Comments on: Arranged marriage & the role of parents

By: canadagirl

canadagirl — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 04:15:28 +0000

dear Cyno
this just happened to me
he just said I’m getting married to a laos girl
I still love him and am devasted and heart broken
I cant stop crying

By: jessica smith

jessica smith — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:25:29 +0000

is arranged marriages really bad? that sounds like forced marriages to me.

By: Izzy

Izzy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:58:03 +0000

I’m about to get married in a month with a man I truly love. We’ve been together for 4 yrs now. My only problem is, his mother is not happy with me. I know for a fact because she wants him to be with someone in Cambodia since day one. He doesn’t agree with her one bit, but it hurts me to know that she is not 100% pleased with me. I respect my culture in all but I was born and raised in America and I told my parents, as long as I don’t screw up or be those kind of bad girls, then they shouldn’t worry about me. We live and learn in life; it’s all a part of growing up. I can’t just meet someone in a day and say that I love him. I feel like you’re lying to yourself; that’s sad. I need to love someone truly and get to know that person before I make a lifelong commitment.

By: Zephy

Zephy — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:36:12 +0000

I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I decided to data Bengali. I’m a latina, and catholic. I fell hard for him and I’m still in love with him and he still loves me…but this whole arranged marriage thing is just heartbreaking. All these stories are heartbreaking…you should be with the one you love, be able to be happyy in life. I will not be happy settling for someone else in my life when he is truly the only one I want and need…he’s the sweetest guy on this earth, and my best friend…
Parents can be so blase towards their own child’s feelings! Don’t you want your child to be happy and not forcing a smile on the life they live from day to day? Some couples run away but in reality, its not that easy! First of all there’s the guilt of betraying your parents even though you’re not their biggest fan.
I dunno, I’m only 15. But I know what I feel is real. This is real. I’m not saying all arranged marriages are unsuccessful, some of them are. But if you’re already in love…its not right at all. You’ll be scarred for life…the pain will never go away, never…
I love him so much. So much. He’s gonna get married to a pretty bengali girl when he’s 18 and there’s nothing I can do about it. Its complicated.
I don’t want anyone to feel the pain I feel, or the heartbroken forbidden lovers feel. ♥ &don’t judge me please only cuz I’m 15 =/

By: CaRoLine

CaRoLine — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 03:23:07 +0000

hello!!!! AJ

I had read your history and have touched much my heart to me so that I am happening through I am living this case in my own experience…

I have been living with my boyfriend for almost 5 years (their parents do not know), i’m from colombia he’s from Pakistan, we met in the United States, he was raiced here.

Now that already almost both we are entering the age of 30 years we are wanted to marry but we have this problem, and by this same our relation one has become very complicated,

We both like each other and we have good understanding relation…. but at the time of speaking with his family always it becomes a problem, however with my family there is no problem so that they love my boyfriend know the person who is ……

now I am sad so that we have finished our relation that we shared by many many time ….. now they took back my boyfriend to Pakistan to marry it with a woman who not even knows…. he doesn’t want disrespect his parents…

but in this case her mother is going to be happy …… I ask itself so that they put in the head as much sweepings to him and they do not understand that we both loved?

By: Sana Ahmed

Sana Ahmed — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:28:27 +0000

Arranged marriages…
My future?
I dont even know. My parents tell me that it’s about love, that when you get married in our desi culture, the love comes eventually. They said it’s about trusting your parents, and doing the duty, and the honor of what is expected of you. They would obviously know, they had an arranged marriage…
My only problem is that I have grown up in America since I left my home country of Pakistan when I was 5. Since then I have been more American than Pakistani/Indian (I am both), and I dont want an arranged marriaged (she said as she told her accentric Pakistani mother the other night and is now “grounded”….), and also, I am in love. He’s half indian, half pakistani, Muslim, and perfect. Do I want to marry him? I dont know, problem number three is that we’re both 16. Which goes back to arranged marriages because we’re not supposed to “be in love” according to Islam, Pakistan, and mommy. So what now?
My best friend is also 16 and her engagement is planned for the end of 2010. We’re both shocked and she’s torn between what she knows she has to do (marry the freakin 25 year old Pakistani doctor) and what she wants to do (go to college, be independant and take care of her challenged baby sister…)
vat to do?
:D
We cant dissapoint our parents, if I did (which I DO, everyday, I mean I am wearing jeans for God’s sake), the poeple most shocked would be my family in Pakistan and India.
It’s the culture…though I can never bring myself to say I hate it, being in America has given me a different outlook on life and a different expectation for myself and my future. No matter how much my parents dislike it.
Yet I remain confused.

By: shweta

shweta — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:38:43 +0000

enjoy

By: thierry14

thierry14 — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:20:22 +0000

Hey ppl,

Well.. guess what.. your stories ring true even in australia!

i’m from india, lived most of my life in aus, she came a couple of years back.. we met last year.. fell in love.. we had same religion.. parents were same town.. we don’t believe in caste/class.. but apparently they were lower caste..but that didn’t matter to me or my family. Her parents came to visit her in aus, and they made her marry an indian from their village .. only things that counted against us was our age(both in mid-20s) and me beign too aussie..

she didn’t even break up with me before this.. so i feel cheated.. I don’t fall for the ‘i still love u’ stuff.. If she ‘really’ did, she would be with me now.. I don’t doubt the family blackmail is hard to deal with.. I supported her as much as I could.. but her family is her problem.. and she didn’t want to go against them even if it meant her being unhappy, and i was caught in the middle of an evil culture I never want to be part of.

moral of the story.. don’t fall for someone until you meet the family.. and if they are not being honest with their family about love, then it’s not worth the risk! your too important to get mixed up in all this garbage..

I wish I read something like this before ..

By: Would rather not give my name

Would rather not give my name — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:25:16 +0000

I’m a Hindu man, 33 yrs old, born and brought up in India by liberal-moderate Indian parents. When my parents were expatriated to the EU for professional reasons, I followed them. I had just finished high school. I split time between India & Europe & eventually settled in the EU. Fell in love with a colleague, ended up having an (unplanned) baby with her, and tried (so very hard) to make it work. It never did. But the reasons were different from those I read above. Despite serious reservations (but NOT refusal) from my parents, I:
1. lived-in with my girlfriend (the mother of my child): because she wanted it
2. didn’t insist endlessly on marrying her: because she didn’t want to
3. made my parents social outcastes in India because of the above
4. cut myself away from my friends because of the time demands of my partner

And yet, knowing that I had put my entire “being” at stake for her (and my baby’s) love, she left me because her parents left nostone unturned to force her to choose between them and me………and she eventually chose them.

She just destroyed my life….and walked away….and changed her entire attitude towards me within days of walking away

Didn’t let me see my baby for almost a year………….till the courts forced intervention and reunited me with my one-year old baby.

Welcome to the “arranged” world of the west. Its worse than the Indian one I have known…

By: danielle

danielle — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:51:30 +0000

I am doing a speech on arranged marriages and i have about a month to get it all finished. i’ve only been getting information on it for the past 2 days, and already i feel like this is just a way to put women on a leash. i dont think that this is a bad thing, but it is unfair..I think everyone should have their free choice of whom they marry. Yes, it is required in some cultures, and yes, some people do it to gain land or money. but i think that everyone should be able to take their own journey into finding that one special person, instead of just a person whom you’ve never met and it is only a business relationship instead of a romantic relationship.

By: just a girl

just a girl — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:52:06 +0000

This is crazy!!
I was just looking on posts about cross cultural relationships because I just started dating a guy from a complete different culture than my own.
By reading this posts I realize I have no idea what Im doing…all this time I been thinking how difficult it will be for us to accomodate with our cultural differences..it had not even crossed my mind about his family…good to read about this important topic.
Rosa, I so much feel for you..Im also from El Salvador and the guy im seeing is from Africa

By: Obuolis

Obuolis — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:40:24 +0000

I found this poem long ago, by Michael Flanders, and its really the situation.
Misalliance
The fragrant Honeysuckle spirals clockwise to the sun
And many other creepers do the same.
But some limb counterclockwise, the Bindweed does, for one,
Or Convulvulus, to give her proper name.
Rooted on either side a door, one of each species grew,
And raced toward the window ledge above.
Each corkscrewed to the lintel in the only way it knew,
Where they stopped, touched tendrils, and fell in love.
Said the right-handed Honeysuckle
To the left-handed Bindweed;
“Oh let us get married,
If our parents don’t mind. We’d
Be loving and inseparable.
Inextricably entwined, we’d
Live happily ever after,”
Said the Honeysuckle to the Bindweed.
To the Honeysuckle’s parents it came as a shock.
“The Bindweeds,” they cried, “are inferior stock.
They’re uncultivated, of breeding bereft.
We twine to the right and they twine to the left!”
Said the counterclockwise Bindweed
To the clockwise Honeysuckle:
“We’d better start saving-
Many a mickle maks a muckle-
Then run away for a honeymoon
And hope that our luck’ll
Take a turn for the better,”
Said the Bindweed to the Honeysuckle.
A bee who was passing remarked to them then:
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
Consider your offshoots, if offshoots there be.
The’ll never receive any blessing from me.”
Poor little sucker, how will it learn
When climbing, which way to turn?
Right-left-what a disgrace!
Or it may go straight up and fall flat on its face!
Said the right-handed Honeysuckle
To the left-handed Bindweed:
“It seems that against us all fate has combined.
Oh my darling, Thou art lost and gone forever,
We shall never intertwine.”
Together they found them the very next day
They had pulled up their roots and just shriveled away,
Deprived of that freedom for which we must fight,
To veer to the left or to veer to the right!

By: Obuolis

Obuolis — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:56:02 +0000

All these stories sound the same, and it is heart breaking. I also absolutely love this guy from Pakistan, really truly do; but I am from Lithuania and probably not what his parents are looking for, although i would love to learn and participate and even convert to their religion and everything. And I know he is struggling to do the right thing, to have his parents happy and to not let his friends like me down. He has an arranged marriage and its killing me. I can’t focus on all the high classes I am taking, one with him. So to make it “easier” I stopped talking to him. Please, please if anyone has any advice what to say or do I would really follow because Im a wreck. Im so sorry so many of you have also had to go through this, but how does it end, how does it go away? Everyone says time heals all wounds, but does it? Email me at snieguolelele@yahoo.com.

By: thulasi

thulasi — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:35:01 +0000

I am from a hindu vegetarian family.. my family is very orthodox and my family is almost a settled family.. i love a guy who is also a hindu but non vegetarian.. he is from a poor family. my parents are totally against my love.. we both love each other deeply from 4 years.. my parents want me to decide either they or he.. my lover says me to listen to my parents because we cannot be happy going against him.. i am in great depth of sorrow.. my lover is in great problems financially at present due to loss in his business. otherwise his earnings are more than enough..

By: Nazzyb

Nazzyb — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:07:07 +0000

I think arranged marriage is better than love all my family and relatives have had arranged marriage and they’re really happy. I have also had loads of proposals my mum said its my chooice when i want to get married and who to strictly arranged.