Dear Laden:

Maybe it will help to summarize your dating experience/ what you shared in previous threads and in this one and maybe learn something new:

November 2018: you (a student at University, South-Asian, hindu, about 22) were seeing a boyfriend (a full-time employee, South Asian, hindu) “once every 2-3 weeks and not communicating much throughout the day”. You told him that you wanted more of his time and he told you that a better choice would be to break up because he will be having even less time  for you (approaching tax season) and because his mother still didn’t approve of the two of you dating. The reason his mother disapproved of him dating you even though you are of the “same place, same religion, same caste” as him, is because your family “is low income. His family however is rich”, (and maybe because you told him that your father has a drinking problem).

You wrote: “I just can’t believe we broke up over such a dumb reason”- money is a huge reason for a whole lot of the choices people make all over the world, as dumb as it may be. “I can’t believe he has no backbone to his mother and would leave me just to satisfy her… I was surprised my boyfriend would break up with me to satisfy her”- if the mother is controlling and dominant in her boy’s life throughout his childhood, then she is the most powerful woman in his life by far, so I can believe it and am not surprised at all.

In the future, within your culture, if a man’s mother disapproves of him dating you, and she is vocal about it, and dominant in her son’s life, it is a losing proposition for you and better not date such a man. Like you wrote: “Marriage in South-Asian culture is more than marriage to him- it’s to his family too”. After all, often the mother moves into her son’s home after he gets married to live with his wife and children. So she decides who fits the role of the .. lesser woman in the household.

June 2019 and September 2019: you (23) dated a man (25) for six months who told you “from the start that he didn’t want kids… stern about never wanting to have kids, because of the financial burden and how it would take away his freedom”, and you considered compromising and not having kids so to be with him.  He then told you that it is better that you separate sooner than later because he would feel guilty being the reason you will not have children.

“Initially he told me it would be my decision to end the relationship if I wanted kids”. You.. didn’t take his offer to end the relationship, so “he said he would do it for me” and ended the relationship for you.

— reads to me that this man wasn’t honest with you. I think he was honest in that he liked you and was attracted to you, wanting to spend time with you. But I think he had it in his mind from the very beginning that his relationship with you was temporary. To feel good about it he wanted you to  break it up, and when you didn’t, he did

You wrote at the time: “I am becoming very discouraged in dating and am losing interest in investing that much emotion, time and energy to different people”- this is why it is so important to take the time to thoughtfully choose the person to invest in all that emotion, time and energy. Choose an honest man, and it seems to me quite clearly that this man was dishonest, and that it is not only that he didn’t want children to take away his freedom, but he also didn’t want a wife to take away his freedom.

The first man- seems to me that he wasn’t honest either because I think that the moment his mother voiced her objection, he knew in his heart and mind that he will be ending the relationship sooner or later, that it was just a matter of time.

January 2020 (three threads): About a month after starting to date a third man, before “making things official”, his aunt passed away and he withdrew from you and invested in his family, helping out following his aunt’s death. On New Year’s he told you: “I love and miss you and I can’t wait to make beautiful memories with you (in 2020)” , but less than a month later, January 2020, he broke up with you, telling you that “there was no other girl” and that “he has nothing to give emotionally.. empty inside”. When you offered to wait for him to recover from that emptiness, he rejected your offer, saying that “he has to be selfish right now and focus on himself”, and he told you that it wasn’t your fault, “but completely on him”.

—It seems to me, Laden, that this  man too has been dishonest with you, three in a row. My goodness. I am so sorry. I think he used his aunt’s death (assuming that part is true) so to distance himself from you and break up.

Do you know if it really happened, that his aunt died- did you meet his family or have any evidence as to  his aunt dying being true?

anita