met a man who was also going through his second divorce they liked each others company and opted for a livein relationship for two years because they wanted to tread carefully before making yet another mistake only when they were completely sure they signed on the dotted line they now have a sonbut these are still the exceptions in a society where holy matrimony is an obsessive national pastime even today people do not jump out unless there is a compelling reason to do so shaifali sandhya a couples and family therapist in chicago says that even though rising divorce shows us that marriage is becoming a reversible decision for many still more than 95 per cent of young indians hope that they will get married for life when delhibased ritu sharma name changed walked out on her second husband she says it was a traumatic decision letting go of a relationship as sacred as marriage is not easy she says i feel we end up attracting the same kind of partner over and over again but ive been through extensive therapy and have hopefully broken the cycle sharma adds speaking of her current livein partner whom she hopes to marrybut some marriage counsellors feel that there is something more deeply dysfunctional about a person who gets repeatedly divorced and that does need to be explored the majority of people who divorce for the third time have some kind of problem either a personality disorder a substance abuse issue a violent streak a criminal record etc says rajan bhonsle a marriage counsellor in mumbai or they are just not ready for marriage even the third time round perhaps theyre immature or unable to understand the responsibilities involved a marriage is more likely to break down if one or more of the partners has been married multiple times except if there have been unusual circumstances in the previous relationships adds bhonsle their very idea of marriage may be unhealthy they often blame their previous spouses and have no insight into their own contribution the root cause of this unhealthy attitude to marriage is often a dysfunctional family upbringing for example growing up seeing a lot of conflict between parents or promiscuity or physical violence in the home sometimes when a child sees these things something deep inside is disturbed as sandhya also points out when marriage shoppers seek weddings as curative solutions to relational issues they might find that past relationship patterns catch up in their desperation to find future love but that is not the rule and there are a growing number of people who prefer to believe like liz taylor and other cats that you can actually reinvent nine lives in the same lifetimeinputs from radha sharma shikha mishra sudeshna chatterjee and rachel rickard straus follow us on twitter for more stories