On marriage and having a happy co-existence with your partner

Fali Kekobad has been there, done that, and learned heaps, in the process. For instance, he learnt from his first marriage, he says, how to hold it together. “It’s so easy to make mistakes.”

“Having been married before really helps,” laughs the irrepressible Fali, on how he makes it work with Geetha, his artist wife from Karnataka.

“We have a good time. We are always enjoying everything.”

Fali walks the talk and revels in the little things in his life with Geetha and their daughter Mili. He continues to share a cordial vibe with his ex-wife, though they rarely meet. His son Varun, on the other hand, often joins his father’s new family for dinner or the occasional holiday.

Fali believes in being calm about everything. He also believes, pretty strongly, that “Doing well financially helps a marriage. The male has to be stable and stabilise the finances. There will definitely be problems without this.”

Single for about 10 years before he married Geetha, Fali met many women during that time. “It was the best time of my life,” he owns, disarmingly.

However, this period woke him to the benefits of marriage. “It’s good to have family and children. It disciplines you, you place some restraints on yourself. You can’t possibly say, ‘Ok, I’ll come home at 3 in the morning.’ Once you accept that, you start enjoying it. More importantly, accept the personality of your partner, then you start enjoying that as well.”

This self-avowed family man claims to be fitter now than he was at 30. “I exercise regularly, we all wake up by 5 for my daughter’s school. That’s good, I think. By 10 pm we are all asleep.”

Fali travels well over 100 km every day and loves every bit of it. “I like my music, used to love jazz, now I listen to whatever there is on FM radio,” (while driving around). Geetha is more adventurous with her music, and collects music for both of them. “Makes me listen to it,” is how Fali describes it indulgently. “She keeps gathering info on her phone and telling me about things happening all over. She has a network all over the world.”

Clearly, he belongs to a breed that believes in approaching marriage calmly and intelligently. “I have to make the family work. It comes from within. It is not forced,” he states categorically.

Flexibility is another component that they have built into their relationship. “I tell Geetha, you go wherever you want to go. Mili and I will work it out.”

Social statistics have no significance for this unusual couple. About the age gap between them, he laughs and says, “Mentally I am much younger than her. If you do things properly, you don’t age. For instance, we live outside the city and have a huge compound. I jog there every day after work.”

About religion, and Geetha’s claim that he has become more religious after marrying her, he jokes, “I had problems with the tax department.” After that, he began ‘to do a little bit’. “I think it helps. I go to the agiary, come back, things start getting solved.” However, this nature-lover does believe in a higher power, because “plants, animals, this whole universe, didn’t just happen.”

He shared his mantra for a happy co-existence with one’s partner – “There’s some goodness in all of us. Try to find the good things in the person. Negative things don’t matter. Above all, be honest. Without trust, nothing happens. And only then will love grow.”

https://www.bonobology.com/give-me-space/