I am married now, And here is how I choose the perfect spouse for my life.

It was the year 2012 when discussions about my marriage started happening in my home. Proposals of engagement between the prospective bride and me arrive every month or in other’s marriage ceremonies. So I started thinking and planning about it.

My society, school or college friends were getting married at that time. But something strange things were happening in their married lives. My seven friends, including girls and boys, were having a divorce for unknown reasons.

1. One girl was proposed to on Facebook she accepted it when they had their real-life engagement ceremony. Unfortunately, her groom’s previous girlfriend showed up to stop that engagement as the groom had been having an affair with her for the last three-four years, So my friend felt heartbroken and betrayed and cheated.
2. One of my male friends was married to a girl who never cooked or did home-related tasks or never showed the night at home after time out. Then when my friend encountered her for asking about divorce and breaking the marriage, she told him she would launch a law suite and a police case for defamation, sexual harassment and abuse. Moreover, she wanted marriage alimony of 50 lakhs.
3. One of my friend’s husband was not doing any job and was physically abusing her as she was earning a thousand times more than him.
4. One of my friend’s husbands was unfaithful and had multiple extramarital affairs.
5. One of my male friends had multiple sexual encounters with his female friends before marriage, so he wanted a bride that accepted that allowed them to have sexual encounters outside of marriage after marriage.
6. One of my friends lost his job because of the financial crisis or recession in the year 2008. Then somehow, his engagement broke as the bride stopped talking with him and her parents. But after two or three months, he got a job in a better company with a more excellent salary. So if the bride understood the situation of a lost job, then disengagement of marriage would not have happened.
7. One of my friend’s brides was suspicious and doubtful about having affairs in office. So she broke the engagement, and he was heartbroken as there was no clear communication between the bride and her family. So then he got married after one year to a different and more perfect girl.

So after experiencing this situation, I jotted down points around 6th July 2012 about choosing the perfect bride for my married life.

So here are the points that I jotted down topics for my Marriage Proposal

1. Does she smoke cigarettes or any other tobacco consumption
2. Does she drinks alcohol
3. Her plans about settling down and her job
4. Any boyfriend in past or any affair or any physical relationship
5. Her salary & her salary expectations of her prospective groom
6. Does she buys branded clothes, jewellery, gadgets
7. Does she take any loans from the bank in past
8. Her home family situation, culture, immediate family relatives
9. Her way of thinking about looking at cases and finding solutions to the problem

But after five years, I registered myself with Chitpavan Brahman Sangh for their matrimony service. Then I also wrote with the Anuroop Wiwaha Sanstha Matrimony web portal. Then WhatsApp group-based matrimony portal Shree Suyog Ranade. Then I also corresponded with Shaadi and Jeevansathi matrimony web portal.

I have already written reviews of Anuroop Wiwaha Sanstha and Shree Suyog Ranade Matrimony Web Portal on this blog of mine.

For the count, I met almost 25 to 30 girls from Mumbai, Thane & Pune cities. All were Chitpavan Kokanastha, Deshastha, Karhade or Devarukhe Brahman Girls.

A few girls rejected my profiles even though I did leave a few girls’ profiles at that time. There was a funny incident where three girls rejected my matrimony profile request once, then said on WhatsApp that they were interested again and left my profile. After a few weeks, they said they were interested again and finally rejected my profile.

Here are my observations of my meetings with the girls.

1. A few girls were casual wine drinkers and were ok about it. They even asked why there was a problem wife had wine, and the husband didn’t at the same time.
2. Some were eggetarian
3. Some were non-vegetarians on heavy consumption.
4. Few had boyfriends, and two had previous sexual relationships that didn’t work out.
5. One obstacle in my marriage was I had Mangal in my Patrika. So Jyotishi/Astrologer matched my Patrika perfectly, and I didn’t like those girls. And I was very impressed with one girl as we checked on all levels for marriage. After our three-hour-long meeting at Prabhat Road, Pune, we even discussed having a family meeting. But Jyotishi/Astrologer said ‘Patrika’ are not matching as both Patrika are opposite.
6. One girl said she likes me and my personality, but it doesn’t fill her mind.
7. Few girls were looking for marriage from the tender age of 23, and still, they were not married till today at 38. So they were looking for marriage for almost 15 to 20 years.
8. Some had a groom image in their mind that they were searching for in their meetings.
9. Some were unhappy that I had recently changed the job and would do Apple App Store business full-time if everything worked out correctly on financial terms.
10. Some girls were against having kids because they wanted to enjoy married life with their future husbands.
11. Some girls were arrogant, senseless amateurs in talking.
12. Some girls were tenth standard pass, but they wanted highly qualified, MBA, high salaried grooms.
13. To one girl who was constantly chatting with me on the phone, I told her that my grandmother was strict, Sanatana and was serving Sola (सोळ). She said she is against untouchability. But she doesn’t know what Sola is. And my grandmother died almost 35 years ago when I was just 6. So it was the litmus test for me not to choose that girl as my bride.
14. One girl got offended when I asked about a familiar friend that we both had on our social media profiles. She thought I was questioning her integrity and character… Whatever…
15. Some girls didn’t have any relatives. Few girls had financial issues with family and relatives. And even property issues.
16. A few girls’ parents were ill. This can be understood.
17. Few girls and their families will reply, reject, or approve your connection requests. So it was a useless and one-sided effort.
18. Few girls had PCOD or other severe health issues like Diabetes that may interfere with married sexual life or even day-to-day life.
19. One girl has had a severe depression issue for the last fifteen years which was shared in the second meeting.
20. Wildly few girls behaved like they were victims of patriarchy and would not want to cook if their husbands could not cook too. So they didn’t have the skill of mutual understanding, empathy, sympathy or realisation/awareness of married life responsibilities.
21. A few girls were romanticising the idea of a romantic movie called DDLJ (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge). They will require five meetings to understand a groom and then analyse the groom’s qualities on their terms to decide whether to get married to him or not. So why should the groom accept that the bride takes five months to decide?
22. I live in Mumbai, and the bride was from Pune. She told me that she would meet me for only 20 minutes maximum as she has the skill of knowing a person within 20 minutes. I said to require more time, but she said she would disagree. But the problem was, why should I travel from Mumbai to Pune for 4 hours and back again for 4 hours, just for 20 minutes meeting?

And I got what I was looking for after five years of search.

I added and approved one girl’s request to connect on Anuroop. Her mother called up. But there was no communication after that. So I called them. Again there was no reply. But somehow, my maternal sister got a proposal for my marriage to her friends’ relative. And I remembered her name. We had Kande Pohe Karyakram / Baghanyacha Karyakram / or Family Meet. And there was no communication for two weeks. So we again meet on a personal level. I said yes she said yes. So we immediately engaged in the next two weeks and married in the next three months.

I was very taken aback and surprised at how this was happening at a quick and fast speed of events. But after marriage first three days together, then Honeymoon. I realise I got a Spouse/Bride/Woman/Girl/Lady of my interest that matches me on Mental/Sexual and Family levels. She had a fantastic massive large supportive family; even the same was on my side.

We both are happy! And our family is delighted that we both got perfectly matched!

So you may ask me to reveal my beloved wife’s name and whereabouts. But the problem is that she has no social network accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn. She only has an email and WhatsApp account. And she never had an Orkut account too. Her social media presence amazed me, and I was happy she had already cut the clutter, exposure, and mental tension of an always-connected world.

I need your blessings for my happy family life with my wife!

Thanks & Regards
Mandar Apte