I am looking for the approval of a person that will never give me one. The idea here, is to have what I want without offending her. Without sounding petulant, without throwing a tantrum pressing my demands. With respect.
But HOW can this be acquired? When the person already has a preconceived notion about you, about your choices? When this person has and will judge you by your peers and your siblings. Refuses to single you out as an independent spirit with independent ideals. Refuses to let you chart your own path?
And then again, why must this person’s approval be acquired?
The historic manifestation of marriage of my siblings have brought bout some surprising results. Where one force was denied by the in-law’s the other was denied by my parents. And I would be the fourth of the seven of us to pursue a long term relationship that will lead to a marriage. Only one of us was removed from his relationship because HE was a problem. The other 2 (My sisters) through the most epic episodes of emotional abuse towards my parents. My brother on the other hand remained calm through the many insults flung at his wife, by my father.
For some reason, my parents are under the false notion that our culture is better than everyone else’s especially where we grew up. Having forgotten the marriage the two by simply raising us among our neighbours. Culture, is constantly changing and is influenced by the environment. If simple elements like language form a culture, than it is safe to say that, by learning and absorbing the language, we have inadvertently changed our culture. So we cannot now be so proud as to say that ours far out-ways theirs, ours is an amalgamation of theirs.
That aside, our faith too. To be honest, for some, their faith is real and physical; for others, faith and religion are a mind control game. It is really unfair to force a change on the person’s belief system just to be with them. I believe firmly that this alone, is the single flaw in our faiths. Why cant we lead by example? Let our actions persuade a change. Knowing that a good christian, a good Muslim, a good Jew and a good atheist will mostly likely agree on a similar course of action towards humanity. Why cant the focus be on raising good humans as opposed to good (enter faith here)?
So lets say, I put make my man fit all these little boxes to appease my mother. These will cause an uncomfortable transformation in my human, the person I so dearly love and have grown to love as himself to make my mother or my father happy. Then over time, this change brings about a whole other human being, a new ‘unimproved’ version because he has been bent over so many times to fit a box even I don’t fit in. What next? Enter my mother with the negative comments about HOW I went and married the wrong man.
It just does not work. But I need, for some reason, for this approval so that I can feel closer to her, because my sisters decided NOT to get this approval and in doing so, actively hurt her. I don’t want to hurt her.
So what do I do?
