Dear IpkRO9:

Your boyfriend reads like an intelligent, reasonable man, thinking that if your parents see that the two of you are successful in your respective fields, then they will approve of the marriage.

Problem is that your parents don’t make the decisions, your sister does. And your sister is not reasonable. Nor does she have your best interest in heart or mind.

This makes your boyfriend.. unreasonable, not taking facts into consideration and instead wishing and hoping for the best in spite of facts.

Another thing, “he does not want to put his parents through the ordeal ever again”. But he should not want to put you through the ordeal of going to war for the approval of your sister, working very hard to convince your sister of a relationship, (especially at the stage where you still want to get to know him better, not being ready to marry him).

This is a lot of work that will exhaust you. It will indeed be an ordeal for you. How can you earn a PhD if you are busy and exhausted with an ongoing turmoil with your family over the relationship with him… This turmoil can take a great toll on your mental health.

His plan as is- is a bad plan. It will bring you a lot of heartache, it will exhaust you and is likely to harm you. , it is not fair to you, it will not bring him good results.. not a good plan.

I will soon be away from the computer and will be back in about 14 hours from now. We can continue to communicate on the matter if you want when I return.

anita