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A suitable boy, part three

My parents disapproved of my relationship with JW for a while. At first, it was because he wasn't Indian. But I think they got over that pretty quickly. The problem was that we were dating.

You probably know that arranged marriages are traditional in Indian culture. These days, instead of just marrying you off sight unseen, your parents will usually introduce you and let you get to know each other for a little while before you decide to get married. But that's not dating. It's a brief prelude to marriage. We don't really have dating.

Shortly after my parents found out about JW, my mother wanted to know, "Are you going to marry him?" "Marry him? I don't know. I'm not planning to marry anybody any time soon." "Then why don't you break up with him?" "I like him!" "Then why don't you marry him?" Et cetera.

After graduation, JW and I decided we weren't going to plan our lives around each other because we were too young to be tied down just yet. I had always wanted to move to California; he had always wanted to live in New York City. We decided we'd try long-distance and, if we stayed together, one of us would eventually move.

We took turns visiting every few weeks. My mom called and asked what I was doing one weekend. "JW is visiting," I said. "I thought we'd go down to Monterey for the weekend and see the aquarium." As soon as the words were out I regretted them. I had been getting along with my parents pretty well and my guard was down. Ordinarily I would have said, "I don't know" or "Nothing" and everything would have been fine.

That night I got a call with both my parents on the phone. They said I was shaming the family and I was a disgrace and how could I do such a horrible thing, you get the idea, and I was NOT to go on this trip. I boldly said, "If you're worried about us having sex, we'll get separate rooms." (Doesn't sound bold to you? This is the one and only time in my life that I have ever brought up the subject of sex, let alone said the word, to my parents.) They said I wasn't going, period, and that if I did they would stop speaking to me until my wedding day. I believed them because they did that to my cousin who had the audacity to move in with her fiance a few months before the wedding. Well, they didn't quite stop speaking to her: once in a while, my father would call up to yell at her for bringing shame on the family.

I didn't go. But I was furious that my parents would be willing to end our relationship over something I saw as so minor, and that they were trying to control my behavior from across the country. After that, I avoided telling them anything, and when I had no choice I lied. How are things with JW? I don't want to talk about it. Are you seeing him any time soon? I don't want to talk about it. My parents thought we had broken up. "They were quite critical of you," a cousin said of that time later, and I was mad all over again.

JW ended up moving to California after a year. I maintained a separate address for my parents' benefit and told them that I didn't have a land line. When we moved back to Massachusetts and I went to grad school, I got a dorm room. I put sheets on the bed at the beginning of the year and took them off at the end. That summer we only had one address, just a few months before our wedding, and both sets of parents came up for my graduation. I didn't say anything about our living situation and implied that I could stay with a friend until the wedding. Everything went smoothly until, as our parents had their coats on and were headed out the door, JW's mom (who had known all along that we were living together) said, "So, how do you two like your new place?" "Fine," JW replied, and changed the subject. Luckily my father was in the bathroom during this exchange. I waited for the phone call, but they never mentioned it. I don't know if my mother ever relayed the conversation to my father; I wouldn't be surprised if she kept quiet. The wedding was so close.

Full post as published by Magic Cookie on May 17, 2008 (boomark / email).