Hi Anita,

Sure, please take your time.

Your suggestion for dealing with jealousy is very helpful – I will implement it.

“Your mother had a good point there, a valid concern. From what you shared about your boyfriend though, he reads like a gentle.. non-dangerous guy at all, so you were not in danger with him.” – Yes, you are right. It took me a while to trust him after all that my mother said but he is a wonderful person all in all. I get that question and if I be honest with myself, maybe I did start this relationship when I was in a vulnerable state. I knew he was a great person, we had similar career aspirations and goals in life and I wanted to give it a shot.

“For example, a child may have gentle, fair and loving parents, but if the parents are often anxious, worried about things, and the child notices it..  their anxiety naturally passes on to the child.” – When I think about it, my mom was anxious and worried quite often. My father was not a great husband initially but they worked on them and are in a much better place now. I remember my mom telling me many times that she lived in fear, and never had the courage to speak up and voice her concerns or opinions out. Though my dad is a great person and supported my mom in many other ways, if my mom spoke out in a social situation, my dad always used to criticize her after coming back home that she shouldn’t have said that and should have said something else, dealing with the situation differently, etc. It took me a few years to understand it is a vicious cycle – whatever my mom says, my dad will criticize her and tell her she should have done something else but in fact, if my dad was in the same situation maybe he would have done the same. He hates her cooking. He is always dissatisfied with whatever she cooks. Yes, their tastes are and food preferences are a little different but even if my mom cooks specially for my dad following his instructions, he will never be satisfied. Every day while eating food, he would criticize my mom for making food the way she made it. I grew tired of it and told my dad to cook for himself and slowly he started doing that a little bit.

I realized this because this happened to me a lot too. Whatever I did or spoke – my dad would tell me I did something wrong and would give me feedback. Initially, I thought I was a kid and I didn’t know how to deal with situations – my dad was being hard on me but this is how I would learn but after years and years I realized my dad would never ever be satisfied with whatever I say or do – Imagine my mom living with that for 26 years! It is bound to make her constantly doubt if she saying the right thing, or doing the right thing, and feel anxious. She was a very strong, intelligent, and hard-working woman but she always felt very underconfident. She is a teacher, she has always been very career driven and I have not seen anyone who used their time as productively as her daily.  She used to be a teacher in the same school I know that our management was also not very great – she worked at that place for a lot of years and I know now they were very toxic and she used to scared to even ask for a leave.

“no, it’s not too much to ask, and it’s in your rights to ask for this. Therefore, before you consider marrying a man, get to know his feelings about both families being part of the marriage, and if the two of you have a meeting of the minds, get the families together so that everyone can get to know each other.” – I have a feeling this will not turn out well. My boyfriend’s dad, in his words, has not been a great father since his childhood. He did not work hard and did not proactively provide for the family – it was his mom was the major breadwinner and even he had to take the responsibility at a comparatively younger age – during his bachelor’s. My boyfriend was very angry at his father and used to hate his father years back but he later came to peace with it and now they talk normally. But his father is not very vocal nor very involved in my boyfriend’s life and I’m afraid my parents won’t be able to bond well with them. I don’t think they can accept that. When I gently had a conversation about this with my boyfriend – he told me though he might not have a great dad, his cousins, and their parents have been of great support to him and they are close, and that my parents will have them. But I am not convinced about this somehow. I am not sure how that will work out.