The Third Option

For a long time, I believed my marriage ended because we failed. That if we had talked more, loved better, tried harder, or stayed longer in therapy, maybe we could have saved it. Marriage teaches you to internalize the blame — that if it cracks, it’s because you weren’t strong enough.

But slowly, a quieter truth surfaced:

The marriage didn’t fail because we were wrong for each other. It failed because marriage was wrong for me.

At twenty-six, society presents only two choices: marry the person your family approves of, or marry the person you love. No one tells you about the radical third option — not marrying at all.

I didn’t know that then. So I married a genuinely good man — kind, intelligent, respectful, steady. Someone who offered warmth and stability, someone whose character I never doubted. The misalignment was never with him; it was with the institution itself.

I didn’t resist love. I resisted the choreography of marriage — the roles, expectations, and invisible rules that come bundled with it. I resisted the way it felt like a container too small for the life I wanted to grow into. And when you don’t want children, the logic of marriage becomes even harder to justify. Without that anchor, the structure felt unnecessary — even unnatural — for the way I am built.

One truth became undeniable: my freedom and my space are non-negotiable.

Leaving my marriage was not an escape; it was the beginning of my real life.

In the years that followed, I travelled widely, lived alone, walked into new cities and boardrooms with no safety net, and celebrated milestones in unfamiliar places. Silence taught me who I was. Independence sharpened me. What began as a seed of courage finally took root. I rebuilt myself from the inside out — not from heartbreak, but from curiosity — rediscovering my voice, restoring my self-worth, and learning exactly how strong I am when I stand on my own spine. I became a woman who stands alone not because she must, but because she chooses to — with pride, and most importantly, with ease.

“उद्धरेदात्मनाऽत्मानं नात्मानमवसादयेत्।

आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मनः॥”

(Bhagavad Gita 6.5)

Along the way, I discovered that some of the deepest love in life comes not from romance, but from long-standing friendships — the kind that remain steady year after year. Friendships that ask for nothing yet give everything. That cheer for you without envy, hold space without expectation, forgive easily, and love without trying to possess. These friendships don’t bind you; they expand you. They don’t demand titles; they simply meet you where you are. In them, I found companionship that was free, nourishing, grounding, and profoundly loyal. They built me just as much as solitude did — sometimes even more.

Partnership can be beautiful. Love can be transformative. But I refuse to enter any structure that asks me to shrink or to trade my selfhood for belonging. Marriage simply could not provide the space I needed to become the woman I was becoming.

So I chose the third option — the one society rarely acknowledges. The option to be unmarried, unbound, and self-authored. Not out of rebellion or fear, but out of alignment with who I am.

It is long overdue for society to stop pretending that marriage is mandatory. We must teach our daughters, sons, girls, and boys that marriage is optional — but selfhood is not.

Every young person deserves to build identity, self-respect, courage and resilience, emotional strength and the confidence to protect their freedom

These matter far more than any pressure to marry.

Sometimes, you only discover who you truly are after walking away from something that wasn’t meant for your spirit. Leaving my marriage was not defiance — it was a return to myself.

My life now is built on freedom, depth, friendship, passion, and purpose.

And that has made the journey worth it.