Thank you to everyone who has shared your story. I am amazed at the similarities. I am currently dealing with a such a relationship. I have experienced the whole range of emotions described on this forum: intense love and connection, promise and hope for a future, being blindsided by a trip home and he returned “engaged” but not married, feeling sorry for him that he was forced by family and culture, feeling so hurt  that our love did not win out, feeling pissed that a stranger was held in higher status than his true love (who is a really good woman, if I may say), being willing (despite my moral code) to continue the relationship until the marriage was completed, and then being completely devastated when he immediately withdrew his love and attention to be “fair to his future bride” once the date was set.  There are no other words than to say the whole thing was a surreal nightmare, and yet I could not let myself emotionally disconnect from it because “I loved him so”. I have to own that I was an active and willing partner in this tragic tale. But you know what is missing from this discussion? Why do these men think it’s ok to live as hypocrites? They value their parents’ and their culture’s approval and standards. Yet they seek out a relationship with someone who will not be accepted by “them” which most oftentimes is kept a secret. Because they know full well that they are going to be in an arranged marriage someday and they have to maintain a certain image in the family/community. And if they say otherwise, they are either lying or they are in serious denial. So where is their sense of responsibility to the person who they are forming a relationship with and to that person’s well-being/feelings, all while waiting for their arranged marriage? Did they think/know/tell themselves that this relationship was temporary and just for fun? Did they fool themselves into thinking they would not actually fall in love with someone they were so intimately connected? (as in the idea that there are girls you fool around with and then there are girls you marry?) It is as if they had to know on some level that we were all only “placeholders” until the real marriage occurred. How does this make sense to them? I would love to know what happens to these guys, who had experienced the freedom of loving someone of their choosing and now marrying a stranger. Do they conform and eventually develop love for them, do they continue to live double lives, are they happy or miserable? I wish I had some insight as to how their story ends. For us, I know we will eventually learn and grow from this painful experience. We will move on and be okay, maybe not today, but someday. But who can shed light on how the story works out for them? Will they ever be able to be honest enough with themselves or us to tell?