brown parents and autonomy
was on a walk with my mother and the topic of marriage was brought up. im a 20 year old, pakistani girl from a middle class family 👧🏻 for what it’s worth. she said she won’t start urging me to marry before 26, which is fine. no complaints regarding that.
she just honed in on how she won’t let me marry outside our religious sect nor let me stay unmarried as i’ll be bringing shame to my family both ways.
she doesn’t know i have a boyfriend who’s not part of our sect (bc hello i don’t want to be ridiculed 😅, they already gave my brother enough hell for even liking somebody from the same sect, so i saw what happens first hand if you’re stupid enough to treat your parents like your friends), but i think my siblings must have snitched because she brought this up only tonight and was adamant about me coming clean. i just stood my ground by not responding lol, i didn’t want more drama.
i calmly explained to her that i’m scared of marriage entirely. i do not have good male role models and none of the women in my family were blessed with normal human beings as their husbands. she told me it was ridiculous for me to believe any of this.
it made me tear up. do i really have no autonomy while im here? is the only way through to avoid their incessant nagging just going to be me agreeing to play a part in making sure their fantasies come true?
my brother earns for our family but they won’t let him make the decision to get married because they don’t like his girlfriend. i fear me earning enough money won’t get them off my ass either.
it makes me feel hopeless — that i’m going to be leaving a box (my overbearing family) just to be stuck in another and hoping for the best (that i don’t have the same fate as the other women in my family).
if someone has been in a similar situation, may you please tell me how you dealt with it? did your parents eventually listen? i think brown parents mistakenly think that being stubborn / manipulative will make their children agree with their demands eventually. it just drives us away.
i feel so alone. idek how to journal about this lmao. life keeps kicking me down 🥲 bleh.