Till Divorce Do Us Apart

Separation from a spouse is tough, and wanting to legalise it, tougher. Shilpa Dubey speaks to experts for pointers on asking for a divorce

- Shilpa Dubey

"It was bland, you know, like canned soup. Well yeah, that’s a perfect allegory of our marriage,” Nagpur based 32-year-old media professional Ankita Shukla* remembers, of a time she felt herself trapped in marriage. She says that although her marriage was neither abusive nor neglectful, it was unhappy and dull. “It was difficult for me to explain to him why I wanted a divorce, but I did not want to spend my life with someone I didn’t feel compatible with,” she says. Shukla separated from her spouse of two years in 2017 and is presently under divorce proceedings. “It was difficult, but important,” she adds.

In India, where 13 out of 1000 marriages end up in divorce (as per a study, by economist Suraj Jacob and anthropologist Sreeparna Chattopadhyay, based on India’s census), Shukla is part of the one percent that constitutes the divorced pool. Delhi-based homemaker Roopali Verma*, 35, had been a victim of domestic abuse. However, she lacked support from her family when she sought ways to put an end to it. “It’s not easy for a woman to think divorce in this society. I was judged and scorned by those I was closest to,” she says. Verma’s divorce proceedings went on for two years. We get experts to advise those who want to broach this with their spouses.

Be sure