Always had a dysfunctional family. Father was wife beater and mother was always depressed.
Since childhood, she taught us, “never get married”, “never get married”. Also things like, “Don’t get into an affair with a boy who is not financially stable” (this is completely good advice though).
Im 31, not married. Broke up with my boyfriend due to huge financial gap (judge me, I don’t want to enumerate on the issues we were facing).
Now, uncles and aunties who are complete strangers to us but friends of our parents have many times come after us (me and my elder sister, also unmarried) literally scolding or trying to convince us to get married.
One such party i went to, one uncle started on me and remarked “maine apni beti ki shadi time se kara di thi, vaaki uski saari dost aise hi ghoom rahi hai” and this really made me feel very bad. My dad slided away before he said this sensing the conversation would be about marriage. Clearly, he did not want to deal this encounter, but left me behind to listen to that uncles’ bullcrap. Mind you, I am a successful professional and take zero money from my parents.
My father keeps either engaging with such people or avoids them leaving us to handle it all alone. He has also complained several times about my mom being the reason of us 2 sisters not getting married to people.
I mentioned this to my mom recently and she was a little taken aback by that uncles comment. Then I told her that it’s becz of dad that these people get the liberty to say such things, just like he had started in front of my maternal aunt and that next time any uncle says anything, i’ll tell them to stay out of it.
My mom immediately said, “Don’t say anything about your maasi to your dad, otherwise he will stop her entry in our house.”
I mean really? This was about me, right?
Then I told her that whenever you meet wives of those uncles in any party, please JOKINGLY and POLITELY do MENTION how I told you that I will not be going to any of their parties. She said OKAY.
BUT I KNOW THAT SHE WILL NEVER.
So I had a huge fight her. I called her selfish, i said that all you can think about is your sister and not me, and it should have been you protecting us and taking a stand for us rather you seeking protection for yourself and your family. She went on to say that I am frustrated with my life because I was not married.
I told her yes I am frustrated because whole life they both ruined and made us a mess. She was always depressed and we had to constantly think about protecting her even at our own cost and father was anyway a nutcase only.
My point was, you immediately jumped up to protect your sister and asked me not to say anything to my father about her (whereas I never said I’ll do any such thing at all, that was not even the point), but for me you didn’t have any reflex of thinking, “next time i’ll mention this to them” or anything at all? Just saying even this “Next time don’t listen to all that and just walk away”.