When I married you, I loved you

Yesterday Newsday exclusively published the first part of the transcript of the conversation. Among several questions, Chandra asked Vijay whether he saw her as an irritant in his life, whether marrying her was wrong, whether love was conditional, whether he was contemplating a relationship with another woman and was he willing to let the five years they had together having a child also just disappear.

Today we publish the second and concluding part of the transcript of the conversation. In this segment Chandra tells Vijay that when she married him she loved him and wanted to be with him sharing caring growth and companionship.

Part One yesterday ended with her asking Vijay:

CHANDRA: You stated quite clearly your desire for her (their daughter Anamika) to be with you. What about your desire for me to be with you.

Now read on:

VIJAY: You see we were talking then about conditions under which I was going to see Anamika. I remember the short time I was up there, you had a clear position about whether she could stay with me and where she could go. You were determining that she could go with me or can’t go with me and that kind of thing, and she should be with me or shouldn’t be with me.

CHANDRA: Do you feel that I have tried to discourage her being with you?

VIJAY: No, no, no. It is a simple matter here, which is that you are clearly making the decisions and where I deal with the reality of that.

CHANDRA: You are not intervening to help me. You are leaving it up to me to make the decisions. You are not asking me anything. You have not been asking me anything.

VIJAY: I have asked you if you and Anamika are living up there, to come and spend some time with me a week or two, every year and every summer.

CHANDRA: No, no, no. You are pre-supposing that you don’t want us living together.

VIJAY: We discussed the issue and you said you don’t want her coming here.

CHANDRA: I am asking you something else.

VIJAY: We had discussed this. You did not want her coming here.

CHANDRA: Vijay, we are not discussing that. I am asking you, okay, so I made a decision, for whatever reason, I must leave the house. You never once asked me, are you thinking of coming back? You want to come back? Would it mean anything for you to come back to be with me? You never asked me anything about anything. Is like you are letting me go along and make my decisions and then you are telling me, ‘oh, I am going along and making my decision independently.’ You washed your hands, you did this throughout the marriage. You have washed your hands of any decision making. And, when I make the decision, I made this wrong decision, or I should have made that decision, and that I did things on my own.

You have a say, your input, it has a bearing on my being with you, it has a bearing on the three of us being together, it has a bearing in every possible way. I want your input. I want you to ask me, I want to know, I want to know what is important to you. I don’t want you to leave it up to me to decide. I left and I was hoping during this time, that we would have come to some kind of understanding about what we each wanted. I just kind of leave, you never asked me if I was coming back. You never asked me if I was thinking of coming back. When I carry on with life, I leave to do something, like you say, I can’t stick around and mope. There is a lot of pain in me, there is a lot of pain in me. I will not become involved in someone, but I can’t mope around. I am trying to get on with things the best way I can. But when you see that, you get upset.

VIJAY: No, I am not upset.

CHANDRA: You made statements, like oh, you are carrying on with your life. You seem to say that I have made a decision to move on and everything, which is totally erroneous. All these problems are because you don’t have an input, I want you to have an input. I want us to have a communication. I know I am not always right about everything. I need your input too. I need to know we can discuss things and come to an understanding and feel good that we both have done it. You think I feel good when I make a decision and is just me alone? I don’t feel very good about that. Because, when I married you I know I was not alone anymore. But I have to make decisions concerning Anamika and you don’t want to have any part of it whatever. You think I am happy about that? Why do you think I trying to tell you each step, that I think this is the school, to hear if there is any feedback from you. No, that you don’t think this is where she should go. I don’t get anything. And then you tell me I make decisions and I carry on.

VIJAY: It is not true to say I don’t give you feedback. I told you my feeling about University School. I told you my feelings about El Dorado versus St Xavier’s. I don’t have a problem telling you what I think.

CHANDRA: But when you do that, you expect I have to do what you say?

VIJAY: No, I give you my views, it is up to you what you do.

CHANDRA: You say I make my decisions unilaterally.

VIJAY: I gave you my input, for example, taking Anamika to India. Maybe, I should take the position that that was a unilateral decision. I thought I made my position clear.

CHANDRA: Any way, I said I had a few things I wanted to say to you. There are very important things to me, however they are received. It is really up to you. I know I say them with all honesty and sincerity. I want you to know when I married you, I loved you, and this is not a love based on power, or need for subordination, for you to be the way I wanted you to be. It was a love based on giving or sharing, or caring, or friendship, or growth and companionship and accepting you for who you are and for me for who I am.

I want you to know even amidst all the pain and all the hurt that I withstood, that I am not ashamed of those feelings. I have not changed. We discussed earlier about sentiments being conditional. I stand brave and say that my sentiments I have made to you were unconditional, you are my husband, you are the father of my child and you are the man I feel was chosen for me. I also believe very strongly that we have a marriage worthy of emulation. I would even go so far to say that I believe that we can have a marriage of excellence.

Despite the difficulties I had with leaving Trinidad and in our relationship, I have stood loyal and faithful and honest to you. You have told me on several occasions that we are two intelligent and wonderful people and we should be able to solve our problems and our conflicts.

I believe deeply that we do have the resources to do it, and not just do it, but do it well. I also believe and I say this with great serenity, that there are a few women of my depth, of my trust, of my strength and of my wisdom, and I do not say this from a stance of perfection, but from a stance of knowing who I am and knowing that I have a commitment of strength and excellence.

I also know this is the same essence from which you also come. I wish somehow, someway that we could somehow walk ahead together and not be drowned in these present waves of turmoil.

That is all I want to say to you, Vijay and I am very grateful for talking to you today. I have asked very deep things of you, I have discussed very deep things with you. I am very happy we were able to talk. I have to make certain decisions as to what I am going to do. What Anamika and I are going to do, I have to say.

I don’t know if you want to know those decisions or if I just make them about Anamika and myself. I don’t know if you have anything else to say to me.

VIJAY: How is Anamika?

CHANDRA: She is fine, she has been asking about you, and asking about coming back to Trinidad.

VIJAY: What time she normally goes to sleep?

CHANDRA: She sleeps earlier now, she is in bed by 8.30. (Pause). Okay, you take care, bye, bye, bye. (Hangs up phone, conversation ends).