Regret is the cross that we have to bear, those of us who are married to people with antagonistic personalities. For forty-two years, I watched the destruction I reaped by my selfish insistence on marrying the man of my dreams, even though red flags appeared early on. I did not recognize them at the time for what they were. Love is blind. I so badly wanted a husband--I was thirty years old, had never been married, and I was desperately needy for the embrace of a loving man. My ten-year-old son, who had never known his father, was open to the idea of me getting married. He thought having a dad would be fun.
I did not expect or even imagine what awaited me, nor did I anticipate what was in store for my son.
Before we were married, the man I had a girlish crush on told me that if I were to become his wife, I would have to 'toe the mark.' I was shocked for a moment that a reasoning, conscious human being would say something so odd to the woman who was about to surrender her very life to assisting him in his service to the Lord. I questioned my own hearing, then because it continued to haunt me, I tried to bury it under excuses. Oh, that's just his male ego. Or, maybe he had a rough childhood. Or, I probably heard him wrong. Okay so, I'll just let this pass, and maybe his weird attitude will go away.
Even before that, when a mutual friend had ventured to ask him how he would feel about marrying a woman who already had a child, he had expressed concern, because it was not the 'ideal' scenario. I had already been touched by another man. That was apparently unbearable for him to contemplate. And that stranger's son, that enemy's son, would be constantly present to remind him that his wife was not the innocent virgin girl of his dreams. Never mind the fact that he himself had polluted dozens of innocent virgin girls in his youth, and had sired at least one son whom he had never acknowledged or met. That was inconsequential. What he cared about more was his image as the ideal husband of an ideal wife.
He was the founder of the Fullerton Hare Krishna Temple, as it came to be known to me. A small house on a busy street in Fullerton, California where hundreds of people would kick off their shoes at the door and come inside for delicious Sunday Feasts, soul-stirring kirtans, relishable darshans of Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai, scintillating lectures by His Grace Haripada dasa, and big jars of homemade ghee for a nominal price. Haripada had started a business of making and selling gallon-sized and quart-sized bottles of golden clarified butter for his congregation members, and his little business was doing well.
His mostly Gujarati congregation members were in love with him. He would perform moondan and annaprashan ceremonies for their babies, officiate weddings, entertain their children with field trips, swims in the ocean and homemade ice cream, visit their homes for enlivening kirtans, inspiring katha and krsna prasadam. He was the darling of their hearts, their savior who had brought them back to their own culture, to the Gita, Ramayana and Mahabharata of their forefathers with his homemade gulabjamuns and paneer tikka.
After forty-two years together, I recall many sweet, happy memories. I also cannot forget the abuses that were perpetrated behind the closed doors of Fullerton Temple after the crowds had gone home, the harsh words that were spoken behind closed doors at our house in Rough 'n' Ready, the cruelties that my kids and I endured behind closed doors of our beautiful house in Prabhupada Village, and the soul-killing mistreatment I suffered at our house in Udupi. In public, he was mostly delightful to be around. Mostly. But in private, he often morphed into a monster. It wasn't until the Covid lockdown took place in India that I learned what was wrong. One evening after tolerating my maximum dose of domestic abuse that I could bear, he went to bed and I stayed up watching YouTube videos about narcissism. The word 'narcissism' had come into my mind in the form of a hint, so I took it seriously, typed the word narcissism in the YouTube Search Bar, and was both thrilled and shocked by the plethora of information I gained that night.
In every house we had inhabited over the years, we always made it our family tradition to invite people for meals, and sometimes for overnight stays. In every home in which we had lived, there was a different personality emanating from the body of my spouse before and after the guests came and went. As different as Mr Hyde was to Dr Jekyll.
Knowing now what I know about narcissism, I understand how he was able to put me and both of my sons through vitriolic verbal tirades, humiliating emotional trauma and incessant gaslighting before the guests came and after everyone had left. He inflicted permanent psychological damage on all of us. And the criticism. So many, many times I have heard my husband criticize others. He would criticize both devotees and other innocent souls. Blaspheming others is an extremely dangerous habit. Because Krsna is in everyone's heart, He hears what is spoken, and such words are painful to Him. Krsna sends such vitriol back to the person who spewed it from his mouth by taking away the blasphemer's intelligence. What goes around comes around."Wherever there is blasphemy of Vaisnavas, even in holy places, that place and the blasphemers will be destroyed. If there is blasphemy in the assembly of sannyasis, then such a gathering is worse than a den of drunkards. A drunkard can be delivered in the course of time, but there is no salvation for those who criticize a Vaisnava. Even after having studied the scriptures, such a blasphemer's intelligence will be ruined.” (Sri Nityananda Caritamrta p 84)