have any reserved places. It should remain open”. Now I’m not quite sure what the message was but I am assuming the word being spoken of was whole (i.e. with a ‘w’) and not hole coz then its just nasty. Some more random statements are to follow.

“marriage and only marriage allows the procreation of sess (sex) and sess should only be done to beget children. In that was we differ from animals.” (not really, if you think about it, I mean how many monkeys do you know if that wear a condom or dogs that go on the pill to avoid an unplanned pregnancy).

“Exchange of sexual love atleast once after mutual consent will ratify the marriage”. Gotta love theological terms, they’re just so clinical you cant take them seriously. So finally we draw to an end on the last day of marriage counseling and I have to admit, it was worse than I thought. My strong advice to all those on the verge of getting married, don’t do it man.. life is too beautiful to throw it away .. on marriage counseling.

Cont.. Before you begin reading this article do read part 1, mentioned earlier in this blog.

Day one of the counseling class began with the religious aspects of marriage. This was a FOUR HOUR lecture about the origin and evolution of … Religion!!! What nothing bout marriage, nope.. religion and a particular sect of religion, its merits over other ‘lesser religions’ and so on. This greatly irritated me on two counts. (i) this had absolutely no relevance to marriage but just appeared to be a pretext to preach, and (ii) it was wasting a perfectly good Saturday morning attending marriage counseling (this is an underlying theme of my rant throughout this post). My girlfriend had put her head on my shoulder and had long since drifted off into a world far more pleasant that the one I currently occupied. I on the other hand was unable to fall asleep. Perhaps it was the old man’s droning voice or the heat from a room packed with 200 people or the fact that I was ‘a perfectly good Saturday morning attending marriage counseling’.

After much pleading the guy let us off for a quick lunch. The girlfriend and I were strongly considering not coming back but assuming that it could not get much worse we decided to return. Big mistake. The post lunch session was on the psychology of marriage. Here a short balding man attempted to tell us that marriage will fuck you up emotionally but its worth is coz you get to have kids. (Not exactly the best sales pitch but I do give him credit for trying). The disturbing part was when he started telling us how his wedding night went. Now I’m sure the guy was quite excited bout finally losing his virginity but honestly we were not the least bit interested in how it went. I’m not going to get into details because frankly I don’t hate you so much. The summary of the lecture was that psychologically we NEED to get married else we cannot satisfy our sexual (or as he put it sesual) desires. The man refused to acknowledge that sex without marriage even exists. Finally after much argument he said that ‘sess’ could be ‘purchased’ but that is lust.

After that ‘hot’ debate he went on to tell us how he is a famous (if not modest) psychologist and how we should go to him when we have marriage problems. Now logically if he did his job right the first time we would not have any psychological marriage problems in the first place and secondly if we did have psychological problems with marriage then why would we go to someone who did not help us in the first place. But then again this is marriage counseling (on a perfectly good weekend I might add) so logic ceases to exist. To sum up this weirdo’s ‘teachings’ its something along these lines- “one must keep things exciting, try different ‘techniques’… like buying jasmine flowers for the hair; take bath together on one bathroom, bite, nibble but don’t cause physical pain” (yes that was randomly mentioned) and was followed by an awkward silence. Eventually this ended bringing day one to a much deserved end.

Cont. Part three. – Medical aspect of marriage and Legal aspects of marriage.

We had a plan, we would go late.. Really late. That way we would reduce the ill effects of this prolonged torture. The torture I speak of is a series of lectures spread across three days that purportedly prepare one for wedlock. There goes two perfectly good weekends that I’ll never get back. Now these are not just any ordinary lectures, no, that would be bearable. These were the most incredibly boring, highly annoying, ridiculously redundant one-sided discussions about the ‘gift’ of marriage. The end result of which had a fair number of us re-considering our decision of taking the plunge. Yes I am talking about the dreaded Marriage Counseling.

Marriage Counseling is this strange phenomenon where unmarried virgin holy men talk at you for hours imparting what little they know about marriage, sex, bringing up children and other significant events which are completely alien to them. Does anyone else see the irony here? Now don’t get me wrong, I am not one to shy away from ‘sex talk’ however when the ones spearheading the talk are:- (i) a short balding troll, (ii) a priest with a superiority complex (iii) and a frail old lady, things start to get a bit awkward. Added to that was a room full of about a hundred enthusiastic young couples diligently taking down notes like their life depended on it.

The first day of ‘marriage-prep’ boot camp began with the religious aspect of marriage. Apparently a number of marriages breakup because the woman claim to have found god and the men realize its not them. Moving on, the guy talks endlessly about religion, how one particular religion is better than another, how he has been studying religion for many years. How his religion was blab la bla. (Sorry folks, I fell unconscious by this point). When I woke up, which was a good one hour later, the man was still at it trying to preach rather that teach. Frankly it made me a bit sick. I’m not a religious man but I think its important to respect others religious beliefs. I just cant bring myself to respect someone who cant respect another’s religious beliefs any tries to portray his as superior. Anyway I’m drifting so back to the story.

The course was split into four major sections:-

(i) The religious part of marriage

(ii) The psychological effect of marriage

(iii) The medical aspect of marriage

(iv) The legal aspects of marriage

The entire session was spread across three full days of mindless boredom. For the sake of sanity I decided to split this article into two parts. The first (i.e. this one) provides the back-story, brief overview and structure of events to follow. The next part will highlight some of the key learning’s of the counseling sessions and would conclude with my take on the whole affair. So watch this space.