r/ThirtiesIndia

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Male 32 and it's my first marriage. I fell in love with that beautiful single mom and that time SS is 4 years old. I thought I'll connect with him very easily.

Background: we both are working and I live abroad and my wife is a doctor and she is posted in a rural remote area. So the kid stays with her parents. Bio dad never visits him or does not pay any child support and we're good as our own.

Issue: we both want to give quality education to kid. But her parents sent him to their choice of school and my wife got upset so I called my in-laws and tried to talk about this with FIL. (Another background majority of people in my wife's family are doctors and I'm an engineer) When I talk about kid's schooling FIL started to harass me by saying you're just an engineer who earns a peanut and majority alumina of that school is doctors and they are not like you.

After the call my wife tried to be neutral in this situation, dad is not telling like that. He said in a positive way.

It's been 3 years since marriage. Kid is not staying with us, and we are also in long distance. Their family is not accepting me and my wife needs me and her family. When I face time also, her family will not talk to me properly and eventually calling them stopped and so I talk to the kid once in a blue moon. Now the kid is 7 years old and I don't have a proper connection with him or I can't say any opinion in his things. My wife keeps saying there is nothing like that and her family likes me. They don't call me and they didn't even wish me on holiday. At the same time my doctor in laws is always hanging at her family house and posting pics in family groups. It makes me sad. Her posting will be complete in 3 years and she and the kid are planning to relocate with me then. By that time the kid will be 10 years old and I'm very afraid of how he will be with me. Does he copy the disrespect of her family and show it to me or not. I'm very panicking about that situation.

For me it's like I'm not a great fan of my own kid. I tried to be the parent (not the step parent) to her kid and I invested financially and emotionally. But nobody from her family reciprocated nor they helped us to make a family bonding.my wife always justify them by saying they're taking care of the kid, so she is grateful for that and ignores things. But these things are bothering me and I tried couple therapy and everything. But still no improvement. What should I do... Help me with your thoughts

Not "I need a vacation" tired.

Not "I hate my life" tired.

Just tired.

Some days I don't even know what I'm tired from. It's just the constant thinking. Work, family, finances, health, parents, what's for dinner, whether I should work out, whether I'm wasting my weekends, whether I'm doing enough with my life.

It feels like my brain has been "on" for years and I don't remember what it feels like to truly switch it off.

I miss the days when a lazy Sunday didn't come with guilt. Now if I spend a day doing absolutely nothing, I somehow end up feeling like I failed at my weekend.

Maybe this is just what your thirties are like. Or maybe we're all pretending we're handling it better than we actually are.

For the past few years, I have been noticing that my parents are more and more rigid and not logical at all. For the simplest of things, if there was an easiest more logical solution, they would still unnecessarily complicate things.

Listen to everybody else’s opinion but mine, end up doing the complete opposite and make it an overall bad decision.
I get into these frequent fights over everything. If I’m not well and have taken a doctor’s consultation, they would say don’t go to the doctor just drink warm water. Doctors make fool of you, charge unnecessarily for tests.

And don’t even get me started on food. Their constant gyaan is stop eating non veg. Don’t eat eggs. Eat roti, eat vegetables. I am tired of explaining that I need a balanced diet and protein is important.

Every conversation, it feels like it’s a one way street. What I say doesn’t matter. They are the enlightened ones and know everything about everything while I’m the one who gets manipulated by social media.

It’s honestly irritating and makes me feel like I don’t even want to talk to them anymore.

Is it only me?

This is more of a rant than anything else, but I’m also looking for perspectives from people who’ve been through something similar.

I’m 34, and my wife and I have a 4-month-old baby boy.
Lately I’ve been feeling increasingly frustrated, because of the tug-of-war between how we want to raise him and what our extended family expects from us. It’s manageable if I see other families but still it bothers me quite a lot.

Both of us want to raise him in a logical, evidence-based, practical way. We don’t want to make him follow traditions that we ourselves don’t believe in. If, when he grows up, he chooses to be religious, spiritual, or even more religious than us, that’s completely his choice. We just don’t want to condition him into believing something simply because generations before him did.

The latest example is his Annaprasanna (first rice-feeding ceremony).

To be honest, we didn’t even want to have one. But because my grandmother is still alive and because of family expectations, we agreed to do it in our village. Even after pushing back, we’re still expected to invite around 150 people, and that’s already the “reduced” guest list because I kept telling everyone I don’t have that kind of budget. Plus for the close ones you will have to buy sarees, clothes etc as return gift.

The strange part is that many of these relatives are people we haven’t met in years. Apart from a few close uncles and my maternal side of the family, we barely interact. Yet somehow this has become less about our son and more about fulfilling social expectations. Sometimes I honestly feel these ceremonies are more for the adults than the child.

I come from a large Brahmin Hindu family. Most of my relatives have done well financially but stayed in our hometowns and villages running family businesses. I was raised in the same environment.
The difference is that I eventually moved away, started working, travelled countries, met people from different backgrounds, and read a lot more. Over time, many beliefs simply stopped making sense to me.

Today I’d probably call myself an atheist—or at least someone who doesn’t believe in God the way my family does. My wife feels exactly the same.
What surprises me is that I see many educated people—including colleagues—continuing traditions simply because that’s what their families expect.

For example, we’re expected to teach children to say “Jai…”, touch everyone’s feet, or follow rituals from a very young age.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I’d much rather teach my son humility than ritual. Respect people because they deserve respect, not simply because they’re older. Think critically. Be kind. Stay curious. Question ideas respectfully. Those values seem far more important to me.

Then there’s the Mundan ceremony (shaving a baby’s head). Every time I ask someone in my family why we actually do it, nobody can explain it beyond “We’ve always done it.”
Or take the Jataka (birth chart). Soon after a child is born, we’re expected to have a priest prepare a horoscope that supposedly predicts his personality, career, marriage, health, and major life events.Really?

How can anyone know the course of an entire human life from the exact time and place of birth?
If someone wants to believe in astrology for themselves, that’s absolutely their choice. What I struggle with is treating those predictions as objective truth and letting them influence decisions about a child who hasn’t even begun to live his life.

So far we’ve stood our ground on quite a few things.
No honey.
No ghutti.
No unnecessary talcum powder.
No random traditional remedies without evidence.
No teeka just because “everyone does it.”

The same happened during my wife’s postpartum recovery. People insisted she should eat things like sabudana because “that’s what new mothers eat.” Sure, new mothers need extra calories, but why sabudana specifically? Why not prioritize balanced nutrition with adequate protein, eggs, pulses, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats when we can afford all that? Every time I asked “why?”, the answer was almost always, “This is how it’s always been.”

I’ve had plenty of respectful conversations—and arguments—with my parents about all this. They’re wonderful people, and I know everything comes from a place of love(hopefully). This isn’t about disrespecting them or mocking anyone’s beliefs.
It’s simply that our worldview is different.
At the end of the day, this is our child. We want him to become a logical, compassionate, scientifically minded person who forms his own conclusions based on evidence, experience, and curiosity—not because something has been repeated for generations.
The irony is that despite believing all this, I still find myself giving in sometimes. Not because I think these rituals have value, but because constantly saying “no” comes with guilt, emotional pressure, and the feeling that you’re hurting people you
love.

Maybe that’s just part of living in a close-knit Indian family.
I have lot more such examples which I believe you all may know already - but just wanted to vent out what was going on lately on my mind.

I turned 30 today.

For the first time in a long time, life feels less like a race and more like a mirror.

My 20s weren’t what I imagined they would be. There were heartbreaks that changed me, bad decisions that I have to own, jobs that drained me instead of building me, health scares that forced me to slow down, and family problems that quietly weighed on every decision I made.

A relationship that lasted two years ended just before this milestone. For a while, all I could think was, I lost two years. But grief has a way of making us measure life only by what didn’t last. Looking back now, I don’t think those years were wasted. They taught me what I deserve, what I can survive, and what I will never settle for again.

I’ve made mistakes. Some were mine. Some were simply life. I’ve questioned myself more times than I can count. There were days I felt behind while everyone else seemed to be moving ahead. There were moments when I genuinely didn’t know how things would work out.

But I’m still here.

And that means something.

I’m deeply grateful to my parents, who kept believing in me even when I struggled to believe in myself. And to the friends who stayed—not when it was convenient, but when life was messy and I wasn’t at my best. You know who you are.

Today, I honestly don’t know where I’ll be working a year from now. I don’t know which city I’ll call home. I don’t know who I’ll marry, or what my life will look like five years from now. And for the first time, I’m okay admitting that. Not knowing isn’t failure—it’s simply where my story is right now.

I’m not walking into my 30s pretending I have everything figured out. I don’t. I don’t have the perfect career yet. I don’t have all the answers. But I have something I didn’t have at 20: perspective.

I’ve learned that healing isn’t linear, that success isn’t a straight line, and that the strongest people are often the ones carrying battles no one else can see.

So this decade isn’t about proving anything to anyone.

It’s about making better decisions. Protecting my peace. Taking care of my health. Building a career I’m proud of. Loving without losing myself. Being a better son, a better friend, and becoming someone my younger self would be relieved to know eventually made it through.

I’m leaving the regret behind.

I’m taking the lessons with me.

Here’s to 30.

Not because I have life figured out.

But because, after everything, I still have the courage to believe that my best years haven’t happened yet.

Sounds so silly but i usually forget all dreams but this happened very early morning just before i woke up .

Some man just hugged me and said you need one . Not sure who he was from my memory. It felt so real especially after being alone for 2 months and lonely for even more than that .

Sounds incredibly stupid but I just wanted to share. Ironically my therapist told my exwife the same thing when we were having issues and yes she did hug me but I never felt anything because she was just checking a list.

Men deserve more hugs too!!!

The job takes up a large chunk of the day. And if you decide to self-educate or take up certifications or even research, publications, upskilling and all, how do you keep up with the commitment. Any who have/had juggled up between work and studies, how did you manage your time and energy? After work, I do not have the mental capacity to use my brain anymore. Share yours.

Update 1 - so that was on saturday when my HOD shouted at me about something related to my husband (who is HOD of another department).

On monday, while I was still processing whatever happened on Saturday, I was trying to maintain a distance from my HOD. He asked my Line Manager to call me, while I went, he was standing with around 20 people and seeing me walking towards him from afar started shoutingly asking - why this task hasn't been done, why that task hasn't been done. Those very tasks which I have been telling my Line Manager about being due because other team members haven't been doing their parts. Line Manager despite being aware where the issue was, kept mum and the HOD kept shouting at me. I heard for a while and then RETALIATED because he kept getting louder. I told him it wasn't done because what all tasks I used to do years back are now the responsibility of newer team members and there was a gap in delivery from their side. Still he kept shouting why you didn't do it, despite me telling that none of my counterparts does it and newer team members are supposed to do and I had escalated to the line manager. He called the juniors right away and started scolding them. When I stood firm that the gaps were there and Line manager was well aware, he snapped and shouted me to leave asking my Line manager to never give me that work.

What happened on Saturday, i tried to think as one odd incident and thought of confronting him sometime later, but now he doesn't seem to stop and is hell bent on getting my husband's frustration on me.

I am thinking of a lot of things to do, pls suggest. All inputs will be appreciated.

As long as you don’t hurt anyone or are not psychotic. Wrongdoing and rightdoing are imposed by society. Beyond that one is free.

I am 31(M) years old and have completed only my +2 education in the Commerce stream. I do not have any further academic degree or professional qualification.

After finishing school, I joined my family business and have been working in it for the last 12 years.

During this time, I also managed to build an additional source of rental income, which is now sufficient to comfortably cover my family's monthly expenses. My wife is also earning, so financially we are in a stable position.

However, our family business has been struggling for the last three years, and for the past one and a half years it has been running at a loss every month. I have tried everything possible to revive it, but the market trend has changed significantly and demand for our product has dropped to a point where recovery is no longer realistic.

I plan to settle all outstanding accounts over the next six months and wind up the business.

At this stage, I want to restart my career, but I don't want to start another business. Instead, I would like to pursue education again and build a career that allows me to work remotely, since I need to stay in my hometown to manage the properties that generate my rental income.

Are there any distance-learning degrees, courses, or academic pathways that would be suitable for someone in my situation? My goal is to gain the right qualifications and eventually secure a remote job.

I would genuinely appreciate any advice or guidance from people who have taken a similar path or have experience in this area.

self employed, 28. work wise everything clicked in the last few years. earning more than i ever imagined i would, parents get whatever they want now, no financial stress at all. genuinely grateful for that part.

but thats literally all i have. no social life. its my own business so it runs 24x7, i work through the night most days. no office, no colleagues, no work friends, nothing. and im in a city where theres no scene either. tried all the apps, deleted and reinstalled so many times, nothing real ever comes out of it. 3 years single now.

the funny part is when i was struggling and had nothing, i was in a relationship. wanted to do everything for her but couldnt afford anything. now i can do everything, trips, gifts, whatever, and theres no one. lifes timing is a joke honestly.

im not even sad about it most days, work keeps me fully occupied and i actually like what i do. its just sometimes i hit a milestone or something good happens and theres no one to tell except my parents. thats the only part that gets me.

anyone else at this stage? career sorted, grind paid off, but zero idea how to actually meet someone now when your whole life is work. do you just accept it or does it change at some point.

just putting this out there.

How many times have you walked past the past? Stripped of the specifics what remains is a belittling haze, an echo chamber for your darkness. It is full of the many lives we didn't live for the one we live.