'Work pressure too much for couples'

Jobs are pretty stressful to deal with even at the best of times. But if you add in tight deadlines, countless meetings and travel, then one can expect his/her family life to take a serious hit.

Lawyers, sociologists and marriage counsellors based in Delhi have been keeping quite busy since the transformation the city has witnessed in the past decade. Speaking to Metrolife, some counsellors claimed that while the number of problems faced by couples have risen manifold, situation in joint families is not great either. They however claimed that the rising number divorces and separation suggests a much dangerous trend than what was initially perceived.

“Couples these days fail to give time to each other and then try to makeup or buy out that time by giving away some gifts. A lot of families are already in financial debt and the fact that they have to pay back the credit loans within a month weighs heavy on them. This eventually changes their outlook about family itself,” said Veerji Sharma, a marriage counsellor.

He however, like many other counsellors, believes that ‘finding time for oneself’ is a basic emotional need of humans. “No matter what, we also need time for ourselves after a hard day’s work. But what individuals lack these days is an efficient technique of managing their time as a result of which quality of time we spend with family is decreasing along with quality of time itself,” Sharma added.

Shikha Sharma, a financial analyst in a Noida-based company, lives with her husband in South Delhi.

Her husband is an IT professional. “I usually come home by 7 pm and my husband by 10. We both are extremely tired by then and usually end up having dinner and going to sleep right after. Weekends are spent in completing household chores and shopping, and we hardly have time for each other. It is becoming monotonous,” Sharma said.

While Sharma, might consider herself fortunate enough to atleast share a dinner along with her partner, the same cannot be said for many couples. This too is a bad sign for nuclear families.

“Lunch or dinners can serve as a good opportunity for family interaction that couples these days are not getting time to do that as well,” Veerji Sharma said about young couples. According to him, the situation is even grimmer for couples with children. “A child expects some time from his/her parents but if it doesn’t happen they end up finding alternatives like social networking or films which in actuality is a bad substitute for quality family time.”