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As a psychotherapist, Delnna Rrajesh, relationship breakthrough coach, said healthy waiting is not spending years hoping that an unavailable person will eventually choose you, tolerating disrespect or putting your entire life on hold. “It is remaining committed to something meaningful while recognising that certain situations need time, conversations and emotional processing,” expressed Delnna.

Marriage in India is often not experienced purely as two individuals coming together. Families, cultures, languages, traditions and expectations may enter the relationship alongside the couple. “While adults have the right to choose their partners, family resistance can create a painful psychological conflict between individual autonomy and family belonging. There is no single correct response to that conflict. Family approval should never become permission for coercion, control or indefinite interference in an adult’s choices. Equally, when concerns arise from unfamiliarity, fear or differences in background rather than abuse or prejudice, time and respectful dialogue can sometimes accomplish what confrontation cannot. This is where patience and conviction need to coexist,” Delnna told indianexpress.com.

Suriya and Jyotika got married in 2006

Another relationship lesson deserves attention: commitment is easier to declare than to demonstrate.

It is relatively easy to say, “I love you” during the emotionally intense beginning of a relationship. “Commitment becomes visible when circumstances are inconvenient – when there is uncertainty, disagreement, distance, career pressure, family complexity or delayed gratification.


Waiting itself does not prove love. But the ability of two people to remain respectful, consistent and aligned while navigating difficulty can reveal something about the relationship’s foundations,” shared Delnna.

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Four years can also change people considerably. “This is why time, when used well, can provide information that chemistry cannot. You see how someone handles frustration. Whether promises and actions match. How they respond when they cannot immediately get what they want. Whether disagreements produce manipulation or conversation. Whether both people continue choosing the relationship after the initial intensity settles.

Time does not automatically make a relationship stronger. It reveals what the relationship is made of,” Delnna described.

There is also a valuable distinction between fighting for a relationship and fighting inside a relationship. “Couples facing external resistance sometimes become so consumed with proving everyone wrong that the opposition itself holds them together. Once that battle disappears, they discover they never sufficiently examined whether they were compatible. Therefore, waiting should also contain honest questions: Do we share fundamental values? Can we communicate during conflict? What are our expectations around careers, finances, children, caregiving and extended families? Are we building a life together, or merely defending a love story? And perhaps this is where the story becomes particularly relevant to younger couples,” said Delnna.