Yet again I had a huge fight with Neel… my boyfriend and my soon-to-be husband. He was in a different country for work. I came home dead tired and the moment I reached home my mother asked me, “What happened? Did you two fight again? What is the matter now?”
I asked myself the same question and couldn’t find an answer. My wedding was three months away and I was not feeling excited about it at all. Instead, I felt lost, clueless, and anxious. With every passing day all I wanted was to run away, wishing desperately that something would stop the wedding.
My mom sat next to me and tried to console me, “Eleven years are nothing compared to your whole life. Let me cancel this wedding. If you are not happy now, you’d never be happy with him.”
Again her words made me question myself, why am I not happy? Neel and I have been in a relationship for the last 11 years. We had been best friends since our schooldays and had started seeing each other after finishing high school. You can say we have grown up together and Neel is a gem of a person… but still why am I feeling this way?
The answer lied in my past, I grew up in a broken family. My father was never there for us and my mum has always been a controlling person. I was a little apprehensive about starting my own family. Many insecurities crept within me; what if his family doesn’t like me or what if our marriage didn’t work?
I turned to my mother for help and she gave me a long list of what all could go wrong with my marriage. Here are some of the things she told me:
“He doesn’t love you”
“You can never trust a man, he might not be loyal to you and have affairs with other women.”
“Your in-laws will always keep trying to find flaws in you and will give you a hard time. You will not be able to live with them.”
“You are too naive to understand if anyone is taking advantage of you, how will you survive without me. You should always tell me if there is any problem, I have gone through such tough times, I know how to handle things.”
“I know, they will not allow you to continue your job, and you will lose your independence. That is what being married means for an Indian girl. So, think it through before you take such a huge step in life. I have spent most of my earnings on your education. You just cannot leave your job to live with him abroad. After marriage he might leave you here with his parents and not take you along with him to where he lives.”
After hearing all these warnings from my mom, I felt like marriage would be the end of the world for me. Out of fear I cancelled our wedding, just 25 days before the date.
However, things didn’t turn out to be quite the nightmare I had imagined them to be and the reality of my life turned out to be better than what my mom had predicted.
My man stood by my side and helped me get over this rough phase. Even his family understood my situation and supported me. I went to a therapist and she told me that my mother is suffering from a personality disorder and that the fear of being alone, after my marriage, is making her say all those things. “Since you are the only one in her life, her love for you has turned into an obsession and she saw your fiance as a threat to her,” were the exact words of my therapist.
All this happened a year back and now I am again preparing for my wedding. Neel and I are getting married in a couple of months. My in-laws have accepted me with all my flaws and Neel is helping me find a job in the city where he is living. As for my mother’s advice, I have taken them as a list of mistakes I should not be making.
*Names changed to protect privacy.
Images: Shutterstock
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