Dear Mina:

Your mother told you when you were a child about her friend that “Her family told her that her life would be so hard because instead of her husband, she would be the one bringing in most of the money”- right there could be your motivation to rush into marriage (at only 19) to a “hard working guy with a promising future”.

You wrote: “Her family had warned her not to marry this guy since he is uneducated and did not have a stable job”- this part of their warning and of your mother’s input to you is true: for a person without a stable source of income/ a job, it is better to marry a person who does have a stable source of income, for practical reasons, especially if children are to be brought into the marriage.

You wrote: “The fact that they can even go overseas once a year? it is almost all her money, I believe”- why is it her money, I wonder. Why not their money, hers and her husband’s? Was and is there no Partnership/ a We and Our, in that marriage?

You wrote that “The friend came from a pretty well off family BEFORE her marriage”- couldn’t that well off family finance her stay in a hospital when she needed to give birth…

You wrote: “I do not know all the details”- this is my point about being in a dark room with your mother having a flashlight, pointing to this or that detail. Without the whole picture, the way you put the details together may form a picture that is not true.

You wrote: “What makes me mad the most is that why can’t she spend her hard working money on ONE bag? It does not even cost that much, 300 dollar at most. It is not like she buys bags every month…”-

Look where the flashlight is pointing: it is pointing to a handbag.

anita