My Sister's marriage - Advice please

Dear CW,

I understand your point. But it is her personal chioce.

I was also born and broughtup in the same family setup, specially as an elder daughter, my family treated me like a little princes with lots of love and affection. Because my parents waited 5 years after their marriage to see their first kid (i.e me).

They wanted me to study MBA, so that I can run our family business after their time (of course my brother will do his shares). I studied, but I really did not have any interest in Business, but all my interest was working with people.

So, I decided to move out of the country to pursue my education in my prefered field. That was my sane decision. I did my masters in International Human Rights law and found my prefered career with the United Nations. I travelled all over the world, met with different people, culture etc..etc..

I have so much friends from all over the world, ranging from refugee camps to UN HQ in New York. I married to a person from a different caste, different religion, completely different background - By that time I knew how to mingle with people without loosing my self identity.

But none of them helped me to run a smooth marriage life with my husband. I just had to use ONLY my commonsense to bring happiness back in my life - It was ONLY possible because of the strong LOVE we had on each other. Trust me, nothing helped me to win my marriage other than my LOVE.
I have many friends working for UN.. Most of them have a disturbed marriage due to distanced relationship/financial reasons etc...All these women were extremly independant though.

All my cousins are like my sister. Spoon fed girls, and living in the same region - same family set up. They have never seen the other side of the world.. Never mingled with lower class community, never felt comfortable with others who are not equal to them.... I can say so much minus points about them.

They all are happily married now. Reason, they found their love, and the mates who can THINK and LIVE on the same lines. Their ILs life style too more or less the same, hence there is no major problems in their marital life.

My sister does not like a career. Does not like to work. And there is no financial need from her side to think about a career. I can not ask her to find NGO jobs or anything similar just because of her marriage. I am clueless on this.

 

Dear ASG,

You are right. No matter what, I think the bride and the groom should feel OK about each other. Like "this is the one for me". This is the feeling that makes you forget about all the shortcomings of the partner and make you love him. Else you will always look for what is next.

As you said, I too think it is best to keep looking until she finds the right one... Since we have started this marriage talks, and everyone in my home (including my sister) feels that she is ready for a marriage now. I can not simply ask them to put this plans on hold until my sister grows up. It may sound weird and no one is going to listen to me. Because for them, she is grown enough to get married, as she is quite matured than me in many aspects (controling emotions, keeping silence, etc...).

Secondly the family strongly believes that my brother needs to initiate and organize everything in this marriage in my dad's absense. We cannot blindly have hopes on his 100% availability after his marriage, which will happen next year (by end of 2011). So it is safe to settle down my sister before his marriage - This is my gut feeling too.

But it doesn't mean we will rendomly select someone and force my sister to marry him. NO.

As I said before, we will keep on looking proper grooms, and hopefully her guy will come out soon. I am sure he was already born and living somewhere, so it is just the matter of finding him

 

Dear Ananthy,

I agree with you 100%.

As I said before, I consider my self as an emotional/sentimental fool. No matter how much exposure I have, how independant I am, and how big my career is, I am a total dependant when it comes to love and relationship. This is me.

She is not exposed as me, not independant as me, does not have a career etc..etc.. But she is very practical girl, who can face whatever the problems and move on in life. This is her.

We are totally different individuals, hence we should not be compared.

Since I have suffered enough in my marital life at the begining, I natutally became over protective towards my sister, hence I posted this thread. But lately I think there is no need to worry too much about this matter, as everything will fall on peace sooner or later. I think I am growing up>:thumbsup