Imagine your marriage had been arranged

In My Humble Opinion
21

Strangely enough, though I differ almost completely in what I would have looked for in a parter as opposed to what my parents might have looked for in a partner, I’m about 95% sure as to the identity of the partner they’d have chosen for me.

Also, very strangely, I’m almost completely sure it would have worked out had they arranged a marriage with this person. Since that’s not the case, of course, I’ll never be able to say with certainty, but just based on this hypothetical scenario and knowing this man as well as I do, I’m sure it would have worked out well.

Naturally, I’m glad this isn’t the case and I chose my own husband, but an arranged marriage with this other man, I think, would have worked okay.

22

For reference, I’m two years out of college, and my parents have certainly been making hints. I can think of two, one that Mom would have selected, and one that Dad and Stepmom would have. The first is Julie*, the daughter of some close family friends. She’s always been very pretty, but she’s five years younger than I am, so it was only fairly recently that she went from pretty girl to hot young woman. In fact, it’s funny to see how things have changed after only a few years. Mom generally spends the holidays with this family, and at a Christmas gathering when I was in college and she was 16ish, I was confronted by her father after Julie and I had been talking.
“She’s sixteen,” he said. With a serious look on his face.

Now that I’ve graduated and am holding down a steady job, things have changed somewhat. Last Christmas, it seems that I couldn’t be told enough how great Julie was. She’s a dancer, you know. And she doesn’t have a boyfriend. All provided as supposedly matter-of-fact. Her dad invited me along on their ski trip the next weekend.

I see no reason why this might not work out, although I admit that I don’t know her well (and, well, she’s still a kid. Most people change a lot in college).

The second is Katherine, the daughter of friends through my Dad and Stepmom’s (old) church. She’s three or four years younger than I. She’s attractive, and we’re casual friends. She goes to college down in LA somewhere, and we see each other a few times a year. She invited me down there once when there was an event at her school I was interested in, and I took her to lunch when she came to Santa Barbara to visit some friends.

The likely problem I see here is that she’s Christian enough to go to a Christian college, and I’m an atheist. Not a problem for me, but it has been for every Christian girl I’ve ever been interested in or involved with.

*Names have been changed.

23

My mother is rather fond of one of my high school boyfriends. As in, they still write to each other. And I haven’t heard from him in years.

If she’d had her way, I’m sure she’d have married me off to him. When his bipolar disorder manifested itself a couple years later, that would have been . . . interesting. Furthermore, either we’d have kids and I’d (likely) be miserable, or we wouldn’t, and he’d be miserable. (Kids was something we could never agree on.)

She’s warming up to Mr. Fries, and he to her, but I know my mother will never get over my first love. :slight_smile:

24

I know right how who my aunt would’ve chosen. He would’ve been thrilled with the arrangement, and I would be miserable.

25

My parents are pretty good about not trying to mess with my personal life, though there have been some hints to the contary.

My mom once kept hinting strongly about a girl she works with, apparently about my age. I could see very well what she was trying to do and basically just showed little interest(not that I had to act for this). Sometimes I’d respond by saying “Okay, Yenta”.

We were going to the movies and this girl was supposed to meet us there, but never showed up. Didn’t bother me at all.

Fast forward a couple months later and My mom starts talking about what a bitch this girl is and that she’s sorry she tried to set me up with her. I don’t remember if I told her, but I don’t see how I can be particulary upset considering I never met her and was never interested anyway.

A couple months ago my dad was saying that he wanted to get my and one of my sister’s friends together. My sister’s friend who has a particulary abrasive personality(even my sister will admit that, which makes me wonder how they stay friends), and as such that I told him flat out “The amount of alcohol this proposed set-up would require would be aprox. 3 times the amount needed to kill me”. He still said he was plotting to do it, but he hasn’t made any serious attempt(or even half-hearted attempt) since. I suspect he either forgot or (just as likely) was never seriously thought about it in the first place.

26

It would not have worked well. Even assuming my mom was still around (she was a lot more like me than dad is) I don’t think they would have picked the right woman for me. With dad alone, there’s no way he would have picked anyone even slightly compatible.

27

I think it could work out fine, to be honest. If I was in a culture where the importance of staying in a marriage was stressed (as most with arranged marriages are.)

The thing is I don’t think there’s anything like a perfect relationship. Every relationship requires some work on both sides, some more than others. Some can’t be salvaged because one or both won’t work on things (and maybe they aren’t worth salvaging, obviously.) But I think the real secret to a happy marriage is just having two people who are willing to work together and come to a happy medium.

28

If they had chosen a girl for me, she would have been the wrong gender.

29

Interesting. Not once have any of my friends or my parents tried to set me up with anybody.

30

The last time my mother tried to pressure me onto anyone was back in early high school. I had a female friend, but she (my mother) couldn’t quite grasp the literalness of “friend” in that descriptor and kept trying to nudge the relationship beyond that. An all around bad experience for all parties involved. It was during that fiasco that I think she started adding two and two together about my sexuality, but at any rate, the attempted matchmaking stopped.

So, following the letter of the question, who would she have picked for me to, um, {insert the verb form of “domestic partner” here} after university? She would not have selected anyone at all. Adapting the question to an earlier time frame, she’d have chosen that girl and the marriage would not have worked out very well. Even omitting romance, our personalities were too closely matched–we got on each other’s nerves far too quickly to ever hope of living together without one of us going to prison for murder.

31

My parents don’t believe in arranged marriages for kids brought up in N.A. but I think I’d be okay with whomever they chose-they’re pretty canny when it comes to men, actually. I don’t know, out of the numerous arranged marriages I’ve been exposed to, only a handful have gone sour.

Anyway, these days half the marriages I know are sort of semi-arranged. The parents introduce the kids, they go out for a while and then get married. Even my relatives from India have mostly made love-matches with people out of our ethnic group and caste.

32

I have no idea who they might possibly set me up with should they do this, and frankly given my parents I’d be shocked beyond belief if they ever did–they’ve always been the type to let me go my own way.

Now on the very miniscule chance that they should, it’s highly unlikely that it’d work out. For one, I grew up in a rural area, so the number of possible husbands is small to begin with. The other thing is that while I can get along with numerous people well enough on the surface, I can only really get along well with a small fraction of people. And of those, many I wouldn’t ever consider having more than a platonic relationship with (which is rather uncomfortable given how many of them have wound up with crushes on me). Not to mention that there’s no way my parents (at least my mother) would ever consider marrying me to another XX type, so cut that number by another half.

I’m not sure if my parents would recognise the type of person who’s right for me, but even if they could (doubtful, I’m still working on it), they’d have to find him first, and that’s about as likely as a sandstorm in the arctic for those two.

33

My mother would have **loved ** to arrange my marriage. I don’t think she had a specific candidate in mind but he would have been older than I and rich, rich, rich if at all possible. She absolutely hated the guy I did marry and kept after me to divorce him for about the first 10 years. We’re still married :slight_smile: .

34

My mom adores my husband. Just adores him. He represents to her the sons she has lost; the husband she hasn’t had for three decades and the son in law she always wanted.
I was pushed off the pedastal of adoration by my husband.

And that is a-ok by me.

35

My parents came out of the old-school NDP democratic-socialist be-fair-for-the working-man let-everyone-follow-their-own-path school, and arranged marriages would have been anathema to them, I suspect.

Which is a bit of a pity, because my mom knew some really cool people, and might have been able to connect me with someone who was artistically- and philosophically-compatible with me.

Considering the events of the last three or four years, and what I learned about my father’s personlaity and how that was reflected in me, I suspect that any arranged marriage would have ended up extremely rocky. I just wasn’t mature or emotionally strong enough.

These days, though, I’m seriously considering engaging the services of a matchmaker, because finding anyone who is compatible with me is quite difficult.

A self-arranged marriage, anyone?

36

I’ve known several couples with roots in the Indian subcontinent. Two couples had “arranged introductions.” Neither the men or the women were teenagers–they thought they were “ready” for marriage. They took time to get acquainted, then got married. Both couples are still doing fine.

One co-worker, raised in Kenya, did not have an arranged marriage. The courtship was quite old-fashioned in Western terms, but the groom was not Jain. This marriage has had more difficulties.

37

Part of its the different expectations between an arranged marriage and a self-determined one.

I’m looking for a soulmate, someone I’m passionately in love with. Could my parents find that for me? I doubt it. I’m not terribly optimistic that I could do it.

An arranged marriage is looking for someone I can build a home with. Compatable enough that the relationship can survive close quarters and we’d still be content, but not necessarily a romance for the ages. Someone to have kids with, but not quite a “lover”. My parents could do that for me. And I think I’d be pretty content with it, if the culture around me considered such a union the norm.

38

If my mother had had the chance to pick my spouse, I’d be married to a gay man today. Naturally, we’d both be miserable.

The guy was my closest friend in high school, and hell YEAH he was hot. He took me out to dinner one night and asked if I’d go out with him. I turned him down, and then he came out. I don’t mean two days later, I mean right there at the table, holding my hands, while I had a strawberry milkshake in front of me (with two straws, one for me and one for him, how twee!). I mean, I knew, in my heart, he was gay, which is why I turned him down (because otherwise, rooowrrr!). He kept saying he would be straight for me if I asked him to. HA! Very flattering, but please. We would both be miserable, I knew it, he knew it - he just wanted a romp in the hay. At that point in time, I don’t believe he’d ever been with a man (we were very close, and I’m sure he would have told me, but who really knows for certain?), but I believe he had experimented with a few women. He did love me to death, and I him, and even today, I’d take a bullet for him. But marriage?!

Later, my mother and I were out for a walk, when I told her he’d asked me out. Her eyes lit up and she was so excited. She was half in love with him, herself. When I told her what had happened, she was crushed. I told her he was gay, but she said he wanted to go out with me, so he was bi. Sure, probably at the time. Then she says, “Oh, you couldn’t go out with a gay man! If he cheated on you, it could be with anybody!” So, if he cheated on me with a woman it would be okay? Thanks for looking out for me, Mom! What a goon.

By the time graduation rolled around, she saw while I was up on stage, chatting with some of my buddies, another one of my guy friends. She runs up to me after the ceremonies, and asks who the fellow I was chatting with who was sitting behind me was, and I said his name. Apparently it didn’t set off any warning bells, and she started asking me if we were close, and if he had asked me out. When I said no, he’s nice, but not my type at all (totally different priorities - I wanted to get out of that hellhole town, he wanted to stick around and drink, drink, drink), she wanted me to go ask him out - right then and there! I told her he was a drinker, something she frowns upon, but she then insisted I could “change his ways”. She was half in love with him, too. He was good looking (looked like a very young Baldwin brother… well, any Baldwin but Dan), and that’s what had her drooling.

So, to sum up, her first choice would have been a gay man, and her second choice would have been a drunk. Her third choice would have been my current husband, though - she’s in love with him, too. He’s good looking, rarely drinks (I drink more than he does!), and isn’t gay, to boot. Plus, my father loves him. My father doesn’t love anyone outside of the immediate family.

But I’d have to have been divorced twice before I could have gotten to the good stuff. It’s bad enough I was engaged twice to rotten bastards all on my own. Damnit, Mom. I guess we’re not all that different.

Pretend I didn’t just say that last line.

39

A pretty serious attempt was made to get it together between me and the daughter of longtime family friends. Gayle (not her real first name), her younger brother, and I had even been playmates as preschoolers, when our families lived near each other.

Suffice it to say that Gayle and I dated long-distance for about a year after college, and that I became quite attached to her, but she didn’t feel nearly that way about me. In fact, she let me down pretty hard about it, and I took it badly enough that it really stunted my emotional growth as far as relationships with women were concerned.

40

I don’t think “lover and soulmate” and “someone I can build a home with and have kids with” are all that incompatible.