Relationships are a big jumble of compromises, struggles, confusion, uncertainty, growth, love and happiness
Hi all,
Relationships are a big jumble of compromises, struggles, confusion, uncertainty, growth and most importantly love and happiness. No two people in the world have the exact same definition of a happy relationship. There are couples who meet and fall in love within months and get married, and manage to live happily ever after. Then, there are those who have known each other for years, get married, only to find out they can no longer stand each other. If two people truly love each other and want to make a relationship work, I would like to believe that they can always make it work provided they both put in the effort. However, relationships are not always that simple. Sometimes, situations or people change, priorities change and this in turn changes a relationship. Unless two people continue to share passion, intimacy and a level of commitment to one another, it is not easy to maintain a happy relationship.
Send me your questions to: askanjanaanything@nepalitimes.com or @AnjyRajy
Hi Anjana,
I am a 30- year-old professional woman who has been in a serious relationship with a 35-year-old man for the past three years. My boyfriend is currently in his final year of getting his Masters and I am very proud of him. We both love each other but after being together for three years, I want some sort of promise that this relationship is leading somewhere. He doesn’t think this is important. We also live in a culture where, I am constantly scrutinised for dating someone who is not willing to get engaged. Honestly, I personally do not care about getting married but my family does, and I would like to make them happy. He thinks we can be happy just the way we are and claims that society is constantly changing, but I disagree and think that our society in Nepal still expects us to get married if we both have been in a committed relationship for this long. I am still with him hoping that we will eventually get married because if he does not have the intention of marrying me, I cannot invest anymore time in this relationship. Am I being selfish ? Shouldn’t he want to marry me if he loves me? How can we stay together without eventually getting married?
SWR
AR: Honestly, I do not think there is a right or wrong answer to your question about what is more or less acceptable in Nepali society. If you are both mature adults who have been in a serious relationship for three years and you both want different things, it is clear that you need to sit down and have a serious conversation to voice your concerns to each other.
Your desire to get engaged is not selfish, but getting engaged just to satisfy the societal pressures you may be experiencing may not be the best reason, despite the strength of these pressures in Nepal. If you want to get engaged and get married, you should be able to be honest with your partner about why you want to get married.
At the same time, I do not think your boyfriend is wrong in saying that he is happy just the way things are and does not see the rush in getting married. But, the problem here is that you two are on different pages and want different things out of the relationship. It is important to discuss this and see how you both can reach a compromise – irrespective of how your society may perceive you, are you happy without being engaged to him? Is he willing to get engaged and married to you, even if it is not his own priority?
It is hard to say that a relationship is going somewhere, when the two parties involved want it to go two different directions and it looks like that is what is happening here. Talk to him and see who is willing to compromise a little for the sake of the other, otherwise it will not go anywhere. Good luck.
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