I broke myself trusting the wrong people
​
I need to get this out of my head. It's been months and I'm still stuck.
We met in the emergency department of the hospital we both worked at. I was a senior house officer, 26. She was 23, doing rotations. She used to come looking for me when I disappeared from the ward. We started hanging out. It clicked. I asked her what she wanted in a partner. "Just a supportive and caring person," she said. Simple. That's all I wanted too.
A few months in, I thought: we're good friends, clearly attracted, goals match. Why waste time? I proposed involving our parents. She looked nervous. "Are you sure about me?" I was sure. I'd already fallen for the shy, eastern girl persona. Her friends praised her constantly. She asked for a week to think, then said yes.
She told me she wanted a career. I said we'd build it together, I'd support her fully, but family comes first when the time comes. She agreed. Our families met. Everyone was happy. We had a small engagement ceremony.
That's when things started.
Just before the engagement, she told me: "My father gives me 50,000 rupees pocket money. When I want a new dress, I don't want to think about savings. I don't want to struggle." The number stuck in my head. Her father was a retired major, maybe 350-400k income. They lived in a 3-marla house. The math didn't add up. But I brushed it off — she's just nervous about the future. All girls get nervous.
At the ceremony she was terrified, almost in tears. I gave her water, she composed herself. Later she called me: "One of your aunts was looking at me weird." I explained the aunt had proptosis, it's just her eyes. She went silent. I told myself: she's sensitive. I can handle sensitive.
I got posted to a warzone. The demands started.
She called me almost crying. "You must change your house. I can't live in a mohallah, it's suffocating. And you should have your own car. I know your parents have one, but you should have your own. I'm not materialistic, but these things are important for a good life." I was a junior doctor. My salary was nothing. I said okay, it'll take time. I started saving. Months later, struggling, I told her the house would have to wait. She texted: "You can't even manage a house and you're asking for nikah?" Deleted it immediately. I told her it was hurtful. She said she was worried about our future. I forgave it.
This became the cycle. She'd go cold and distant for days, sometimes a week. I'd chase. She'd finally pick up and say she was "worried about how her life would look" with me. I'd reassure. She'd become sweet again. "I like you a lot," she'd say. "I'm just worried." Then cold again. Over and over.
The LinkedIn thing really messed with my head. She told me she'd made an account. I'd heard from coursemates that people used it like a dating app — that's all I knew. She put up her photo. I asked her to take it down, purely for safety. She said okay, removed it. Three days later, put it back without telling me. I let it go — she's an adult. Then she called me screaming: "You want to imprison me? You want to restrict my job? I'm not going to be obedient and subservient!" I tried to explain: the picture wasn't the problem, it was her agreeing to something then going behind my back. Didn't matter. I ended up apologizing. I still don't know if I was wrong to say anything at all.
Months later, I took leave to visit her. Brought gifts, flowers. She saw me and started crying — not happy tears. "You look scary. I'm afraid of you." I'd grown a beard and long hair. I was in \*\*Redacted\*\* — if I walked around clean-shaven I'd stand out and get killed. "I want you to look good," she said. "When my friends see you, they should be jealous." I kept trying to make her smile. She barely did. I told myself: soft heart, sensitive, she'll grow.
Then she started mentioning her new brother-in-law constantly. "He's so good, such a practical guy. He got everything himself. He took us to his gardens. DHA house. Big business." I told her: I'm doing all these things too, you're praising another man in front of me. She said: "I was just saying. You're so insecure." Much later, after everything ended, her mother admitted to mine: none of it was real. No gardens. No DHA house. No business. Just a normal software job. She'd made up an entire fantasy man to make me feel inadequate.
The gift situation broke something in me. My parents visited her for Eid. She went silent for a week. Then called me hostile: "What kind of family am I getting into? So simple. I can't live with such simplicity. They just handed me cash. No gifts. They're uncultured. Your brother didn't even talk to me." They'd given enough money for two designer dresses — because she'd complained about previous gifts. I told her mother. She said: "Don't worry beta, she's just sensitive. She likes you a lot. She just needed someone to reassure her like her sister's in-laws do. But you don't have any sisters." Meanwhile my mother told me her mother had called separately saying: "For the sake of our honor, attend the wedding. But our daughter is very troubled. We don't know if we should continue." The girl was talking to me normally during all this, like nothing happened.
Her sister's wedding was the same pattern. I took extra months in the warzone to be there. Night before, she sent me a photo of my name in henna on her hands. I felt loved. At the wedding, she avoided me completely. My parents sat in a corner, ignored. Her father paraded me around: "He's our son." Later she texted: "Your hair ruined my mood. My cousins said you don't look like an officer." I'd botched a rushed haircut because I'd been hiding long hair for safety. I apologized anyway. Next day, got a fresh cut, she said I looked better, posted our photo on her story, I took her out to Playdium and she was happy and excited and for a few hours I had the woman I fell for back. Then I went back to Waziristan and the cycle continued.
She hid a new job from me for weeks. Night shift. Remote. Insurance. When I asked "income halal hai na?" — a basic question in our context — she exploded: "Main halal haram ke chakron mein nahi parna! You have to make sacrifices to build!"
I once joked about the army ladies' club: "Sab se pehle yeh band karwaunga" — thinking of toxic gossip. She brought it up for months afterward, randomly, during normal conversations: "You lied to me. You really do want a housewife. You're such a backward man. I salute my friend's husband, he supports her USMLE."
I came back from Waziristan. Bought the car she wanted. Took it with perfume. She was thrilled. I thought we'd finally made it. Then wedding planning started. Both families financially stretched. I proposed a same-day barat and walima to share costs.
"You're killing my dreams. Everything I've ever wanted — I'm seeing it all end."
I didn't reassure this time. I told her mother: she apologizes or I walk. Her mother: "Why should she apologize? What's wrong with you?"
I ended it.
Days later, she sent me a reel: "It ended but it doesn't mean it wasn't real." Then more reels, unsent. Follow requests, deleted. WhatsApp statuses aimed at me. Her mother and uncle called begging to reconcile. I agreed to a meeting. First thing her mother said when I arrived: "You didn't come because we called. You came because you wanted to. Correct?" I just said yes. My father gave a long reassurance. Her father gave the green light. We left. Problems started immediately: "He looked tense. No confidence." She told me: "I want YOU to be modern."
The cycle resumed. Cold, distant, deleting messages. Her father postponed the wedding — sister having a baby, genuine reason. After three years, I broke. I shouted: "You've made me a slave! You never liked me! You deceived me!" She said calmly: "Don't be so tensed. We're getting married." Then: "We need space." Stopped answering.
Her mother called: "You told her to take a stand? Red flag. You're unstable. You called her greedy. You're disrespectful." They returned the ring.
My parents begged for one meeting. They said: "Say whatever from outside the door. We won't let you in." Her father let us in. Her mother said to our faces: "Your house was in a lowly area. We never even considered this. A teacher's son. She hasn't smiled in three years because of you."
Afterward, I found out: she lied about her caste (said Mughal, actually Bhatti). The 50k pocket money was fabricated. The brother-in-law's gardens and business and DHA house were completely made up. "My father could get me a car" — almost certainly a lie.
I'm 30 now. My mind is frozen. I spent three years in a warzone and three years in this. I let my father lose his honor begging outside a door. I accommodated everything and the one time I broke, they destroyed me. I keep asking: where did I go wrong? Was it the LinkedIn thing? The halal question? The wedding proposal? The one time I shouted? Or was I wrong from the beginning, when I saw the signs and told myself: she's just sensitive, she'll grow?
I don't know how to trust anyone. I don't know how to process that the person I almost married was mostly a construction. If anyone's been through something like this, tell me how you rebuild.