Software Development Engineer II

My Happiness or Family’s ? - I feel trapped

Hey Grapevine folks, felt like sharing something deep that happened to me in last few months. I am a 25M and I was in a 1.5 Years of relationship with a girl I met on Hinge. With her everything felt so easy. We got a lot of hobbies in common, we used to dance, sing, cook together. I am into playing guitar as well so I taught her how to play it, she plays really great now so we used to jam for hours. My life in Bangalore became so easy despite being so far from home. We were of same age, deeply in love, bestfriends, comfortable af and much more. Things started going really bad when we both were deeply in love with each other and have to talk about what next related to marriage, because there’s severe caste issue in my family. Last month I went home and revealed my relationship to my mom and dad. I come from a typical Marwari Rajasthani Family so you all can already guess my dad’s mentality about intercaste marriage. Ofcourse my dad said straight up No for it, “Samaj mai meri ijjat chali jaygi, tune ye kadam uthaya hi kyu, agar ye hone diya toh sar utha k nahi chal paynge hum log, tujhe samaj se lena dena nai hai par humko toh in sab k saath hi rehna hai idhr etc etc etc” I was broke, my dad thinks that I have did some crime. I understand that there’s a major Generation Gap and I cannot explain them the concept of Love, and compatibility. My mom was fine with it, but she used to cry every day not because I want to do love marriage but because of my Dad, we cannot do this and my son wont be happy. At the end, I know my parents are wrong but yet they are my parents and I couldn’t see them sad. I felt helpless and had to breakup with my Girlfriend I cried everyday missing her, I feel like I have a big void in my life. Sometime I feel that its fine to sacrifice on few things for your parents but yet I feel like ek hi toh life hai aur pyaar krne vale logo k saath na bita sako toh kya hi mtlb jeene ka

Arrange marriage - how to bring a positive change in your partner?

I recently got married. It was an arranged marriage. We both work in corporate. Our lives have been different, I enjoy techno music, having good conversations, meeting new people, wearing good clothes, according to occasion. But she is my opposite, she is very conservative and old school. She has no sofistication or elegance, whereas i am sofisticated. Anyone meeting us for the first time can tell we are polar opposites. We have nothing in common to do or talk about. What do I do to bring about a positive change in her? How do we become a power couple?

Lowering demands from the partner after marriage - A take on the problems in marriage

There are soo many posts around marriage on GV this week. Some are talking about background verification of the groom/bride, some talking about how they dodged the bullet, some justifying dowry, others justifying alimony. Also, there is a constant person who is constantly posting on every such post and saying "don't get married" While these posts have a lot of emotions - from fear to happiness, pain to love. One thing in common is - Most Women (not all) wanna get married to someone better in all ways (looks, finances, personality), and respects them. Most men (not all) wanna get married to someone who can provide him care, respect and peace. If we think closely, we are in this state that even getting the above is getting difficult, which is bare minimum. So I think we need to get our demands a little lower. 1. Women need to understand financial security is a difficult thing to provide. So, if one expects that then they should try to be his emotional support not a burden. 2. Men need to understand, most women have spent life in restrictions and wanna live life openly after marriage. This needs to be discussed clearly and bluntly before marriage. 3. Metro cities, social media, quick delivery systems are making life less happy. We need to understand this and start finding happiness inside ourselves - within relations, within ourselves, within family. Not in materialistic gifts, traveling to destinations, best restaurants.