Would you listen to your parents if they told you not to marry someone?
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Anonymous
| If you got married anyway, any regrets? |
Anonymous
|
Depends on whether they have good judgement or not.
If they didn’t want me to marry someone because they were racist, then no. If they didn’t want me to marry someone who was an unkind or unreliable person, then probably. |
Anonymous
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I wasn't in this situation, but the important question is what type of relationship you have with your parents. And are you mature enough to evaluate that relationship in an unbiased way.
I would have listened to my parents, but it would have been pretty out of character for them to tell me not to date or marry a certain person. But I was also pretty influenced by my mother, and not in an entirely positive way. |
Anonymous
+1. Doesn't hurt to listen to the reasons. Sometimes people on the outside can see things you might not. They could be wrong too, won't know until you ask why. |
Anonymous
| Love clouds judgement + youthful inexperience so this is exactly when you should listen to parents. |
Anonymous
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This happened to me. I am glad.
My ex had a congenital heart problem. My mom told me it would lead to a lot of heartbreak to have kids with him. More is now known about his health (very rare genetic defect) and I have to admit she was right. He’s under 40 and on a list for a heart transplant now. I have 3 healthy kids with someone else. |
Anonymous
My mom said the same thing for a partner who had rare childhood cancer. I didn’t end up with him, but I wholly disagree. There are no guarantees in life, and avoiding for a rare genetic disease that may or may not have an impact on future health is not worth it if you love them. |
Anonymous
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No regrets. Married 26 years now.
Unfortunately my mom did not have my best interests at heart, and wanted me to marry for purely superficial reasons and for money. Told me that if we married, she would never speak to me again, thinking it would stop me. |
Anonymous
| If my dad had cautioned me against DH, I would have listened. If my mom did, I would not have. Shes a judgemental B and I learned long ago not to listen to all the various reasons she holds things against people. That said, they both love DH and he is a great guy. |
Anonymous
|
No regrets. Married 26 years now.
Unfortunately my mom did not have my best interests at heart, and wanted me to marry for purely superficial reasons and for money. Told me that if we married, she would never speak to me again, thinking it would stop me. |
Anonymous
|
My mother threatened disowning if I married a man I was wild about - I’d had a number of boyfriends already and grew up witnessing her abusive dysfunctional marriage so I think I had pretty good instincts about how right this man was for me, and more importantly how right his family was as potential in-laws. I think in part my mother was deeply jealous of the bond I had made with them and that she would lose me to a happy stable married life. I was too young, too dumb and too deeply damaged by my childhood to stand up to her and I ended up losing him. Ten years later I was estranged from my mother and remained so until she died. In the ten years I jumped through hoops and became better educated than 85% of the population while following the directions she pushed me - and in the end it was suddenly agonizingly obvious that I would never be good enough. I could have won the lottery or married Jeff Bezos and she still would have seen me as unworthy of her praise or love.
I think when it comes to huge life decisions, parents (and peers, and other mentors) should tread very carefully in offering advice to people over 18 years of age. I recently read a good piece I can’t locate to share, but it was about the moral imperative to allow others their own choices and regrets. Everyone makes mistakes in life, and everyone ends up with regrets nevermind declarations to the contrary. But our regrets that we must live with should be OURS, not the poor consequences of a choice we never wanted for ourselves. It’s an age old issue especially with parents and children - but I think there is nothing more egregious a parent can do than steal their child’s life from them by refusing to allow them to make their own choices and mistakes in life. A parent should always offer feedback but also make clear that they will be loved and respected and encouraged in any life path that is legal and does not have the obvious objective to harm others. |
Anonymous
It did end up having a massive impact on future health. All the men in his family who have had he genetic defect dropped dead of a heart attack in their 40s. |
Anonymous
This is cold. |
Anonymous
You must not have loved this man. |
Anonymous
| Each of my parents have been divorced three times, so their opinions on marriage carry no weight. |