u/Hooded_enigma

Redditors have a very peculiar way of dealing with relationship posts. When their black and white perspective is not blindly accepted by the person talking about the problem, then you are evil personified.

I post here for nuanced discussions, not black and white opinions which are basically masked assumptions and judgment. When I defended my thoughts, somebody was quick to warn others that I am a man pretending to be a woman. “Stop engaging, this account is a man”.

And I am like..wow…my womanhood is invalidated because I defended a specific man I know. The last thing I want to hear is that I am a man. No matter how difficult womanhood can be, I don’t want to be seen as a man. Never knew I felt so strongly about it. It feels humiliating in a way to be accused of being a man.

That’s not all, apparently I am not “well” because I actively respond to comments. Well, reddit has changed over the years..and I can’t help but feel like it is no longer a safe space for people who just want to..vent.

My ex is getting married this week. The roka was just done last Saturday. I’ve always believed that marriage as an institution is disadvantageous for women, and in most cases, women are forced to settle.

Not in this case. The girl he is getting married to was offered many rishta options. My ex is somebody who is considered very conventionally handsome. She saw his picture and decided that this is the man for her. I mean..good for her? Except, he said no to her.

Now I know a man in this situation would force a marriage even if he hears a no, but it was surprising to see that a woman did the same! She told her papa she wants this guy, and only this guy. Mind you, she didn’t even talk to the prospective guy! She chose him just for his looks. Talk about shallow.

Her papa, being the rich guy he is, bribed the guy’s family with money. You know how Indian families are, greedy and corrupt – so they fixed a date without his consent.

Now we can have a whole other post discussing how much of a spineless coward the guy is. But it’s not uncommon behavior from an Indian man, so I don’t think it’s anything intriguing.

But the girl’s insistence on having a guy who is not even remotely interested in marrying her made me realize that entitlement is not just a male thing in AM spaces; it can come from privileged, powerful women too.

Now I wonder how this will play out. I have my popcorn ready.

Edit: We broke up this recently, this is very much my business. The guy asked to get married or engaged with me ASAP to ward off this psycho woman. I said no to marriage this year since I am a student rn.

To vast majority of the readers here, this may seem so absurd that it may look like fiction. Read with caution.

I come from a regressive culture where parents have a lot of control over their children. So when my boyfriend of two years told me he was being pressured to get married, I knew we were in for a rough time. I am currently abroad in pursuit of my degree, and he’s at home, still working at the organization I met him at.

One fine day, his family approached him with the photo of a certain girl. They told him she is a good match and that they will get him married to her. As any sane person would do, he lashed out, fought, cried, and made it clear that he had a girlfriend and only intended to marry her. Now you see, the family has vested interests in this particular alliance. The girl comes from great wealth and was offering a pretty good dowry to his family. Think millions.

His family, overcome with greed, kept pushing and emotionally attacking him for the next few days. Normally in such situations, we know that the woman in such an alliance is mostly a victim – someone who lacks agency. But to our great surprise, we hear that it is the girl who is adamant on getting him as a husband. Apparently, while browsing through pictures of potential grooms, she found his photo(which was shared against his consent by his father), thought he was extremely handsome and insisted to her daddy that he buy this guy for her.

Again, hoping that she would understand the situation, the boyfriend makes a call to her on his dad’s phone and communicates that he has a girlfriend he loves.
Here’s the killer:

She says, “it doesn’t matter”.
WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?

My boyfriend threw a bug ruckus and his family said they backed off finally. Both of us were beyond relieved. I mean, who would want to marry such a psycho woman? And how can I stand to see a woman be so disregarding of my relationship?

Several peaceful months pass..one fine day, my boyfriend approaches me in panic and asks me if I am ready to get engaged or married right now. I am not in that situation or state, so I declined and asked for time. He then tells me that in that case, he has no other choice but to marry someone because his family has received a handsome dowry from a new family. He is spineless. He has family obligations. It’s pathetic, but he can go fuck himself.

I asked him who the woman was. He had no clue because his first meeting with her was planned to be just a week before the wedding.

Well, today I learned that the woman is in fact THE WOMAN who insisted on having him as a husband. So on top of feeling the grief of heartbreak, I am now filled with boiling rage because the home wrecker will have legitimacy as a spouse in his life..while I become the insignificant ex. And you know what frustrates me the most? Nobody will give her flack for her money powered meddling because they are signing a marriage contract.
Because a marriage is seen as the ultimate “proof of love”.

(The events in this story have been confirmed and verified by me, so please don’t bother telling me I was fed a lie. I am old enough to differentiate between lies and the absurd truth)

TL;DR: My ex boyfriend got forced into a marriage because a woman paid a lot of money to his parents as dowry to steamroll the marriage. I am angry because that smug woman will be accepted and seen as a legitimate spouse while I drown in my tears.

He is getting married to a stranger. He doesn’t seem too bummed about it though. Wonder if he’ll ever wish it were me instead.
I hate meddling families, and I hate this wretched culture I was born into. I was abandoned because he couldn’t disappoint his family..because he couldn’t wait.

I vent here cuz I have nobody to rely on when it’s so difficult and horrible. The loneliness is..crushing.

I just wanna say that I am so grateful that we now have a community for women in Kerala. That being said, I wanted to ask if there’s any mechanism to report unsolicited dms from men who lurk in this sub. Maybe a way to report them to the mods? Idk. I believe twoxindia has some mechanism like that.

It’s important that women who post here feel safe expressing their opinions. I got a very angry dm from a lurker yesterday and I didn’t like it one bit.

Indian men on reddit are such creeps as you all know and it’s important we set up guard rails to make sure our community feels safe, comfortable and welcoming for women and non binary folks.