BHOPAL: The four-year-old child of a couple is deprived of fatherly love and affection merely because the father did not want the child to come into this world. Not only that the unplanned pregnancy and childbirth has brought the marriage of the couple on the verge of collapse, as per a counsellor.
The wife, who has been living in her parental home for the past one year, has filed a case under section 125 of the CrPC demanding maintenance from the husband while the latter has filed a case under section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act seeking a decree of divorce, as per the counsellor.
Both the cases are pending in the Bhopal Family Court. Four rounds of counselling of the couple have not yielded any results. The bankers Maya and Siddhartha (changed names) got married around six years back. Both are well-educated and are officers in leading PSU banks.
Counsellor Sindhu Dholpure said to Free Press, "a few months into the marriage, the newlyweds went to a party where one of husband's friends, complimenting 'Bhabiji' on her looks, wondered how Siddhartha had landed such a charming life partner."
"That hurt Siddhartha's ego so much that he started avoiding physical relations with his wife. "All the others may be mesmerised by your looks but not me," was the message he wanted to convey to his wife", she added.The counseller said according to Maya, it was great difficulty that she could persuade her husband to get physical with her.
She became pregnant. Siddhartha, however, insisted that the unborn baby should be aborted as they needed time to understand each other.
Maya agreed and took pills to terminate the pregnancy. Sometime later, she again became pregnant and Siddhartha again wanted abortion. This time, however, Maya refused. She also thought that maybe the child would help build better emotional and physical relations between them, as per the counsellor as Maya told her.
The child was born but Siddhartha refused to even look at it. "He never cuddled the baby, never touched it and refused to take any responsibility for it," Maya told the counsellor.
Now, Maya is living at her parental home. She wants to save the marriage for the sake of their child. She doesn't want the little one to be deprived of its father's love. Siddhartha is saying no. He is insistent that the marriage is unworkable and should end.
