Random Stories Of Arranged Marriages (20 items)

• (#18) Their Parents Just Kind Of Ended Up Together

  From Redditor /u/Mapper9:

  So my parents were an arranged marriage of sorts. It was the early 1970s and they were in a commune. I've grilled my mom a lot about the commune, and personally, I think it was more of a cult... Anyway, it was the '70s and everyone was sleeping around. My mom and dad had been sleeping together and hanging out a bit, when the cult leader decided he wanted to throw a big group wedding for the publicity. My parents were one of the couples to get married. My dad was gawky and awkward and not at all what my mom really liked. Dad just went along with whatever, too stoned to really care.

  The wedding got a lot of publicity, the local paper covered it, and it was featured, I've heard (would kill to get a copy), in the Italian version of Playboy. Their wedding album is hilariously trippy. Dad's powder blue suit, mom's crocheted lace. Flowers everywhere.

  They stayed married for 19 years until my mom just had enough. She finally asked my dad if he loved her, and he didn't really. Or didn't care enough (still the stoner).

  I'm grateful my sister and I exist, I just wish my mom had been sleeping with someone else that week.
• (#15) Their Parents' Marriage Was A War Zone

  From Redditor /u/bthug27:

  Child of an arranged marriage. It is probably the single reason why I am socially, emotionally, and physically f*cked.

  They have hated each other since before they were married. They have had violent, and I mean violent fights. My fondest memories of my parents are them trying to kill each other. There are more days of my life where they are fighting and arguing than days they’re not.

  Basically, it’s like growing up in a f*cking war zone
• (#2) Theirs Has Lasted 20 Years

  From Redditor /u/city-of-stars:

  So my marriage was arranged. I'll give a brief rundown of my "courtship."

  First met my wife-to-be in Chandigarh, India. My grandfather and her father were both in the army and had been posted there, so our respective families had a get-together. This was right after I had graduated college (she was still in high school). I don't remember much, we both said "hi" to each other but that's about it. Around this time our families started the "process," for lack of a better term.

  Soon after, I moved to the United States to get my master's degree in computer science. I studied in the States for two years, and upon graduation, I accepted a job offer at Intel. I worked there for a few years and would visit India often. By now my wife-to-be was studying at Indraprastha College for Women at the University of Delhi.

  After working at Intel for a while, I moved to a better-paying position at IBM. At this time, my family and her family broached the idea of us getting married. By this point, I barely remembered my wife-to-be, having only met her that one time several years ago. We met in India, and at that point, we started "dating." She had graduated from the University of Delhi and was planning to apply to a PhD program.

  After a year of dating (that's essentially what it was), we got married in Telangana (both of us were Andhras). We knew each other relatively well at this point. Soon afterward, she joined me in the States, having been accepted into a PhD program. I continued to work for the next few years before we had our first child.

  We've been married for close to 20 years. Both of us are very happy in our marriage. Obviously, nothing is 100% perfect, we argue from time to time like any other couple. But she's been a supportive, wonderful companion for all of those years and I like to think I've been the same.
• (#16) They Dove Right Into Marriage

  From Redditor /u/Kittiesandunicorns:

  Met my husband on the 9th, agreed to marry him on the 15th, and [we] were wed on the 20th. Literally said about two words to each other, and that was with five members of his family present. Been together 13+ years. It has its ups and downs like I imagine any marriage would - arranged or not. We are very good together. He tries to makes me happy in any way he can.
• (#13) This Arranged Marriage Ended Badly

  From Redditor /u/Throwmarriage8877:

  Child of an arranged marriage here - and holy sh*t these descriptions [from the Reddit thread] of how they're supposed to be arranged are eye-opening.

  My grandparents threatened to cut all contact with my recently graduated mother unless she entered into one. Though she had legal residency in the country she was studying in and could have told them to f*ck off, everything and everyone she knew was an ocean away which is why I think she agreed.

  On paper it looked fine - he was a recent graduate from a top college with filthy rich parents. My maternal family was not as rich, but our name is pretty old and has a history in our culture - and my mother's folks had made it seem that she'd be bringing old money and land into the partnership as well to sweeten the deal (she wasn't). Everything was handled between the two sets of parents - she only met him twice before the wedding.

  What his parents didn't tell her family what that he was a drug addict with severe mental issues. They also failed to disclose that his father made it a habit to sleep with the wives of his sons - and the sons turned a blind eye to this because daddy was bankrolling their lavish lifestyles in exchange.

  Anyway once my mother was married and she a) didn't bring nearly as much money with her as they were hoping for, b) refused her father-in-law's advances, and c) had a daughter instead of a son, the marriage quickly soured. My father showed his true colors as an abusive f*ckwit, made her cut all contact with her family/friends/neighbors due to his paranoia stemming from his mental health issues, and forced her to take out numerous loans to fund his drug habit.

  She only stayed with him as she couldn't afford the expensive, drawn out legal battle over me that would happen if she ever tried to divorce him. (She did try to plead for help from her family, but they essentially washed their hands of her after the ceremony and were no help at all).

  She finally did manage to leave him when I was in high school - but not before he attacked her with a knife.

  So yeah, glad to see that the majority of marriages here seem to be going so well - wasn't aware they could.
• (#11) Their Parents Are Great, But It's Not The Relationship They Want For Themselves

  From Redditor /u/lexcorp_shill:

  Pretty much everyone in my family had an arranged marriage, so I have a lot of stories, ranging from really happy to very terrifying. I guess I can talk about my parents to start with and will answer other questions if people have any. This is India, for context, and I am not going to be any more specific, and some details are fuzzed. They were married in the '70s.

  My grandfather spent a fair amount of time looking for women slightly younger than my dad. My dad was in his late 20s and had been working for over 10 years at this point (including dropping out of college) since it was a big family he had to support. My mom had grown up in a small village and was about five years younger. Since my dad had no hangups about whom to marry (he is still a very unfussy person), he said yes to the first person both his parents agreed to. They moved to a larger city after getting married, where he was working in the public sector.

  The details after that are slightly fuzzy, and [it's] stuff I've gathered from relatives and overheard people talking and whatever versions my parents told me. My mom had a very utopian idea of what married life would be like, and apparently, that didn't work out so well, and she'd be morose a lot, and spend a couple months at her mother's house every year until I was born. My dad had to figure out how to actually be a good husband; he did not really have any idea of any of [how] this worked.

  Over the years, my dad developed heart problems, my mom went into depression, and there was a lot more yelling. It would always end up being resolved since ending a marriage is never an option for families like this. There would be days when they plain just would not speak to each other. Sometimes it ended with mom yelling a lot. Sometimes not. They never really learned how to resolve issues like adults, in my opinion.

  Now, it's been decades, and I find they are more like co-workers than anything else: they did an amazing job of raising me and my brother. They have each helped out the other's family at times: my dad paid for college for a few [of] my cousins, in fact. They always work as a team (albeit slightly dysfunctional) when it comes to things like dealing with problems in the extended family. But that's all that they are. I don't think there's any affection between them at all. They don't go out, or do the same things together (they have two TVs), talk about anything other than serious stuff, or go on vacation. I love them to death, but they aren't the kind of relationship I aspire to.

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