Tag Archives: marriage

How could this be acceptable in Asian culture? Or any culture at all?

I’m surprised that I’m actually more hurt than I thought I would be. My fiance and I have been together for a year. Marriage plans have been discussed although no wedding date is fixed yet; as a matter of fact I’m still considering getting a scholarship to do 1-2 years of postgraduate studies abroad prior to marriage so that I have a chance to fulfill my potential and pick up life skills that will be essential for the survival of our marriage. We’ve been good friends for 7 years and I know that this is the man I want to share my life with till we grow old. Family-wise, my fiance and I have been around each other’s parents for almost as long as we’ve been a couple. My parents love my fiance and my fiance loves them; I love his parents and his parents love me.

My parents thought that my 25th birthday would be the perfect opportunity to invite his family for dinner to get properly introduced.

Before this, only my his mom got introduced to my mom, but this wasn’t planned. His mom needed a ride when my fiance and I had an appointment with my parents, so since it was in the same direction and the car is mine, I insisted that she come with us to where we were supposed to be. Even so, she didn’t leave the car, so my mom took the initiative to come greet her.

Anyway, I just found out this afternoon that my fiance’s parents are not coming to dinner. Although I had a feeling that it would have turned out this way, I strangely feel really hurt that they’re not coming. What did we do wrong? Was it dumb of us to invite them in the first place? Should we, as the female’s family, have waited for the male’s family to take the initiative? Or are we simply not worth freeing a Saturday night for over what we think would be a nice dinner in town?

The fact that my mom feels insulted isn’t helping. Isn’t it a given that when you’re invited to dinner you’re supposed to come; and when you don’t, it’s a sign that you don’t want to have anything to do with the person who invited you? And since they’re rejecting our invitation, at this moment I really can’t see how one day my fiance’s family would ever invite us over to finally get introduced; they rejected us, so why would they swallow their pride and do it back to us one day?

My fiance is the most gentle and courteous man I’ve ever known, and treats me with the utmost respect; so it simply never occurred to me that his parents could be this rude to us. How could this be tolerated in Asian culture? What does this say about my future relationship with his family, and with him? I don’t want to hold grudges against my fiance’s parents, but a part of me strongly wants them to know that what they did was not OK; what can I do? When my fiance and I marry, what can I do so that issues like this don’t become hazardous to our relationship? Because I would really hate to have to criticize my spouse’s parents and make him feel as if he has to choose between his parents or his wife.

For the sake of being specific, we are Indonesians.
My fiance and I live with our own families, which is common practice here in Indonesia well into a person’s thirties and beyond (because starting salaries are seldom good enough to afford one’s own place). My fiance’s mother would have loved to come to dinner, but isn’t because her husband is unwilling. My fiance’s father refused to come for no reason, and my fiance has done everything he could to convince him to come.

How do I know that the man I’ve been with for the past 2 years is the one for me? we have the same interest.

We both love and dislike the same food and have so much more in common and can’t stand to be away from each other. When I first saw him i actually knew we where going to be togteher we talk about marriage,and we want to have a baby how do I know that this is true love? it certainly feels like it!!

What are the Top 3 goals of your marriage?

In 20 years from now, if you look back and rate it, did you succeed?

What is important? Pleasure, fun, survival, sharing skills, sharing the remote, raising kids, going to fundraiser dinner parties with someone that sleeps in the same bed as you…? What is the point of your marriage, what would you most like to get out of it?

Is a marriage truly 50/50?

I recently cam of active duty army to greet a “Real world” with open arms, but found out in a hurry that with a son, wife and various other bills in my life 1 job just wasnt’ enough. I am faced witht he burden of being the man of the house and picking up a second job (16 hours a day). At what point do you think my wife should sacrifice as well, i mean i think it’s pointless for her to work just to pay the cost of child care could just stay home but i mean come on….. I think in the end i will burn out.

Just an open ended talk, give me your input anywhere!! :P thx!
Just to clarify the situaion thanks for reminding me. We had our son on january 9th of this year, I came home off active duty on the 22nd of december. While i was away we both split the duties, and yes she was lonely but so was I, and we didn’t have the added stress of a child in our lives yet.
totijoro, your the kind of woman that ran decnt men out of this country along time ago… you know that expression women always use “where are all the decent men in this world?” I’m just gonna add the link to this page :P