Dear gj:

“my mom still needs to see me married. Otherwise she would have failed as a parent”- she already failed, it is done. If you get married, it will not change the fact that she failed. And if you get married, she will still be unhappy and incredibly sad, just as she has been throughout the years that you know her. Trying to please her is a bad idea, it is throwing away more of your life while your sacrifice is not helping her at all.

As you consider marriage, and even arranged marriage, consider it not for the reason of pleasing your mother/ society. Key to a good marriage is getting to know the man as objectively as you can, that is, getting to know him before forming an emotional/ physical attachment that disables the required objectivity.

I think that a period of dating, as in a series of .. friendly interviews, similar to job interviews aimed at exchanging information honestly and negotiating a teaming up for the purpose of having a healthy, loving marriage is the way to go.

“I was always upset with my mom”- because you tried so hard to make her happy, I figure, but “she would always stay a victim or vent the frustrations out at us”, no matter how hard you tried, she was still unhappy and sad and frustrated.

“I used to throw tantrums and fight with  her”- after your many, many efforts, made lovingly, trying to help her. You understandably got angry.

You asked me: “Do you have any insight on why I can never take action”?

As a child, during your Formative Years, you learned that your actions make no difference (“It won’t work out… It will not change anything”). Your number one aim as a child, was probably to make your mother happy. You acted many times for that purpose and failed. When we fail repeatedly we stop being motivated to act again. There is a term that describes this dynamic, it is called “learned helplessness”, you might want to look into it.

“I was too lazy to help out in the house”- this was probably the first evidence of your leaned helplessness. The thinking goes something like that: why bother helping out in the house, nothing I do pleases her, nothing satisfies her, why bother…

As an adult, the same thinking is going on, why bother. Maybe you don’t connect it with your childhood experience, but this thinking  (and the resulting lack of motivation, lack of solid interest, lack of direction, etc.) was formed then, as a result of your interactions as a child with the person that mattered most.

anita