Morning 8 AM. I woke up slowly hearing the loud voice of my wife Aruna. Today is her first day in office after 3 years.
She worked as a software engineer before our marriage and earned 50 K per month. Since I was working in a good position in a software company and had a very good salary package which was good enough for our family, I also had decent savings and bought an apartment in heart of the city. I asked her to stay at home and be a housewife.
Initially, she felt bored and frustrated being at home and doing all household chores. Slowly she got used to her new life taking care of our house, my mother, and didn’t bother much. Even when my mother passed away last year, I was expecting she will talk to me about going to work, but it seems she lost her interest and didn’t start the topic.
I am Prabhu, aged 32, happily married with Aruna, aged 27. Life went smooth and happy, We loved each other, went for holidays, celebrated our anniversary, birthday and had a good plan for the rest our life.
All went well until that bad morning, I got a bad news that screwed up my life. We have recently developed an App for our banking client and I lead the project. Due to an unknown bug in that App caused a major security breach and the debit card information of 1000s of users were stolen by the hackers and crores of money was debited from our customers bank account.
This led to a series of unfortunate events and the deal between our company and the Banking customer was broken. This resulted in a huge financial loss and all the employees from that project including me got dismissed immediately from our company.
All these things happened within couple of days and I was completely shocked and devastated. I was not able to convince my company and not able to get any compensation. They threatened me of Blacklisting and I had no option of leaving the company.
Within 2 days, I have become jobless and it was absolute shock to our family. I was unable to control my tears and cried like anything. My wife tried to console me. We planned all our life based on my career and now we are not sure how we are going to manage my Housing loan, car loan and personal loan we took.
We were mostly silent for two days after that shock and my wife supported me and gave me hope that I can look for job in other companies.
Slowly, I started looking for new jobs and applied for few companies. At the same time the news of that incident and our company’s loss was all over in the media. When I applied for new jobs, seeing my previous company and customer, they found that I was dismissed due to that issue and no one was ready to hire me.
Two months passed and I am jobless at home. We started feeling heat of the repaying the loans and our savings started to decrease.
One day my wife suggested that she will go to work and will support the family until I get a good job. Though I was feeling guilty about being jobless and sending my wife for work. I had no other option and I accepted her proposal. She applied for jobs in Naukri and attended few interviews. Finally, she got selected in one of the MNC companies for a monthly salary of 50 K.
We both were very happy that day and had a nice dinner in a restaurant. We decided to forget the past and plan for my future. She told me to take some time and decide what to do next.
Today is her first day of work and she is getting ready for to office. I slept till 8 and she was scolding me to help her in getting the joining documents ready.
When she left for work by 9 AM, she had prepared breakfast and lunch for me and asked me to get rest and take care.
Though I am happy for my wife as she restarted her career, I felt worried about my uncertain career and how long I’m going to stay jobless.
Two months passed since my wife Aruna started her work. She now works as a team leader and she got adjusted to the new company, her team, and her bosses. Since her customer is in the UK, her work time is from 12 PM to 9 PM. She even works over the weekend or at home, if there any issues. It’s common in IT and I didn’t see any issues. Aruna is a dedicated worker and she enjoys her job.
On the other hand, my life started boring as my daily routine is eating, sleeping, and watching TV. I applied for different jobs and waited for interview calls. Since I don’t have any new or demanding skills in my resume, I didn’t get many calls, and over time I didn’t get any response.
I thought of an idea to start my own start-up software company. I explained my idea to my wife and she suggested talking to my friends and get some funds to start, as we don’t have enough money to invest. I tried speaking to my best friends, but I couldn’t get their buy-in or most of them didn’t respond.
Slowly all these issues started to hit our love life. Earlier we did love at least weekly thrice but recently there is a big gap between us. Apart from the office work, she had to do all the house works like cooking, shopping, dishwashing, etc.
Aruna used to manage all these since I was busy searching for jobs and planning for a new start-up. Because of all these works, she becomes very tired and she falls asleep quickly in the night and even when I try to start some romance, she started avoiding me.
Even though Aruna tried to manage, her frustration started slowly and she sometimes shows her anger in her work or while speaking to me. Now that I have become freer her frustration started to creep.
I have always felt household works are only for girls and my mom never allowed me to do any house works or never allowed me to cook. With the same attitude, I convinced my wife to be a housewife after our marriage.
One day my wife had a big argument and fight with me on helping her in the kitchen. She started showing all her anger to me and I had no way to defend my laziness.
She didn’t cook that day and went to the office and didn’t speak to me. After a lot of thought, I called her and apologized. I told her that we will find a housemaid to take the load from her. I promised her that I’m doing courses and very soon I will get a good job.
Finally, she got convinced and agreed to get a housemaid. We checked in our apartment and finally appointed one housemaid Kamala to take care of the house works. Kamala is a middle-aged woman with a kid.
Things slowly got settled and my wife is happy. But I know it’s just a temporary solution and I need to get into a job quickly to avoid any further issues between us.
Two months later, things now started to settle with my wife concentrating on her job and house works are taken care by Kamala. I’m doing some courses and hoping to get a job very soon and get my pride back.
I always thought Aruna as a kind and soft person. But when I see the way she talks to her team in calls. I’ve seen another face of Aruna of a very strict Manager. I was not sure if it was her nature always or our recent family issues made her to behave so strong.
I was surprised when her team members call her as ‘Madam’ or ‘Ji’. My wife didn’t ask them to call her by name. When I jovially asked her about that, she said, ‘if she is more strict and dominant to her team, it will help her to get the work from them properly’ and also she likes it when people give her more respect.
One day my wife told that hereafter she will go to office in her colleague Surya’s bike. Surya lives in a nearby apartment and works as a TL in her office. When she realized my face expression got changed after hearing the name Surya. She said, “Don’t get shocked dear, Surya is a short name of Suryakala, my colleague and friend. It’s easy to go in bike in this traffic than office cab”.
Next day we both waited outside our apartment for Surya. Suddenly a bike raced in front of us and stopped with a wheeling. When I was about to shout on that person, the person opened the helmet and Aruna shouted Surya!! OMG!! She was completely opposite from the picture I had in my mind. I was expecting a young girl with Salwar or tops riding a scooty. But in reality, She rode a race bike and wearing a tight black skinny jeans and a black tight T-Shirt.
She had a perfect figure and had a nice golden blonde hair with curls only till her shoulder. She is fair colour with a bright red matte lipstick. She also had a tattoo in her arms. When she gave a handshake, I could feel she is well built with good muscles. She must be going to the gym regularly.
My wife introduced her to me as her friend and after a small chat, they both left to the office in their bike.
Even though I like traditional girls, Surya’s image stuck in my eyes and I was attracted by her structure and her figure hugging dress.
I was worrying that Surya’s attitude should not have an influence on Aruna. That night I had a dream of Aruna in a tight jeans and T-Shirt with a coolers, with a boy cut racing a sports bike and I’m sitting in the back seat holding her hips. I didn’t even realized that the dream had a huge wet spot in my underwear.
Slowly It has become a routine that Aruna goes to office with Surya daily in her bike. Aruna and Surya became good friends as well. Few times Surya visited our home while dropping Aruna. Surya will refer my wife as “Babe” or “Darling” and sometimes Aruna also refers to her as “Babe”. I have always noticed Surya wearing only skinny Jeans and T-Shirt and she had a small stud in One ear like a tomboy.
Aruna told that Surya is born and brought up in the US and now her family moved to India and she is staying alone in her own apartment. Now it made sense about Surya’s dressing and her attitude.
In few weeks, I completed my course and applied for few interviews. The course cost around 1 lakh. My wife Initially didn’t agree to spend a huge amount. Finally, after few days of convincing her, she agreed and gave the amount.
Slowly my wife started managing our bank accounts. She manages all the shopping and EMI herself. Once I asked her about monthly expenses and she told that she don’t need to give all details to me and in a harsh tone, she asked me to get a job soon and do justice for the 1 lakh. Until then she will control the financial stuff herself and got the access to my net banking and my debit card.
Slowly I was losing my control over the family and these days when I asked for money, she used to ask lot of questions before giving the money. I was hoping that I’ll definitely get the job quickly and will stop my wife’s domination.