Aunty Bella: Miss. His Family Doesn’t Want Us to Get Married

Aunty Bella is our  agony aunt column on BellaNaija. We launched this column in the early days of BN and periodically feature issues sent in by BN readers.

We hope the BN family can offer insightful advice.
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My fiancé and I have been together for 2 years and got engaged in January 2017. Our wedding is scheduled for August of this year. While we should be very happy and looking forward to our upcoming wedding and the marriage, there is SO much drama that’s really making it hard for us. First, his parents do not want him to marry me because I am Indian (born in the UK) and they want a Nigerian wife (from the village for their first son. Second, he knew they would oppose to the engagement, so he didn’t tell them of his intentions until the day he proposed. They haven’t been really speaking to him for the last four months (not even his siblings). Now his entire family says that they wont come to our wedding if the parents don’t go. I’ve tried to be really supported of him during this terrible time, but it is starting to affect me.

Now my dad doesn’t want me to go through with the marriage, although he really likes my fiancé and was very happy when we got engaged. He says that he has heard terrible stories of Nigerian in-laws (no offense) and how they can really make or break their children’s marriages. I understand that my dad wants the best for me as I am his last child, but I really want to be with my fiancé. I am not sure if I can always support him emotionally if his family never gets over the engagement and marriage.

Some more info, no I am not a desperado. No we have not being fornicating. We have remained celibate since day one. No, I did not use juju to make him go against his families. He’s 32 and I am 28. We genuinely fell in love during our masters program and want to spend our lives together. There really isn’t anything sinister going on here and I really have not done anything wrong to offend his family. His aunt said that as a woman I shouldn’t go through with the marriage because no one is supporting us. My fiancé has gone to make amends with his parents twice but all they did was yell at him that he is disrespectful and pussywhipped (dad said this). He assured them that he will fulfill all of his obligations to them but for some reason they don’t believe him and said that I will spend all the money taking care of my family.

My parents are both doctors in the UK and my brother is wrapping up medical school here in Joburg. My family is not in need of my fiancé’s financial assistance and we are both paying for the wedding ourselves.

So, we are putting the final touches on a wedding that we aren’t sure if the parents will attend. We won’t even do any sort of traditional ceremony because his parents will most likely not attend. It’s causing so much stress and pain. Anything I can do to help? I’ve already reached out to his family members to make the peace, but they ignore me. Before all of this, I thought that they liked me. We met on numerous occasions and I even went on a weekend vacation with his parents and his younger brother last year. But now no one talks to me. Most days I believe that we will survive this. Other days I am really angry with them and don’t know if I can stand it. Please advise.

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