THE REALITY GAP

Can I ask you something?

Have you ever finished telling someone about an argument with your husband...

and then caught yourself defending him?

You started by saying,

“He shouted at me.”

But before you finished the story...

you added,

“He's just stressed.”

Or,

“He's actually a really good man.”

Or,

“He didn't mean it.”

Have you noticed what happened?

You stopped describing what happened.

You started explaining it away.

That doesn't make you weak.

It makes you human.

And it's something I've seen in hundreds of conversations with women.

A woman once looked at me and said,

“I know something feels wrong...

but I can't explain why.”

I asked her one question.

“If your sister told you this exact same story...

what would you tell her?”

She laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because the answer came so quickly.

“I'd tell her she's being treated badly.”

Then she looked at me and quietly asked,

“So why can't I say that about myself?”

That question has stayed with me.

Because I've heard it in different forms from women across India, Dubai, London, Toronto and Singapore.

Different cities.

Different families.

Different marriages.

The same confusion.

After years of listening to women tell me their stories...

I realised something.

Almost nobody questioned what had happened.

They questioned themselves.

Instead of saying,

“That wasn't okay.”

they'd say,

“Maybe I'm too sensitive.”

Instead of saying,

“I felt humiliated.”

they'd say,

“Maybe I misunderstood.”

Instead of saying,

“I don't feel respected.”

they'd say,

“Maybe I expect too much.”

That was the moment I realised...

the problem wasn't that they couldn't see reality.

The problem was that they'd stopped trusting themselves to interpret it.

That's what I call...

The Reality Gap.

The Reality Gap rarely appears overnight.

It grows quietly.

One explanation at a time.

One excuse at a time.

One compromise at a time.

Until one day...

your reality sounds more like someone else's version of events than your own.

Many of the women I speak to aren't just carrying the weight of a difficult marriage.

They're carrying the expectations of two families.

They hear things like:

“Adjust.”

“Marriage takes work.”

“Every husband gets angry.”

“Don't answer back.”

“Think about the children.”

“His mother is old.”

“Things will get better after the baby.”

Sometimes those people genuinely mean well.

Sometimes they're right.

Sometimes they're not.

But when everyone else's voice becomes louder than your own...

you slowly stop trusting yourself.

That's how the gap gets wider.

One woman spent almost forty minutes explaining why her husband wasn't a bad person.

Then she quietly said,

“I haven't smiled properly in years.”

For forty minutes...

she protected his reputation.

In one sentence...

she finally told me about her own life.

I'll never forget that.

I usually ask one question.

If nobody else had an opinion...

your parents.

your children.

your in-laws.

your friends.

your society.

What would you call this relationship?

Just you.

And the truth.

You don't have to make a decision today.

You don't even have to know what comes next.

But before you ask everyone else what they think...

ask yourself something much simpler.

“What do I already know?”

Not what you hope.

Not what you fear.

What you know.

When you stop trusting your own reality...

you start living inside someone else's.

If you were sitting across from me today...

I wouldn't ask you whether your husband is a good man.

I wouldn't ask you whether he loves you.

I'd ask you something much simpler.

When was the last time you trusted your own experience without immediately explaining it away?

Because clarity doesn't begin when someone else gives you permission.

It begins the moment you stop arguing with what you already know.