As a child, I hated my parents being together. I didn’t understand why they even lived together under the same roof. Now, I find that I’m just like them, incapable of being in a relationship. I stay away from commitments. I still don’t know how to make a relationship work, but I am learning, and hope things will be better,” says 27-year-old Ameya Shrivastav (name changed on request).
Popular wisdom has for long held that men who can’t sustain meaningful relationships with a partner often come from a background where their parents had a troubled relationship. Cases like Ameya’s would certainly suggest that there is some truth in the same. However, men today are leaving their filial pasts behind to create positive relationships for themselves. Farhan Akhtar, Adam Bedi and Bobby Deol all have strong relationships with their partners Adhuna, Nisha and Tanya — despite issues between their respective parents Javed Akhtar-Honey Irani, Kabir Bedi-Susan Humphreys and Dharmendra-Prakash Kaur.
Says Animesh Das, an assistant producer with a television house, “I have seen both sides of this story with my guy friends. If, apart from a breakdown in the parental relationship, everything else was okay, then I’ve seen friends emerge positively out of such situations.”
Ameya admits that this has an element of truth. “I guess at some level, even more than the broken parental relationship, what plays a role is the barrier we create to keep ourselves safe from bad experiences. A lot depends on how you’ve perceived the situation as a child: You may just end up learning from it and become very good at handling relationships. Or you can avoid the possibility of a negative relationship and stay away from one altogether,” he says with a shrug.
Actor Yash Tonk, who is happily married to colleague Gauri Yadav, agrees that our choices determine what we take away from situations. “We do tend to carry ahead whatever we see in childhood. But whether we view it positively or negatively depends on us. Luckily, my family life has been very smooth and that has contributed to the way my life functions now as well.”