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The aftermath of marriage

I started writing this impromptu series about setups, arranged marriages, my relationship with JW, and how our families handled it after reading a short story (PDF) about a young Indian-American woman reacting to her friend's setup. I kept writing because I realized all of these stories happened so long ago that I rarely think about them anymore.

I didn't think marriage would change anything. We'd already been living together for years. I thought I'd get rid of my last name that I constantly had to spell and pronounce for people, we'd have the big party to make our parents happy, and then we'd come home and unwrap our presents and that would be that. But it did feel different. Once we were engaged, I felt like I was truly part of JW's family and didn't try to duck out of family pictures and made sure I knew the names of every third cousin twice removed. Of course, his relatives had always treated me like part of the family; the change there was mostly in my head.

But my relationship with my parents changed completely. Suddenly I was an adult. They trusted me. What's more, JW and I had gone legit. I didn't have to watch what I said around them anymore. We could both answer the phone freely. The combination of those two things meant that the strain on our relationship disappeared all at once. As my father put it, now that I was married they felt like they didn't have to worry anymore. I was no longer their responsibility.

The older I get, the easier it is to forget how contentious my relationship with my parents used to be before I was married. How I used to resent them for trying to impose their values on me and how they used to fret that I was going down the wrong path. One ring on my finger and I became a respectable woman.

And that concludes the series. Tomorrow, back to my regularly scheduled "cute thing that K did today / what I did on my summer vacation" posts.

Full post as published by Magic Cookie on May 21, 2008 (boomark / email).