The Good Son

If you meet my parents you will not be able to guess that they have a complex relationship with me. They are extremely functional as a couple and have always been so. They’ve been together since 1987. They’re very attached to each other and are not abusive by any measure. My parents paid for my education, paid for my guitar classes and gave me everything that I wanted. All that being said I have a very difficult relationship with them.

It started when I was 17. I was seeing my first girlfriend and it was only then that I knew how strict my parents were. I remember telling my then girlfriend on the first day of our relationship that “there would be days when I would not be able to talk to you because my parents are very conservative but that does not mean that you don’t matter”.

In the super Christian upbringing that I had, Sex and attraction was spoken of as a sin. That’s always what I was made to feel about it. I remember my parents discovering a note that a guy sent to my sister and remember them closing the door to “correct” her. “Correct”, because it was “wrong” if someone was attracted to her or if she was attracted to someone. When you’re in Love at 17 and you have strict parents, you have no one to guide you and zero adults to look up to when things go wrong. So you hide everything.

I had to hide my attraction and hide my emotions. Every phone call that I had with my girlfriend, I pretended that I was talking to a guy called Pramod. It’s okay if you talk to a guy for hours but not a girl. Every time I had to meet my girlfriend on a date, I had to tell my family that I was meeting my friends who were all guys. I had to be really quiet on the phone calls. I had to hide all the gifts and letters my girlfriend sent me. It was all wrong and I was fearing being locked in the room with my parents as they brutally confronted me like they did with my sister. But that’s not how they got to me.

One day before I slept and said goodnight to my dad, he looked at me and said “don’t have any girlfriend!”. I looked down to the ground and said, “no I don’t have anything like that”. He said, “look at me!” and continued, “Don’t have any girlfriend”. It scared me the way he put it. He said it in a way where it looked like he was convinced that what I was doing was wrong. He never explained why it was wrong. He never had any talk about relationships with me before that day. It was directly a command from him that I was supposed to obey in order to be his son. I felt fear but I also knew that I was not going to break up with my girlfriend. I might have been 17 but I was not going to be swayed that easily. So I continued my relationships in secrecy for a few more months until it ended.

When it ended, I had not felt such sadness ever. It was the opposite of all the highs that I felt and I had to hide even my sadness. I never told my parents about how sad I felt because in that time of pain I knew what they would say — “ See we told you”. There was no one to explain what went wrong and how I could work on things the next time. In my head there would be no next time. I was 18 at that time. I believed my parents. They were right. I shouldn’t have had a girlfriend to begin with. What I did was wrong.

After my first break up, I felt relieved in a very small way because it had put an end to all the hiding. I was now honest. I told my parents everything because I didn’t want to live in secrecy. Telling my parents everything was a problem as well. If you stay with conservative parents who disapprove of a lot of things and you want to tell them everything, then you have to do only those things that can be spoken off to them. They thought of relationships as wrong and because I wanted to be honest with them, I didn’t get into any relationship for a long time. I met so many attractive girls but didn’t pursue a relationship with them because it was wrong and I didn’t want to disobey my parents.

I was making my parents happy but was I happy? ABSOLUTELY NO! I was miserable. Being single is not what I wanted for myself and I tried getting out of that space for a long time. After a while I started to think that there was something wrong with me. Maybe I was a flawed human and that is why I was single. Maybe I’m not good enough. I started doubting myself beyond measure. There were many sleepless nights when I felt the weight of this worry pressing against me. Some nights were so bad that before I knew it, I would just see the sun rise and I’d say to myself— “ I guess I’ve depressed myself into another new day”. Even when I went for therapy for the first time to speak about this, I lied to my parents by telling them that I was going for a meeting. I was still the good son.

Parents mean well but many times in an attempt to shield you from failure, pain and disappointment they can pass on fears to you which are not rational that end up frustrating you from getting what you want. This could be in your career, social life or love life. Don’t let that happen. Recognize those fears that have been handed to you and deal with them.

My number one fear is the fear of ending up alone. Someone said that your fears point you in the right direction and I hope to God that it’s true. It’s sometimes hard to find someone and it’s sometimes hard to keep someone but I will keep trying till I get it right. I am learning a few lessons along the way but I am moving forward. I do this it because it is important to me. I am learning to prioritize my happiness over my parent’s happiness even if it means not being the good son.

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