Is the most sacred of the knots getting undone? Well, it might not be the end of the road for marriages, but more and more married but unhappy ones in the City are plunging into relationships outside their marriage.

Take the case of 26-year-old Ritu Sharma whose arranged marriage turned out to be an unmitigated
disaster. Incompatibility between the couple led Ritu to look for love outside her married life. She has
chosen to stay in her marriage because of her five-year-old son.

Ritu says her companionship, that's what she likes to call it, with the `other’ man has sustained her marriage. “This relationship has given me the strength to continue in my trouble-ridden marriage. There are things you can't share with your husband. After a few years, married life stagnates. What's wrong in getting close with a like-minded person?" she asks.

Ritu is like the typical working woman who juggles her life between home and work and also  balances the two relationships very well.

Couples involved in extramarital relationships don't take a chance to come out into the open because their marriage, however troubled it may be, still is sacred. The couples make sure they don't drag their respective families into the scene at all.

Mini Mathew caught her husband red-handed with another woman. Married for just six months,  her husband had assured her that the relationship he shared with his girlfriend before their marriage was over but it was not. 
Those like Mini either opt out of their marriage or gather wits to live with the one who cheated on them. Mini chose the latter and says she loves her husband too much to give him up.

Not only couples, bachelors get involved with married women and spinsters with married men. Ravi Kiran got into a relationship with a married woman all by chance. He says he doesn't regret getting involved and wants to carry it off.

Reesha Kapoor was widowed when she was still young. She soon got involved with another man
who claimed he was in an unhappy marriage. They found solace and love in each other but things started going wrong as issues relating to his family started rearing its head between them. Reesha only ended
up calling extramarital relationships an ‘unwanted deviation’.

(Names have been changed on request)