If your marriage isn’t making you a better person, there’s a problem.

Let’s be honest. Why do people get married? Many reasons. It could be trivial, frivolous and mundane reasons like everyone else is doing it so I should do it too. Or it could be a mindless reason like societal pressure. It could even be something adventurous like how else am I going to know someone as a spouse if I don’t get married. Or it could be for a profound reason like camaraderie, friendship, a partner for life and a best buddy. Ultimately, it could really be spiritual like when people want to get married to become a better person.

I think, and this is totally my opinion so do share your opinion and wisdom with me, that marriage should be undertaken like course material. I’ll give you an example.

I’m a physician and so I do continued medical education courses frequently. But I don’t do just any course that comes out in the market. I only do material that can help me change my practice. And sometimes I do courses that endorse my ways and make me more assured. I’ve never done a course where I did not intend for it to be a formative lesson.

Women today keep forgetting something which is they’re different from their mothers. They’re more versatile, resilient, experienced and vivacious. They go into marriages with a vastly better knowledge of the world. Some of them have had satisfying careers when they get married. Some have even had a partner or two that they tested as a potential spouse and left before they get married.

So if anyone who is as aware as the modern woman goes into a marriage without some goals for herself, you gotta ask why. And I think you can read many more writings on this blog to understand my problem with the Pakistani ways of marriage and getting married but I want to take this a step further.

If you question your marriage, you’re doing a good thing. If you suspect that your marriage isn’t having the effect on you that you intended for it, that’s a good thing. If you don’t completely fall in love with your marriage with your eyes closed, that’s a good thing.

Because you can’t give yourself up to a marriage that doesn’t make you a better person. You can’t continue to pour into a bottomless pit. You can’t be your marriage’s salvation. It’s the other way around actually.

I know we own our marriages, sometimes sadly, more than we own our spouses. We also constantly measure our marriage in years, kids and communal property. We celebrate our anniversaries loudly and for everyone to see. But is that really what we want out of our marriage?

Why don’t we assess our marriage on the wisdom it gave us? Why isn’t our marriage expected to make us more independent, more resilient, more kind, more invested in people around us, organically? Why don’t we ask ourselves if our mental health is better or worse after we got married? Why isn’t our marriage expected to give us these answers?

I look for these answers every now and then. Because if I’m not a better person through my marriage, then something needs fixing or changing.