A
male
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:I am a 22 year old Indian male, who recently got engaged to a 20 year old (turning 21) White female. We've been dating for three years, and I felt as though engagement was a good idea. I thought the process, stipulations, and consequences over for months before doing it, and I'm happy I did.The problem is my "family". My parents are extremely traditional, and a little dysfunctional. My mother suffers from anger issues, and she takes her anger out of everyone else in the family. My father is disabled, smokes cigarettes all day, and suffers from COPD, Asthma, and Emphysema. He does nothing but order everyone around and always says "can't you see that your father is sick?" and puts us all in guilt trips. My entire childhood was wasted because of his smoking. We didn't get to travel anywhere or do anything a child would enjoy, all because cigarettes were more important. He has only had two jobs in his whole life, and was fired from both. To accompany these two, my ex girlfriend, who is illegal in the country, is living at my house. My mother feels bad for her, and she essentially replaced me as their child. She gets treated better than anyone else:door to door service, cooked for, praised, and shown off. My mother agreed initially to my engagement, and even went with me to get the ring. The problem is, a few months later, nothing has changed. My fiancé is forced to sleep on the COUCH or the GUEST ROOM. In fact, my mother kicks her out of the guest room so my manipulative ex girlfriend can take the room over and sleep there, because she has "such a hard job". For the record, shes a waitress at a slow restaurant. She basically sits down and draws pictures all day. Since then, my parents have constantly been insulting my engagement. They refuse to tell ANYONE about it because they feel like it would ruin their reputation, and because, according to them, I am "too young and immature to be engaged". They still make us stay in separate rooms, leave doors open, and my mother is overly concerned with hiding our engagement. She even introduces my fiancé as my "friend" to certain people. My mother claims she's trying to treat everyone "fairly", but she fails to realize that my fiancé is a member of the family now, and my ex-girlfriend is honestly nothing to us. Yet, they're both treated "equally" according to her. My family constantly corrects my fiancé, criticizes her, telling her that her parents did not "parent" properly because they allow us in the same bed, and they pretty much force her into indian traditions. They try and make her a slave in the house, and she's getting fed up with it. My mother tries to hide her malice by getting her small gifts, or lending her jewelry, or by giving her (completely wrong and unverified) life advice since my mother works at a law firm. My mother thinks she's always right, and my father does too. They refuse to see my sorrow and my point of view.The other day, my fiancé told her mother about how my parents have been acting. Her mother called me and threatened to come to my home, pick up her daughter, give the ring back, and explained that she will never see me again-- unless I fix the situation at home. The problem? She gave me two days to fix it. In the mean time, my fiancé is not telling her mother what happens, she just says "oh, they're getting better". Her family lives 500 miles away.In the mean time, I'm extremely depressed with this situation. My engagement is on the verge of ending. I've gained 20lbs in a week and a half due to the stress, and I'm constantly fatigued, unable to exercise, focus at work, focus while driving, I'm a useless stump. My family is in a financial crisis at the moment, so everybody (except my father, who receives disability) is trying to bring in money to pay the bills. On top of that, both me and my fiancé got denied our student loans, and even with a cosigner, we were unable to get them. We don't even know how to go back to school now. Life is a huge mess, and it's killing me.If I leave the house, I would have nowhere to go. I can't afford an apartment, and I'm still a full time student. I did not get money for school, which means I did not get approved for on-campus housing either. My mother claims she would stop paying my tuition, cut off my cell phone, take away the car, sell my camera and computers (which have brought the family thousands of dollars, I'm a professional photographer as my main source of income, and a graphic designer at a law school as secondary income). They would leave me with NOTHING. She also claims that not a single family member on both sides of the family would help me. Also, I can't leave because I'm required to care for my ill father who claims he would die if I left the house. Essentially, my fiance and I, assuming our relationship works out, are stuck with my parents (and possibly ex-girlfriend, unless I report her to immigration) forever. In the mean time, I can't nourish my relationship and let it develop, grow, and get better. My parents pretty much said we can't share a room until we're married, which I expect to happen in 6-7 years. That much time without actually acting like a couple is a surefire cause of this relationship to fail.All I want is to get some recognition with my fiancé as a married couple, or even just as life partners. I want to share a room with her because I don't want her on the couch. I want my ex-girlfriend to leave my family and find somewhere else to go. I want my parents to start treating the two of us as adults, not just kids. We're engaged. To me, marriage is just signing papers. I'm not religious, an agnostic actually. I know for a fact that this is the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, and nothing can change that. in my heart, we're married already, I would just like to be treated like we are. I'm literally about to drive off a cliff here.
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at work, depressed, disabled, engaged, ex girlfriend, fiance, immature, money, my ex, smokes Reply to this Question
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, princessjasmine +, writes (6 July 2012):
work more! move out, find jobs overseas that might pay for ur housing!
A
female
reader, Honeypie + ♥, writes (6 July 2012):
 Then wait with the wedding til you are done with law school and can afford to move out.
And I'[m not even sure why your fiance is living with your and your family either. If your family is having financial problem and you add another mouth to feed, I can kind of understand their resentment. Is your fiance working?
The only solution I can see is that you and your fiance find a way to move out and make it on your own. If that means one of you will have to wait to finish college so what? Give it a couple of years and be done.
As for the ex-gf.. well that is just odd. Her living there and not going home. I don't know what I would do in that instance.
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A
female
reader, aunt honesty  +, writes (6 July 2012):
 Well really you have a choice here, either you stay under there roof and it causes you to break off your engagement just so that you can live off there support and finish school, or else you decide enough is enough and you get a full time job and move out and live an independent life. You cannot blame this on your parents, there rules are there for a reason, even if you are an adult you need to respect that and if you cannot then its simple find work and support yourself and rent your own accommodation, that way you are free then to get on with your life with your girlfriend, you can always go back to school part time or once you can afford to put yourself through an education.
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A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (6 July 2012):
 I'm sorry you are in this mess but i have to say this
If you are can't afford to move out, why are you planning a marriage?
Your fiance is living with your parents in their home they are supporting you so I guess you two have to abide by their rules.
Personally if I was that unhappy with my family's rules I'd move out and take my chances... many times standing up to a family for your rights in the long run works out and they learn to respect you as an adult.
the issue is that you may have to get a job and work full time and go to school part time....
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (6 July 2012): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionIf I left, I would lose everything. I couldn't go to school, I'd be working all day. This is my last year before law school.
My family is ridiculous, but I still am expected to be here forever and take care of them. I do feel bad for my dad who is sick (even though he brought it on himself). Today, we had a big argument about allowing my fiance to sleep in my room with me. It didn't end well, and now both my parents hate us. My parents are going to cause us to break off the engagement.
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A
female
reader, princessjasmine +, writes (6 July 2012):
I'm a pakistani american female and I KNOW EXACTLY HOW U FEEL when it comes to traditions! Know that I am here for you and it will be okay as soooooooon as u MOVE OUT! u cannot deal with this kind of bullshit. I understand that ur family oriented and u care about ur families opinions on ur fiance but after moving out I realized, to each their own. What makes u happy does not necessarily coincide with ur parents, ur 2 seperate peoplee and that is okay. It doesnt mean u love ur parents any less, it just means that u need ur space. You step up YOUR GAME the way i did, i shut my parents up the day i moved out....they cant do anything about it. So you can either move in with ur fiances family for now, while finding a place or move in with a friend for a few days to get ur head on straight. That's the best advice i can give to u right now!
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A
female
reader, aunt honesty +, writes (6 July 2012):
I can honestly see why you are so frustrated and angry at the moment, but at the end of the day you are an adult now and if you chose to stay under your parents roof then you have to respect there rules. I know that this is difficult but you obviously still need them financially which is a shame for you and your fiancé but there really is no way around this if you cannot move from your family home. At the end of the day it is there house and if they want to keep your ex girlfriend under there roof again that is there choice. I suggest that you try to save as much money from your income as possible both you and your girlfriend so that you can plan to move out sooner rather than later because I do agree with you that this relationship will never last under this kind of pressure. I am sorry I cannot offer you better advice than this.
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