Finding true love after marriage…hurts

I wonder what would have happened to my life if I had not hired her. But that scenario was quite unlikely, given that she had a strong resume, an impressive work experience and the eagerness to question and learn.

But I am jumping the gun here. To give a brief background, I live in Mumbai and work in the financial services industry. I am not being immodest here, but for a person coming from a poor background, I have done exceedingly well in life. I studied hard, worked hard and now have all the creature comforts that anyone can ever want.

I am married (arranged marriage) and have two lovely children. But what is not lovely (and has never been) is my relationship with my wife. We started off on a wrong foot and while things have got better, it is far from ideal. While she is very loving, her temper is terrible and she has extreme mood swings. So from my side, while I like her very much, I was never in love with my wife. But I have never cheated on her, even though I have had women chasing me. At different times, two women were after me. But I am an old school guy who believes in sticking on in the marriage, even though it may not be a good one.

And then this fateful interview happened almost a year and a half back and I hired this girl. In the beginning, my relationship with her was no different than the one I shared with everyone else in my workplace and there was nothing unusual. She was very good at her work like some other high performers and I was impressed with her dedication, commitment and eagerness to take on more responsibility.

But somewhere along this journey, I have fallen in love with this girl. I now understand why people call it the most delightful feeling that is hard to express in words, even though for me, so far, it has been one sided from my side.

Did I express my feelings to her? Yes. There was a brief period where I was not her boss and I took that opportunity to tell her. And the net result of that conversation was that her respect towards me went down a little. She is not interested in me. And I think she is already in a relationship with someone.

So where does it leave me now? I am in love with someone who does not love me back, and am married to someone who I like, but do not love. So in terms of the course of action, at home, I go through the motions without any emotion with my wife and am totally normal in my behaviour with my kids. And at work, by a strange quirk of fate, I am back as her boss again and I remain professional in my interactions with her. But I am impressed with myself – in my interactions with this girl at work, I am totally, supremely professional.

But the day she gets married to the person whom she is in a relationship with, I would definitely be crushed. That day is obviously inevitable and all I can do is steel myself every single day so that on that day of her marriage, the impact on me is not so severe. But that is easier said than done…