Dear Amrutha:

In your last note you asked: “Is it really easy to be that brave?” My answer: no, it is not easy.

But to “wake up with this anxiety and fear every single day since almost a year… lying and being in fear” is not easy either.

And then, marrying a man because of guilt and pressure and fear and living with him for the rest of your life, wondering how it could have been otherwise… that will not be easy either.

I suggest that you focus on what you value: it is love that you value, correct? Love for your parents, love for your boyfriend… you even value the loving part of your ex boyfriend. You value love.

And because you love your parents you want to please them. You fear losing them if you displease them. Let’s think about it a bit more. When you love a person who doesn’t love you back, who is hurting you, should you keep loving them, keep trying to please them?

Your parents have led you to “this anxiety and fear every single day” and are pressuring you to live for the rest of your life in a way that is against your well-being simply because it pleases them.

Is that love?

Will you pressure your parents to do what causes them fear, and keep pressuring them for a lifetime of fear and misery? Would you do that to the people you love?

This is the painful truth that I know from personal experience: as children, young or adult, we cannot imagine our parents do not love us, impossible, we think, not conceivable. We can’t conceive of it because we love them so much.

Often, too often unfortunately, this love is not mutual. And so, we as adult children keep reaching out, keep trying to please, fearing losing the people who.. do not love us, who do not value us, who are hurting us.

Is it easy to be courageous this way, that is, not marrying your ex, not marrying who your parents choose for you, risking their absolute rejection?

No, it is not easy, not at all. But living under their control for the rest of your life, that would be not only difficult, but you will be hurting yourself immensely, and your future children will be hurt growing up with a mother who is anxious, depressed, angry, regretful.

anita