u/MinimumCheesecake

(Hopefully) soon-to-be married to my long-term partner. I say hopefully because we have no idea if the wedding is actually going ahead or not because of how everything has panned out.

As a disclaimer: I am not naturally an angry person in the least bit, every friend of mine would tell you that they've never really seen me angry. I usually just shut down or disengage if something bothers me that much. But the amount of rage that has built up towards my in-laws is incredible. It's been this way for months now, and I just don't know what to do with it all.

Every step of the way, their actions have been filled with hypocrisy, double standards, and a strong "boy's side" mentality.

1. They are conveniently traditional and follow wedding "protocol" when it suits them, and when they can pick apart my parents' actions. I've heard things like "My parents were offended that your mother said that like X, but not like Y, because traditionally, she should have said X." about ridiculously minor things from my partner. But yet, they went ahead and unilaterally made a big wedding decision without consulting me or my parents. When I pointed that out, and that it implies we need to cut down our rituals, it was met with "Oh, no one follows traditions so intensely these days. It's going to be a huge problem if your parents want to do everything by the book."
2. My mother left out a small detail when she communicated our booked venue details to them. The venue we booked is an independent traditional bungalow of sorts, that isn't a popular wedding venue and moreover, it belongs to someone within our family. When my mother spoke to his mother, she forgot the house number in the moment and could not mention anything beyond the street name. Admittedly, she could have checked and texted it after the call ended but she didn't think it was a big deal, and that they would just ask if it really was. Long story short, it indeed was a big deal because the big unilateral decision that they made? That was in retaliation. I had an inkling of this initially, and I finally got non-verbal confirmation from my partner that that is indeed what happened.
3. For a while, we couldn't fix the wedding date because they were taking a long time to confirm with us. Finally, they said they didn't want the date we had suggested because it was my partner's birth day of the week (Thu) and instead, suggested another day which happens to be the day of the week that I was born on (Fri). When we pointed this out, it was met with "Oh, but that's not important." My parents don't even care for this rule, but the double standards make me seethe.
4. They seem to notice everything and have a problem with everything. Every little word any of us has ever said, every little action, it has all been scrutinized to a level that left me dumbfounded the first time around. I have never met people this complicated in my life.
5. Finally, in all the wedding decisions, I don't seem to appear at all in the decisions. In all of this, I did not ask for anything to be a certain way because truthfully, I do care to have a wedding but I don't care too much about the specifics. It seems to be more important to the parents so I have no problem in leaving it up to them. Anything his mother has asked me, I have agreed to. But the bare minimum, I would think, is to involve me in decisions that directly and hugely affect me. Based on their current plans, I will most likely be very sick during one of the events (due to my health issues) and when I pointed out how physically exhausting this will be for me and that I would actually like to enjoy the event as the bride, it was met with "Oh, if we can manage as old people, you can manage too. It's just one day."

And it just goes on and on and on. And this post is long enough already.

The reason the wedding is held up is because of their big unilateral decision that neither me nor my parents can agree to because of the logistics, health, and important rituals. They are currently trying to impose the decision on us, which only makes matters much worse.

My partner would initially get very defensive about his parents but now admits that some things were handled terribly by his parents. We are in a better place as a couple. I love him so much, and I cannot imagine my life without him.

But the rage! I absolutely despise them. I have never met people this awful or convoluted in my life, and I'm honestly terribly disappointed that I have to consider them as family. I (perhaps naively) always hoped to be on good terms with my partner's family and I am just disturbed and sad that this is how things are going to be. I would never be outright rude to them but I do not think I will have it in me to be anything beyond formal/cordial.

I've been with my partner for nearly 3 years, and we've been doing long-distance for the last 6 months. He's the love of my life and we've had the calmest and happiest relationship. When we first started long distance, we took some time to find our balance so it was a bit rough but now, things are much better.

I don't know if this is even possible but my love for him has just exponentially increased in the last couple of months. We try to stay connected as much as possible (even with the 11.5 hour time difference), and have regular check-ins about our emotions.

But I miss him so much that my heart just aches all the time. It's ridiculous how badly I just want to hug him, it literally reduces me to tears.

I didn't think it was even possible to love someone so much?!

I (29F) have a long-term partner (31M), and what we have is solid and good. Between the two of us, we don't really have any problems. We're from the same culture and background, and we met and dated in country X, when both of us still lived there. I finished my PhD and temporarily moved back to India, while he found a better job in country Y and moved there. So we're currently doing long-distance.

Our parents knew about us right from the beginning, no one had any issues, so we figured getting married would be straightforward enough. We arranged for the parents to interact more, and meet. Neither of us care for a big wedding but it's important to our parents, so we left it to them. In hindsight, this was a bad decision because in the 2-3 months that we were actively wedding planning, everything became a nightmare. Lots of misunderstandings, awful drama, lack of communication, and just a general sense of absolute dread. My partner and I also ended up have the worst possible fights, catalyzed by the long distance. And I finally had a breakdown. Even now, I almost instantly tear up when I think about how awful that phase was.

Then, when the families reached an impasse about some rituals and we nearly broke up, we decided to take a step back and pause. We are still paused on the wedding currently. And the parents aren't really speaking to each other, but they individually ask us about the wedding and what we're thinking.

In the meantime, I'm actively looking for jobs, I thought it would be easier to find one but the market is terrible at the moment. My partner has been very supportive, and is constantly trying to help me. But I'm increasingly more and more uncomfortable with the idea of not having a job at the time of the wedding.

Several reasons for this:

1. I'm just very uncomfortable with the idea of being entirely dependent on him. It isn't about him per se, but it feels unsettling to not have my own footing, and I'm scared I'll lose myself and the career that I worked so hard to build.

2. His parents have a bit of the boy's side ego (which absolutely infuriates me) and I don't want to give them an additional reason.

3. I absolutely hate the idea of getting married when neither side is talking to each other.

He understands and agrees with all of my reasoning, but he also doesn't mind just getting the wedding done this year.

My solution is to get the registry done by the end of the year, assuming I have a job by then, so that we can at least comfortably live together and end the long distance (neither set of parents are comfortable with us being in a live-in relationship), and push the big social wedding to next year. That way, I don't have to deal with the career stress and wedding planning/family drama stress all at once; and we can end the long distance, even if it's temporary. And I most likely have my own job and financial independence. However, that also means that both sets of parents will incur some monetary losses and his parents most likely won't take it very well and will hold it against me. My parents would understand my career concerns but I don't think they would have a strong reaction. So in this situation, I'm really the only one pushing for the postponement.

Am I overthinking everything? What would you do if you were me?

tl,dr: My partner and I are in a LDR, and want to get married. Our families spent a few months wedding planning, then reached an impasse and do not speak to each other anymore. I'm looking for a job, and don't want to get married before I'm financially independent. I'm confused about what to do.

I'm currently in the process of finalizing my Astrophysics PhD thesis cover. What I have so far:

1. I have something that I drew myself which I would like to be the background. (I want to refrain from posting it here because I don't want to be doxxed.)
2. I would like to digitally add a couple of elements to it.
3. I have a vision for what I would like the final layout to look like, with the art, digital elements, and the title+name. I have a rough version of this on Canva already.

However, my problem is: I've never really done something like this before so anything I make doesn't appear to look as professional to me. It just looks like something someone following a Canva tutorial made (which is honestly the case). It's driving me a bit insane because after all these years of work, I'd really like the cover to look interesting.

Ideally, I'd like someone who has expertise in digital art to just move, edit and tweak everything a bit until it looks more professional. I'd be open to paying EUR 20 for it (via WorldRemit), since I'm assuming it isn't too much work but I'm open to negotiations. It's also a bit of a short notice, but I'd like this to be done within the next 2-3 days, since I have to print my theses soon after that.