Health and Wellness

By Dr. Rachna Jain, Psy.D.

What if I don't want the Marriage my Parents have

Question: I am in my late 20's and have felt the pressure to get married for several years. Every few months I try to come up with a new excuse for my mother for why I do not want to marry. But how can I tell her the truth—that I do not want a marriage like the one she and my father have? My parents have always had a one-sided marriage: she was the strong one, the one who managed things, the one who raised us. One the other hand, my father was the drunk, the one who doled out ideologies, the one who expected my mother to raise us but wanted to take credit for our accomplishments. Despite the troubles, my parents have been married for more than 30 years. How can I forget what I saw growing up and be expected to marry? How can I be expected to have a good marriage? What steps should I take to overcome an experience like my parents?

Answer: Unfortunately, your experience is not all that uncommon. Many South Asian women and men ask these same questions. (Or if they don’t ask these questions, they at least wonder about them). How they can have a good marriage when they look at their parents’ marriage as an example?

There are several answers to that question. First, your desire to marry or not is a personal choice. Just because you’re being pressured to do it doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for you. But, at the same time, just because you’re being pressured to do it doesn’t mean it’s wrong for you. Are you able to think clearly about the issue, free from pressure or expectation? If not, that would be the first place to start. A good way to do this would be to journal about the topic of marriage and see what you notice about your feelings and beliefs. Journaling is a good first step to becoming clearer about what you truly think and feel. It sounds like the “noise” of expectations and judgment can be very loud at times. Finding methods to clarify your thoughts and beliefs is one way to turn down the volume of other people’s expectations.

The second part of this question deals with separation from your parents. In psychology, we refer to this process as differentiation: where you move into the world as a person separate from your parents and from their choices. Typically, this step is difficult for many South Asians, as we are accustomed to a tightly enmeshed family structure, one in which we all move forward together. Differentiation is a crucial step in normal development. When completed successfully, it allows us to realize that we can have a good marriage even if our parents (in our opinion) didn’t. Proper differentiation shows us that we do not have to repeat the mistakes of the past as we move into the future.

Based on your questions, I’d venture to guess that this issue of differentiation is the one you’re working on right now. You have not quite figured out if you want to be married, and you’ve not quite figured out how to make your marriage different than your parents’ if you do decide to marry.

Perhaps I can offer some tips to make this easier:

First, deciding to marry can be a gradual choice. For most South Asians, it builds over time. Very rarely do people wake up one morning and decide, “Yes! I’m ready to be married” and, similarly, it’s not that common for people to wake up and decide, “I’m never marrying.” Both of these decisions seem to be more gradual, as our life experiences shape us and our preferences become well-defined. What are your preferences leading you to? Do you find yourself thinking, “I might like to be married, if I can find a person like this...?” Or, do your thoughts travel more like, “I don’t really want to be tied to anyone.” Each preference would lead to a different set of choices.

Next, if you are feeling rushed or pressured to make a decision about marrying, my main piece of advice to you would be to relax. If the pressure is coming from inside you, you need to understand why you feel pressure to marry. Do you feel like it will mean you’re mature? More of an adult? Or are you considering it to stop all the gossip and questioning about your single status? If the pressure is coming from outside of you, it is time to address the issue directly by setting clear boundaries around the topic. You might tell your parents something like, “I know you want me to get married. When you keep pressuring me to do it, I feel like I want to avoid it completely. Let’s discuss it again in (six months, one year, whenever).”

Although our parents can exert a lot of influence on us, they can’t “make” us feel a particular way. If we are feeling rushed or pressured, we have to take action so we can feel differently. Most children avoid setting clear boundaries with their parents, which may be due, in part, to cultural expectations. As a group, we seem to believe that setting clear boundaries with our parents is just the same as being disrespectful to them. It’s not. You can set clear boundaries respectfully. And it may be that your parents really have no idea that pressure to marry is bothering you so much. You may need to tell them directly.

One other issue your question raises is whether you’re using your parent’s marriage as an excuse to avoid looking deeper into your own feelings and motivations. It’s easy to judge or criticize (“father was the drunk who doled out ideologies”) but more difficult to accept our parents for whom they are, shortcomings and all. Accepting that our parents have flaws is another phase of the differentiation process. It doesn’t mean that we accept everything that happened; instead, it just means we find a way to understand what happened in the past so we can make better choices in the present.

As a mature, independent adult, you have the choice and the opportunity to make your relationships different from your parents’. You also have a choice to carry forward childhood anger and blame, or you can resolve it and let it go.

In most relationships, one person has to take the lead in many areas, and then, by default, the other person must follow. Healthy, mature partners share the lead, but marriages still progress even if one person is more dominant. Stated another way, just because your mother was dominant and your father less so, it doesn’t mean automatically that this was a bad marriage.

As a child growing up, you have always had only one window into your parents’ marriage. From that one vantage point, you’ve made some harsh judgments, which may not represent the complete picture. Your parents were able to negotiate a way of interacting that has now served them for 30 years. It may not be what you want, but take care not to believe that all marriages are the same.

Marriages, like any other relationship, are built over time. Nobody really knows whether they will stay married, and nobody really knows what kind of challenges marriage might present. Your first step is to become clear on whether you want to be married or not. If you do want to be married, then your next decision should be whether it is a goal you will actively pursue in the next six months. If not, table it until you determine you’re ready to move ahead.

If you decide to put off the decision for a few months, set clear boundaries with your parents and family in terms of talking about it. Give yourself the time and space you need to come to the best decision at the right time.

Finally, every marriage is built one day at a time. You don’t have to have it all figured out at the beginning. You only need to show up and attend to it day-after-day. And, somehow, the rest does seem to work itself out.

Dr. Rachna D. Jain is a consulting psychologist and the author of Overcome Rejection, The SMART Way. She is regularly quoted in the national media and can be reached online at http://www.rachnajain.com.

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