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Traffic, social media trigger infidelity

Successful banker Tania, played by actress Dian Sastrowardoyo, and her movie director husband Tio, played by Lukman Sardi, spend most of their time at work on weekdays and rely on texts and phone calls to communicate

Sita W. Dewi (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, December 6, 2014 Published on Dec. 6, 2014 Published on 2014-12-06T11:48:16+07:00

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uccessful banker Tania, played by actress Dian Sastrowardoyo, and her movie director husband Tio, played by Lukman Sardi, spend most of their time at work on weekdays and rely on texts and phone calls to communicate.

One day Tio passes out in the middle of shooting a movie and is hospitalized with hepatitis A. After juggling caring for their only daughter, her husband and work, Tania cannot take it anymore and eventually she collapses. The couple share a hospital room for a full week and, during that precious time, reinvent their relationship and find out that even after five years of marriage, there are a lot of things they do not know about each other.

The story of Tania and Tio, which was nicely told through a fast-paced plot and witty dialogue in the movie, 7/24 '€” released recently '€” reflects today'€™s typical story of married couples living in a metropolitan city like Jakarta.

'€œEven when you love someone, you can'€™t avoid saying bad things to your spouse when you'€™re upset,'€ Rahma, 26, a working mother, said when asked what were the typical challenges urban couples usually faced.

For married couples, surviving Jakarta while keeping their marriage fresh and alive is a challenging test that some might fail to pass.

Family psychologist Anna Surti Ariani pointed out that a recent trend had shown that infidelity topped the list of problems causing urban couples living in Greater Jakarta to seek consultation.

Many attribute this to the capital'€™s frustrating traffic congestion.

'€œTraffic jams force these urban couples to stay longer at the office and come home late to avoid the traffic and, thus, become inevitably closer to their colleagues,'€ she told The Jakarta Post.

Anna added that growing social media networks had opened doors for urban couples to find new people from new communities, or even to reunite with those from the past.

'€œWith everyone owning smartphones and social media accounts, it is now easier to meet with new people, new communities or even long-lost friends from the past. This way, they can also easily meet with people who share the same hobby or passion. Social media also allows them to follow other people'€™s daily lives. The doors are wide open,'€ she said, emphasizing, '€œit is not the traffic that inspires them to cheat on their spouses, but the opportunity that comes alongside it. And with that, most couples are inevitably growing apart.'€

Anna said she would usually dig deeper into the relationships of her clients to find the root of the problem.

'€œWhen there is opportunity combined with intention, then so be it. But if there is opportunity without intention, [the betrayal] won'€™t happen.

'€œI find many married couples who come to me ran into marriage problems because they did not know what they were going into before they tied the knot. They thought they were ready but they were not,'€ she said, adding that her clients included both career couples and working husband-stay-at-home wife couples.

The experience has encouraged Anna to provide necessary miscellaneous information on marriage and to disseminate it through social media, namely Twitter account
@twitpranikah, which is followed by nearly 6,000 Twitter users, and the website pranikah.org.

'€œI established and am managing it with others out of concern about this phenomenon,'€ she said.

Anna also highlighted the key to maintaining communication between couples and, in the end, their marriages.

'€œThere are three '€˜times'€™ that we should ensure we have: me time, family time and couple time. The family time here refers to the nuclear family, while the couple time can be between spouses, mom and first child, mom and second child, or dad and first child, or dad and second child, and so on. Married couples should ensure that they can manage these times and keep them in balance to nurture their marriage,'€ she said.

After watching the movie 7/24, Rahma concluded the key to maintain a marriage was; '€œForget about the ideals because when you care too much about it, you will always feel inadequate.'€

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