Hi Aks,

I want to understand this a little more. Why are your parents “searching for another boy for marriage?” Is this a cultural/religious requirement, for lack of a better word?

Dear Aks:

I understand why you are afraid to talk to your parents again- you are afraid because of their reaction last time you talked to them about your boyfriend. They cried and expressed their disapproval of you. It is understandable that you don’t want to experience that again.

The problem is you live in a society of arranged marriages, where many if not most parents don’t care for how their adult children feel regarding a potential husband, they only care that their choice will be done. If you manage to talk with them again, telling them, let’s say, that you love your boyfriend very much, that he is a good and loving man (and tell them how he is good and loving and therefore likely to make you happy), they may not care, just like they didn’t care the first time.

If they don’t care, reject your choice of a man to marry, and insist that you marry the man of their choosing, you have two choices: one is to obey your parents and marry the man of their choosing, suffer perhaps a loveless marriage, but enjoy the approval of your parents. The other choice is to marry the man of your choosing and suffer the disapproval of your parents, maybe their total rejection of you.

If you chose the second option, you will have to arrange your life in such a way that you are least affected by your parents’ rejection, maybe move far away, maybe be close to your chosen husband’s family so you have support there.

Hope you post again.

anita

Dear Aks:

You want to talk to them but you are afraid, correct? If you can’t bring yourself to talk to them, maybe write them a letter? Another possibility is to talk to an empathetic family member who will talk to them for you?

anita

Dear Aks:

It is very important to your parents that you marry a man of the same caste, is that correct? If so, I don’t see that they would listen to his parents, being of a different caste.

What is the position your parents already expressed about marriage between people of different castes and about women choosing for themselves who to marry?

anita

Dear Aks:

Then there is nothing you can do: you cannot change your parents’ strong, lifetime position on marriage and castes. There is no point in you talking to them, or your boyfriend’s parents talking to them.

Are you willing to marry him without your parents’ approval and against their strong positions? Are you willing to suffer the consequences of their disapproval and rejection of you, if you married him?

anita

Dear Aks:

The fact that your boyfriend wants you to talk with them and make them agree to the marriage is concerning to me: doesn’t he know the reality of parents’ and society’s strong castes and marriage beliefs and practices in India? Doesn’t he know how powerful and common those are?

I think that he is asking too much of you. All he had to do was to tell his parents. He didn’t have to make them agree. His situation, telling his parents, was different from yours.

What I am concerned about, at this point, is that let’s say you marry him against your parents’ wishes and suffer the consequences, that he will not support you and that you will feel alone: unsupported by your parents and unsupported by him.

He needs to understand your situation and be empathetic to you, not pressuring you, as if it was your fault that your parents do not agree to the idea of marriage with him.

Your thoughts about my concern…?

anita

Dear Aks:

You are in a very difficult situation. As children, we are greatly motivated to have our parents’ approval, to see our parents happy with us. As we become adults, we don’t just grow out of that motivation. Most of us are greatly invested, still, in having our parents’ approval, in seeing them happy with us. Seeing them crying, distressed because of who we are and what we do- that is something we fear.

Again, I think your boyfriend does not understand the difficulty in your situation, and that his expectations of you are unreasonable.

I do not support your parents in their position, nor do I support arranged marriages. But I am also very much aware that not all chosen marriages turn out well.

Do you think that your boyfriend is unreasonable this way? In other areas/ topics? Is he more emotional than he is logical/ reasonable overall?

anita