OUR MARRIAGE WAS A MISTAKE

I am Indian and, seven months ago, I had an arranged marriage with a woman after just one meeting. Both our families pushed us into getting engaged; two months later, we were married. We hardly knew each other. While on our honeymoon abroad, we argued a lot and she wouldn’t allow me to have a drink. We then returned and settled into our home, but continued to argue. She told me to leave if I wanted to. I had hoped that by spending time together, I would start to love her, but I don’t feel any love or affection. We have had very little sex and, frankly, I am not interested in having sex with her any more. She is hard-working, good to my family and everyone is happy with her, but there is absolutely no spark and I regret marrying her. I am 31 and fear that I will be unhappy for the rest of my life. If you are arguing a lot, love or affection between you can be damaged and the desire to have sex flies out of the window. Also, as the relationship is new and you did not have a chance to get to know each other before you married, it is harder to understand each other’s needs and resolve differences between you. I imagine your wife is not finding the situation easy, either. The first thing to do is give each other a chance and have relationship counselling to see if it’s possible to find a way forward. Try contacting the Asian Family Counselling Service (020 8813 9714, asianfamilycounselling.org) or Relate (relate.org.uk). If you fancied her when you first met, perhaps that could be recaptured. If things cannot be resolved, it would be better to divorce – but at least you will have tried to make the marriage work.