An uncle attempted suicide because he felt stuck in a job he hated, was living in a city with none of his immediate family members or friends, and was just generally depressed due to his upbringing.

People blamed his wife for it who he was married to only 2 months before this.

His marriage was against his wish and he had a girlfriend before it but nobody wants to talk about that because then they'll have to acknowledge that they're so deeply casteist they can't even tolerate a Rajput from a different state and that casteism almost cost them their son.

Another amazing incident that absolutely thrills me- one of my distant relatives (technically my grandmother) died at 65 of a heart attack. The woman was well known in the family for her love of buttery parathas and fried foods.

My dad reflexively blamed her daughter in law.

Why? Because the Daughter in law wasn't a bihari. So she was culturally different and could never fit in and she also made my (32 year old) mamu move out to a different city to live alone. Which caused my grandmother so much sadness that she died of a sudden attack 5 MONTHS LATER

The fact that a girl is vile and demonic to a point where she causes someone so much pain that they die of it is more believable to most people than the fact that a woman who religiously ate butter laden parathas daily despite a history of heart disease died of a heart-attack.

These are ALL the marriages around me where the woman is not a meek, silent, subservient cow. There is another distantly related mamu whose wife is divorcing him because he won't move out of his village despite having the resources to.
The woman lived her entire life in metros.

It was obvious that she won't slug it off in some random village in Bihar but this predictable divorce is blown out of proportion to a point where I have heard 5 different accounts of her adultery from different people now.
IDEK where I am going with this thread I am just ranting

I positively detested the idea of getting married ever since childhood precisely due to this.
In the eyes of most people the only ideal wives are my mother, her younger sister, and my nani.
These are all women who murdered their ambitions to sustain the relationship.

These are all women who have been through so much violence silently it is scary. My mom's sister's husband did not even get a job most of his adult life and he did not even work at home. He mostly only taunted my maasi for not being able to get pregnant.
My nani was abused.

It always seemed like it was the only way to express love towards people. You put up with their bullshit. This is why I used to put up (and still put up) with so much abusive behaviour at the hands of men.
Because I internalised it at a very young age that this is how you love.

I only started unlearning this bullshit 4-5 years ago and i only started to voice my own needs this year. Before this i would simply shut up if i wanted more from a relationship.
@ayerushii has been instrumental in telling me that it is ok to ask for love and it's okay to be mad.