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Indian Express

When love isn't enough: Why I left my ‘perfect' relationship

I walked out of my 'perfect' relationship. While it lasted — all of eight years — it looked like a match made in heaven. He was patient, kind, and loyal. Our relationship was supported and celebrated by our families and friends. But with time, I became aware of the vast gap in our perception of the world, which only grew larger by the day. There was not much drama or conflict, but the truth was undeniable and stark. Break-ups are usually messy, often a result of cheating or dishonesty. There's shouting, tears, blocked numbers, and divided friend groups. At least that's what social media, movies, and even our own fears would have us believe. It's almost as if a relationship can only end for explicit, solid and explosive reasons. But separations need not necessarily be about betrayal, disappointment, and anguish. They can happen when two people, who still love each other, stop moving in the same direction. For me, there was no single, seismic moment that marked the end. It was rather a slow unravelling, and here's how it possibly began. For quite some time, I wanted to have deeper conversations with him that challenged our social conditioning and pushed our boundaries of comfort. I wanted to interrogate the world and my place in it. He chose the comfort of certainty and was content with how things were, and I was not. One day, I asked myself: if this continues, what will I become? At first, it was just a niggling restlessness. Eventually, I understood that I was growing. Not away from him, but into myself. We often confuse love with compatibility, but are they the same? You can love someone deeply and still find yourself fundamentally out of sync. Love is not a guarantee of forever. It is a powerful bond, but it doesn't erase the need for shared growth, intellectual connection, or mutual curiosity about the world. I found myself thinking often about The Way We Were, starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. In one unforgettable scene, Streisand's character Katie says to Redford's Hubbell, 'If I push too hard, it's because I want things to be better.' That line helped me with the realisation: I wasn't trying to break us. I was trying to make us expansive enough to hold everything I was becoming. When that couldn't happen, I chose not to contort myself to fit into that limiting tent. Or take Eat Pray Love, where Julia Roberts' character, Liz, leaves a marriage not because it was terrible, but because it was stifling in its sameness. She says, 'I want to marvel at something.' That desire, to marvel, to stretch, to be wide open to the world, is not a rejection of love, but a reaching toward selfhood. She knew she was built for something different, something wider — that recognition is liberating. Then, there's Tamasha, where Deepika Padukone's character, Tara, falls in love with Ved in Corsica, only to be heartbroken when she realises the man he becomes in his routine life is far different from his inner light, his own self. Even in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Abhay Deol's character, Kabir, begins to confront the emotional weight of fitting into his relationship with Natasha, played by Kalki Koechlin. He has to decide if his own desires fit into her expectations. These are not stories of betrayal or failure. They are stories of truth. And the truth is, we can love someone and still choose ourselves. We can walk away from something that looks whole because we recognise a deeper ailment: one that is not about who the other person is, but who we have become. Relationship dynamics shift as people evolve. And staying in something you know will eventually shrink your spirit is one of the quietest, yet riskiest, things you can do — to yourself, and to the person you love. Because when alignment fades, love can curdle into resentment. And no one deserves that. So, I made the hardest, but perhaps the kindest choice I could. I walked away from my 'perfect' relationship. Our final conversations were quiet and gutting. He asked me if I was sure, and I said I was. He asked if I still loved him. I said yes, but added that I loved myself differently now. I could not shrink my curiosity, ambition, or shifting worldview to make someone else comfortable, even if it was someone I adored. He deserves someone who finds joy in the life he wants, and I deserve a life that reflects the depths of who I am becoming. When I tell people I ended a 'perfect' relationship, their first reaction is confusion. 'But everything was fine,' they say. And they are right. Everything was fine. But 'fine' is a dangerous trap. 'Fine' convinces us that comfort is the same as compatibility. 'Fine' is what keeps people captive in unspoken misery for years, trading depth for predictability. When it comes to growth, it doesn't always follow the same timeline. Sometimes, people evolve in parallel directions. Sometimes they don't. My decision underscores identity and autonomy, and not rebellion. I chose a real life, not one of labels. Shruti Kaushal is a social media sieve and catches'em trends before they grow big, especially cinema. She has been a journalist for 4 years and covers trends, art and culture, and entertainment. ... Read More