RIDE ALONG WITH EVERYONE, TRUST NO ONE: A SURVIVAL SCRIPT MASQUERADING AS MARRIAGE
- Madhukar Dama
- May 21
- 7 min read
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INTRODUCTION: THE FACE OF COMPLIANCE, THE CORE OF CALCULATION
She smiles.
She nods.
She attends every family event.
She cooks. She dresses up. She touches feet.
She even laughs at jokes she doesn’t find funny.
But behind her perfect wife-daughter-in-law-mother mask lies one mantra:
“Ride along with everyone. Trust no one.”
This is not instinct.
This is survival conditioning passed from one woman to another.
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WHERE IT COMES FROM
Raised in households where obedience was praised, but pain was constant
Watched mothers serve husbands who belittled them
Taught to adjust, absorb, outlast, but never confront
Seen dowry, property fights, gossip, emotional abandonment
Understood early that being liked matters more than being safe
So she learned to navigate everyone —
but never depend on anyone.
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THE SIGNS OF THIS BEHAVIOUR
1. She’s always polite but never personal.
She will talk to you for hours, but you’ll know nothing about her real thoughts.
2. She’ll take part in everything, but trust no one with her vulnerability.
Not even her husband.
3. She remembers every insult but never raises it.
She stores them like files, ready when needed.
4. She shows loyalty in actions, but rarely in emotion.
She’ll do everything required—but out of duty, not trust.
5. She teaches her children the same pattern:
> “Don’t say everything to anyone. Not even to me.”
Even the mother-child bond becomes strategic.
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HOW IT AFFECTS HER FAMILY
The husband thinks she’s with him — until he realizes she’s just playing safe.
The children feel protected but never truly connected.
The in-laws praise her manners but doubt her silence.
Everyone feels slightly watched around her.
Because she’s always present—but never invested.
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WHY THIS IS DANGEROUS
It breeds emotional loneliness inside her.
It creates false intimacy in the household.
It destroys generational trust, especially with daughters.
It replaces relationship with role-play.
And worst of all, it ensures she can never receive real love—because she never risks believing in it.
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THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH
This isn’t evil.
This is inherited self-protection in a culture that gave women duties, but no safety.
So she became what the world demanded:
Appear agreeable
Never be dependent
Have backup plans
Smile through betrayal
Let no one in
But behind the fortress of courtesy lives a woman who is utterly exhausted of navigating people like politics.
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HEALING STARTS ONLY WHEN…
She names this behavior, without shame
She stops pretending to like everyone
She risks trusting one person fully—and watches what happens
She speaks honestly even if it shakes her image
She stops teaching her daughters to play safe and starts teaching them to be real
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THE RIDE ALONG WITH EVERYONE WIFE
(a long life in the same house with no room inside for her)
---
she cooks like she loves.
carefully, blandly, without salt.
she smiles like a government employee.
tight-lipped.
paper-pushing love across the table
while noting who didn’t thank her for the sambar.
---
she’s at every wedding.
every funeral.
every birth.
she applies turmeric on the bride.
bends near the corpse.
hugs the mother of the newborn.
but not once
does she drop her guard.
---
inside her—
a metal safe with no key.
she keeps everything in there:
her insult from 1998,
her suspicion from last summer,
her distrust of her husband’s WhatsApp habits,
her belief that nobody—not even her child—deserves
complete access.
---
she rides along with everyone.
laughs when expected.
serves tea like routine.
remembers allergies.
but never lets you in.
never tells you
what she thinks when the lights go out.
or who she really hates in the family photos.
---
her husband thinks she loves him.
he confuses duty for depth.
he confuses politeness for partnership.
he sleeps next to her every night
and still doesn’t know
who she wanted to be
before they stitched “wife” onto her soul.
---
she tells her daughter:
> “Never share everything. Keep one eye open.”
“Don’t trust in-laws, husbands, even me fully.”
because trust
is how her mother got eaten.
and now, she’d rather be a ghost at the table
than a body on the floor.
---
you ask her,
> “why don’t you relax?”
“why don’t you open up?”
“don’t you want peace?”
she answers with silence.
because she knows
you don’t really want her truth.
you just want your idea of her
to keep behaving.
---
she is not cold.
she is not cruel.
she is not broken.
she is fortified.
you turned her into this.
you gave her no room to be soft
without being stepped on.
you praised her sacrifices
while measuring her obedience.
---
and now—
she is the perfect wife
in the wrong movie.
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she’ll ride along
at every function
every school meeting
every health crisis
every Sunday dinner
every temple visit
every marriage counseling session
every property negotiation
every death.
she’ll nod.
smile.
serve.
cook.
agree.
submit.
but she’ll never
fucking
belong.
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and one day—
when her husband dies,
her children leave,
her breasts sag,
her kitchen gets dusty,
and her silence becomes louder than the TV—
you’ll find her sitting alone,
drinking buttermilk
with nobody left to distrust.
still alert.
still armored.
still ready for war
in a world that never made peace with her.
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HEALING DIALOGUE
THE WIFE WHO TRUSTED NO ONE
A family visit to Madhukar's forest home — with the wife, her husband, her mother-in-law, her teenage daughter, and their soft silences stretched over years of survival.
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Setting:
The sun is warm but not harsh. Birds hop between shadows. The forest smells like old wood and new breath.
Madhukar sits under the neem tree. The family arrives, tired but polite. The wife, Sarita, walks two steps behind everyone, carrying the water bottle, the tissues, the invisible weight.
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Madhukar:
Come. Sit.
Your face says more than your family ever hears.
Sarita:
(Smiles tightly)
I’m fine, really. I’m just tired.
Madhukar:
Tired is the new silent word for unfinished grief.
Who do you not trust here?
Sarita:
(Glances sideways)
I trust everyone. I mean... I manage. That’s enough, no?
---
Daughter (Ananya, 16):
Amma never tells anything.
She’ll do everything, but won’t talk.
Husband (Ravi):
She’s always calm. Silent. Good with everyone.
We never had major fights.
Madhukar:
No fights is not peace.
It’s often silence wearing bruises under long sleeves.
---
Mother-in-law (Savitri):
She’s a very good daughter-in-law.
Never answered back. Never said no.
Sarita (softly):
Yes. That’s why I’m here now. To find out why I’m still so... numb.
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Madhukar:
You’re not numb. You’re guarded.
You’re not cold. You’re alert.
You’re not uncaring. You’re exhausted.
You learned long ago that people don’t protect you.
So you became the protector.
Of your own silence.
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Sarita:
(Silent for a long moment)
I started watching everyone the day my wedding was fixed.
Who said what. Who smiled falsely. Who kept count.
I stopped believing anyone meant their words.
So I just did my role. Quietly. Carefully.
Madhukar:
That is not a life.
That is disguised survival.
---
Ravi:
But I never shouted at her. I never raised my hand.
Why wouldn’t she trust me?
Madhukar:
Because trust is not given for silence.
It is built through felt safety.
You never hurt her — but did you ever ask:
> “Are you happy?”
“Do you feel seen?”
“Is this the life you want?”
---
Ananya:
She watches everything I say.
Sometimes I feel like I’m being trained to be like her.
Safe. Smart. But closed.
Sarita (turns to her gently):
I was trying to protect you.
From what I went through.
Ananya:
But Amma, now I don’t know what real love even looks like.
---
Madhukar:
And that’s the danger.
The ride-along-with-everyone behavior—
it teaches your children that guarded is normal.
That warmth is dangerous.
That silence is strength.
You didn’t just lose your trust.
You made everyone around you doubt theirs.
---
Savitri:
But we were raised like that too.
We were taught to adjust, manage, not react.
Madhukar:
Yes.
You all became experts in tolerance.
But illiterate in intimacy.
---
Sarita (voice cracking):
I don’t want to die respected by everyone
but known by no one.
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Madhukar (gently):
Then begin now.
Start with:
> “I’m afraid.”
“I don’t know how to trust.”
“I feel like a guest in my own home.”
Say it not to accuse,
but to risk being seen.
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Ravi (sincerely):
I don’t want a loyal wife.
I want a living, breathing, angry, honest human beside me.
Sarita (whispers):
I’m scared that if I show everything… no one will stay.
Madhukar:
Let them leave.
It’s better to lose people than to lose your voice.
Only the real ones will remain.
And when they do—
you’ll finally be with someone, not just near them.
---
Ananya:
Amma… I want to know you.
Not just the woman who packs my lunch.
The one who hides tears behind recipe books.
Sarita (quietly cries):
I don’t remember the last time I was held... not handled.
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Madhukar:
You are not here to serve everyone and be seen by no one.
Break the performance.
Show your tiredness.
Let your softness speak.
That is how trust returns—
not with vows,
but with shared vulnerability.
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(The forest sits still. Sarita breathes out for the first time in years. Her family doesn’t look away. No one speaks. That, finally, is trust.)
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