I'm in need of some perspective. Been questioning my life (29F)
I’m 29 and, objectively, doing well in life. I’ve built a successful career, earn well, am financially independent, and am approaching a seven-figure net worth. I’m also told I’m attractive and carry myself well. But despite all of that, I’ve struggled with my sense of self-worth for most of the past decade, especially when it comes to dating and marriage within the Indian community.
Over the last year and a half, my parents have been encouraging me to meet people seriously. I’ve tried. But the experience has honestly left me confused, exhausted, and emotionally unsafe.
A recurring pattern I’ve noticed is that some men seem drawn to me initially, but then become uncomfortable once they realize I genuinely like them or take the process seriously. Others begin projecting expectations onto me that feel less like partnership and more like evaluating whether I can absorb the emotional and logistical burdens of an entire family system while still maintaining a demanding career and eventually raising children. Even mentioning something like I might want to take a few years off when I have kids and then get back to the workplace and would love family support for raising kids is taken as I am not going to provide them with the economic output they want or will become obsessed with only cooking food and cleaning and not have an active brain. (Yes, I know this sounds ridiculous but these are literal things guys have said. My mom stayed at home, she was there for us because my father traveled a lot for work, read books, helped us with school and tough situations, taught Hindi, and used to workout in her downtime. She was a perfectly adjusted person. And my dad used to help when he was home with cooking and other household tasks becasue she deserved a break too.)
I’ve had conversations where men told me Indian women are “too spoiled” and need more suffering to build character. Others insisted they needed to live with me before marriage to verify that I’m “actually” the kind of person I seem to be. I’m personally not comfortable living together before marriage, so I usually step away at that point.
Some interactions were simply bizarre. One guy asked whether I’d be more upset if a partner cheated on me with a man or a woman. Another repeatedly pushed partying and clubbing as a lifestyle expectation, even after I explained I had naturally grown out of that phase in my mid-20s. I’ve also been told I’m “too nice” or that I don’t flirt the way their exes did. But it’s hard to flirt naturally when conversations quickly turn into whether I’ll live with in-laws, hold families together during crises, sacrifice career growth, and absorb everyone else’s emotional needs.
The experience that affected me the most was a relationship last year that ultimately fell apart after a conflict between my family and my ex’s family. During a dinner I wasn’t even present for, my sister pushed back on comments his family made about women’s responsibilities in marriage, things like whether women “join or break families,” expectations around traditional roles, villages in India, covering your head, or following customs simply because in-laws expect them.
My sister essentially said: this is 2026, not 1970s India. Why are these expectations being framed this way?
Instead of reflecting on the conversation, his family became deeply offended. Eventually they encouraged him to end the relationship because they feared “interference” from my family. What hurt most wasn’t even their reaction, it was that my ex seemed unable to stand independently or create emotional safety amidst the conflict.
At the same time, my aunt was dying of cancer. I was quietly trying to hold myself together while he increasingly avoided difficult conversations because he didn’t know how to handle my sadness or stress. The situation became so emotionally overwhelming that I developed panic attacks and eventually an stress-related ulcer in my eye that took six months to heal. No relationship is worth destroying my physical and emotional health over, so I took a break and we both agreed to break up.
What makes this harder is that this wasn’t the first major hardship I’ve had to survive. In college, I experienced sexual assault, had to temporarily leave school, and struggled deeply afterward. With the support of my family, I eventually rebuilt my life, returned to school, and finished my engineering degree early. But as many Indian women know, sexual assault often carries stigma and blame within the community, and I internalized a lot of shame for years.
A few years later, when I was 23, my father developed an aggressive form of leukemia. I stayed home to help my family through it, donated stem cells to him, and mentally prepared myself for the possibility that he might not survive. Thankfully he did recover and is now fully in remission. Afterward, I continued rebuilding my own future and eventually attended a top MBA program without taking on debt.
I think what’s painful is that many people only see the external picture: career success, financial stability, accomplished family. They don’t see the resilience. They project assumptions onto me without understanding the experiences that shaped me and I feel shame when I do share them.
At this point, I’m not looking for someone to rescue me. I just want a kind, emotionally mature partner who sees me as a human being, not as a workhorse for his family, not as a collection of trauma, and not as someone whose worth depends on how much she can endure.
Writing all of this out, I can actually recognize that I’ve survived a lot and built a meaningful life despite it. But I’m also tired. The dating experiences I’ve had, especially within the ABCD arranged marriage ecosystem, have left me guarded, distrustful, and emotionally depleted. I feel like I can't entangle myself from the negative experiences I've had.
For other ABCDs who’ve navigated similar cultural pressures, trauma, caregiving responsibilities, or mismatches between modern partnership expectations and traditional family systems: how did you rebuild your sense of safety and self-worth while dating or while trying to find a partner?