Let’s Get Married — But Let’s Stay Real
Collaboratively authored by Mahima Sukhdev and Reinier Zeldenrust
On Marriage
Marriage. For a couple coming of age in the new millennium, it was definitely not a given. Did we really want to get married? Would it change our relationship in any way — for better or for worse? Would we love it or regret it? How would we navigate the wide range of expectations handed down to us by our cultures — Indian, Dutch, British, American, and the others we picked up along the way?
When we first discussed marriage, it seemed like an abstract concept. It was this thing that people did when they liked each other and wanted to spend a life together. But what was marriage really? In typical Mahima-Reinier style, we investigated. We researched and read, we spoke to people who’d done it, people who hadn’t.
We found there was no single definition of marriage. Instead, marriage has meant many different things to different people at different times: to our caveman ancestors, it was a parenting union until a timely death at age 35. In the middle ages, it was a political union to unite fiefdoms. These days, dozens of wildly different versions of marriage exist throughout the world.
Because there was no single definition of marriage to follow, we figured we could and should define our own. Create our own commitments, build our marriage from the bottom up, take nothing as a given. So we sat down… actually, no, we went on a series of runs together to figure out what we wanted in our marriage, and starting jotting down some notes — the start of a ‘marriage manifesto’, of sorts.
And at our wedding a couple of weeks ago, we shared our working draft with 250 of our closest family and friends. To be honest, it was scary to share these thoughts in public, on stage. But one of the elements on the marriage menu we both cared about was bringing together all the people who mattered most us, and seeking their support and endorsement for the journey we were about to embark upon.
We’ve since been asked several times to post our vows online. We are pleased to share them here — and are excited for feedback to help build upon our working draft.
Our Vows
M: I promise to… always communicate clearly and honestly. When we started our relationship long-distance, communication was all we had. We couldn’t kiss and make up over WhatsApp. It forced us to make our relationship more deliberate. Let us preserve that good communication as our foundation going forward.
Let us overcommunicate when we need to, maybe sometimes awkwardly. Let us not assume anything, apart from good intent. I promise to listen: and not just listen to respond, but listen listen.
R: And I will honor that promise too. Luckily, I love the sound of your voice.
R: I promise to support your growth. I promise you the freedom and space to discover yourself and pursue your goals.
As an astrophysicist I know that in order for life to form on a planet, it needs to be at the right distance from the sun — not too close and not too far away either. Let us find that goldilocks zone with each other. I promise to help you be the best possible version of you — whether that means going out of my way for you, getting out of the way when you need me to, or just kindling your growth mindset.
M: And I will honor that promise too.
M: I promise to… play the right roles in your life. Making a commitment doesn’t mean we need to be everything to each other. You don’t have to be my best friend — my best friends already play that role. And I can’t talk about computational design with you for hours on end. Instead, let’s play the roles we want each other to play.
M: You’re my let’s-be-buddhist-about-this person.
R: You’re my don’t-accept-this without-a-fight-person.
M: You’re my get-this-insect-away-from-me person.
R: You’re my laugh-at-my-bad-jokes person.
M: I promise to encourage you to have fulfilling relationships with all the wonderful people in your life, so many of whom are with us here today — and for everything else, I’m here when you need me, just say the word.
R: And I will honor that promise too.
R: I promise to… be your bridge over troubled water: We can make grand life plans, but things will not always go well, and when times get tough — I’ll be your somebody to lean on. Looking back at the last 5 years, I’m heartened to see how we’ve learnt to manipulate each other’s emotions — in a good way!
When I’m feeling low, you remind me of my achievements, how I have faced my fears in the past. When you’re feeling low, I calibrate your expectations and soothe you. You drag me out on a run, I cook a comforting meal for you.
And when things are really rough and those things are just not enough, I promise you unflinching patience and genuine compassion.
M: And I will honor that promise too.
M: I promise to always have an open mind: What I love about us is that we treat our life together like a permanently unfinished piece of art — we both look at what can be improved, we bring in new thinking, we experiment.
Let us maintain that curiosity and open-mindedness as we traverse this brave new world together. If we are to live to 120, we have 90 years ahead of us. Change is inevitable, and its pace today — exponential. Let us question our discomforts, and challenge our dominant thinking. Let us be humble enough to have our minds changed. I promise to evolve with you, with changing circumstances, and with the times.
R: And I will honor that promise too.
R: I promise to… be human first. Let us be grateful for our cultures, our backgrounds, our roots. I promise to embrace the diversity in you: each influence, each experience that has shaped you.
R: “Mein vada karta hun ki mein tumhari Bharatiya sabhyata aur paramparaon ko apnaaoonga” — I promise to embrace India and your Indianness — and also the London, Singapore, New York parts of you.
M: “Ik beloof dat ik het Nederlandse in je zal omarmen” — I promise to embrace the Netherlands and your Dutchness — and also the Colombo, Brussels, London parts of you.
R: Let us use our rich heritage as building blocks to assemble the multi-coloured towers of our future. Let us not confine ourselves to neat taxonomical boxes. Let us never play into expectations of race, religion, and gender. Let us believe in the unity of the human experience above all else.
M: And I will honor that promise too.
These vows stem from the beliefs we hold true today. They form the basis of our ‘marriage manifesto’, which we will treat as a living, breathing document, regularly updating it as our relationship evolves.
