My close friend just got married in a lavish destination wedding in India (though I couldn’t attend for personal reasons) and I can’t help but feel some envy ahaha. They had all these lavish floral arrangements, professional dancers and performers, concert stages, castle venues, etc. Mine was local in my home state in the US, and while my family spent a lot, but we definitely didn’t do all the things my friend did…we just wouldn’t be able to afford all those things especially in the US (weddings here are intensely expensive even for the most basic things) but we did our best and got a beautiful venue, good food, DJ, I loved all my dresses and henna, had great company, amazing photos, and most all I married my spouse. I know there’s no point in comparing because desi wedding culture does differ in the US vs back home, but I can’t help it, even though logistically I wouldn’t/couldn’t have married anywhere but the US. Some part of me wishes I tried harder to do a wedding in a different city or state instead of our boring old hometown. Or that I had spent more on flowers, or had more games, or asked people to dance more, or reminded my wedding planner to bring out glow sticks, etc.

It also feelsbadman.jpg that so many of the friends in our friend group posted so much about her wedding in posts and stories but they didn’t do it for my wedding when I got married. Even weeks after the wedding our friends still post how beautiful, spectacular, etc etc their wedding was. Even people in the group who never post, posted a ton about this wedding. It makes me wonder if my wedding was bleh and boring, which was definitely one of the biggest “post-wedding” blues/concerns/insecurities I had shortly after my own wedding. I am not mad at anyone but I definitely feel some type of way. As ridiculous as it sounds, if anything, I really think this whole posting thing is what has me feeling this way (in general I think I rely a lot on outside validation and care too much what people think). I highly doubt I would be thinking this much about all this if my mind hadn’t noted this “posting discrepancy”.

I also have some regret about our guest list because while planning, we wanted a huge wedding where we celebrated with our community and friends and family. So at the time, we prioritized making it easy for as many people to come as possible. But some friendships and relationships have changed since then (and for the worst) and I almost wish I fought harder for a destination wedding so that we could slash the guest list AND have a more “cool” wedding. I also feel bad about having all these feelings, because for my wedding time, it’s not like we didn’t spend a lot or try, so feeling this way makes me feel “ungrateful” for the wedding we did have.

Anyone have any advice for dealing with these emotions?

Some examples:

1. Making turmeric milk when your kid is feeling a little under the weather.
2. Q: "Where do I put this?" A: "On top of my head."

I'm Indian-American and so is my boyfriend. We have been together 2 years now and live a few hours away from each other. My parents are quite conservative/traditional so it has been hard for them to adjust to me dating and in a relationship. My mom is also extremely anxious and can be controlling. This year, my parents have been questioning why we are not engaged yet. My boyfriend and I have also discussed next steps in our relationship this year. I shared with my parents that he wants to live in the same city for 9-12 months before getting engaged, and the plan is for me to move to his city soon (to my own apartment). He has shared that this is what he needs before taking the next step, and I have my own feelings and anxieties about the sacrifices I'll be making, which I need to and plan to talk about with him, but I am tired of hearing my parents' opinions which are not helpful. Ever since I brought that up, my parents keep telling me how he is not serious about me, is wasting my time, I am wasting my life and my body (despite all of the other ways he has shown his commitment to me so far), everything goes according to him (when this is the only major decision in our relationship so far, there is no such track record) and I need to give him an ultimatum that I will not move before getting engaged. I am visiting my parents right now after a long time away and I cannot have one conversation with my mom without her attacking my relationship and it makes me so anxious. I've worked so hard with my therapist on setting boundaries with my family but it is so hard sometimes and I feel disappointed when I cannot just enjoy rare time with my family.

We've started a podcast for desi people living abroad or born in America/Canada. Our next episode topic is all about Superstitions and we are gathering stories about superstitions YOU grew up with or heard of. Let us know your wildest superstition stories or unreasonable things you had to follow in your households down in the comments! We will be reading them and discussing them in our next episode!

My mom is visiting and will spend the next 3 weeks with me to keep me company while my husband’s out of the country. I’ll be busy during the day at work on most days but really want to optimize the evenings as much as I can with her.

What are some activities that you do with you Indian moms to help with bonding? Things like cooking together, going on long walks, maybe some little painting projects at home?

Any advice is appreciated!

This is intentionally from my main account because I need to get naked in front of myself.

I (36 F) ruined my husband's (38 M) and our families' lives. Born and brought up in India but now living outside India.

This is a very hard truth about me, I am a compulsive liar. I lie to my husband, our families, our friends to the point that I started lying to myself too. Sometimes in defense, sometimes to magnify myself and look better, to glorify myself or to not accept that I could be wrong.

I had a challenging childhood with an elder sister who got diagnosed with schizophrenia as an adult but was a model child growing up. My brown family saw her as the golden child which negated and invalidated all the abuse I was facing from her in isolation, no one believed me, as an early teen I started lying to be seen and then it became a habit.

My husband figured I lie and called out when we were dating I was mad at him and denied, then I would accept and promise I would improve. I never did. This went on as a consistent pattern. I never learnt how to communicate my needs, didn't have a voice growing up and instead of self reflecting and learning that as an adult, especially after my husband giving me a million chances, I built resentment towards him and harbored that enough that it started becoming true for me. I treated him like my punching bag. He kept forgiving me and I kept abusing him. I never learnt to tell him what I felt was wrong, when I disagreed or my needs to me and instead kept ruminating on what he did vs didn't do.

It was far easier to pity myself and appease him because I was afraid he would leave me.

I hated the mirror he showed me. I cannot expect him to continue going on, there's only so much a sane person would be able to tolerate. When I calm down I remember every single time he was kind to me and forgave me and stood by me. Karma is serving me now.

I am losing my husband, our dog, our house, our friends, family, everyone whom I treated like trash. But most importantly I am losing the only ally I had who stood by me and said "I gots you" every fucking time.

Don't be me. If you have a partner who can forgive, be honest to yourself. I am no longer sorry for myself, I am trying to stare in the mirror. It sucks but that's the only right thing to do.

TLDR; I am a compulsive liar who only jolted to reality after my husband gave up on me.

Edit; fixed typo

Hi friends! I recently got engaged and planning to have a beach photoshoot next month.

I grew up in the US and unfortunately was not around many Indian people/events. I want to wear an Indian outfit to this photoshoot, but I have no idea what to wear. It's been 2 decades since I last wore Indian attire and I just don't really know what's trendy anymore. I'm shopping for an outfit soon and I don't want to purchase something that was trendy 5 years ago but I have no idea because I have no fashion sense. I'm open to something timeless, currently trendy... Indo-Western would be ok too.

Also, I'm looking specifically for outfits that would look good for a BEACH shoot. I assume this would mean something with lighter colors and a lighter fabric (not heavy). Something a bit more casual? I'm going shopping in person (I'm in California) but open to something online too. I'm in my late 20s if helpful.

Could someone please steer me in the right direction? Any inspo pics or websites?

So I(28F) have been meeting guys for arranged marriage for the past two months. Recently I met a guy who has common interests with me and we are pretty compatible.

But after 3-4 meetings, I realized that:-

1. He and his family are very spiritual. Like spirituality is their whole personality and for me, it's not that way.
2. He keeps on asking me as to whether my family will become spiritual eventually (This bothers me because he can expect for me to change but why my family?)
3. He is an eggetarian and wants me to give up non veg (I am open to that even though it could be a task for me to do that)
4. He basically has no filter as in he doesn't know what to speak with whom. He bluntly told me that his mother does not like my dressing sense and told him ki tum dekh lo. Also, I was talking about cutting carbs in my dinner and he told me that when he was fat like me, he did this and that (btw he is still fat, he has a santa claus tummy even though by face, he looks thin)
5. He also seems to be really proud of himself. He has called himself to be smart and intelligent (Like I feel he lacks humility at times).
6. Also, he has been brought up in very sheltered family environment so it doesn't seem that he will change or adjust after marriage.

I honestly felt bad about his blunt comments but didn't reciprocate it and have considered telling him no. My parents think that I am being extra sensitive and that I should consider this match since the family is modern and the guy is well qualified and an introvert like me.

Should I go ahead with this match? What do you guys think?

Edit: Told this guy no and I really feel like I have dodged a bullet. Thanks guys!🥺✌

Hi everyone!! I wanna talk about something important. As a female, Indian student studying in the UK, I rarely see any women in my classes, especially my science ones. More importantly, I've noticed very little representation of women and LGBTQ+ community, especially from India, in the demographics of scientific research.

For example, due to regulations in place, did you know that the Turkish man who won silver in shooting in the Paris Olympics 2024 was actually part of a TEAM with a 24-year-old woman?? Most articles don’t mention this fact, she is often cut out of pictures to only show the man. Her name is Şevval İlayda Tarhan.

This needs to change.

I believe women, especially Indian women, need more representation in many aspects, and I've been trying to find a way to make this happen through research studies. Finally found this gem and thought I'd share it cause I think it's important:

The Max Planck Institute of Human Development is researching online platform regulation. They're comparing countries and seeing how each population prefers who to be "in charge." Their survey is available in 27 countries and languages, India in Hindi AND English 💪 !

If you share this sentiment with me, and want to finally see women have representation in scientific research, please PARTICIPATE and SHARE this survey with 5 friends or family
https://mpib.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9HmdL6BsUFYMS5U?Q_Language=HIIt takes 5 minutes, anonymous, super easy and quick. This study is also quite famous, and it's a strong start, an opportunity for women to be represented in influential research 🩷

Hello ladies! I’ve started wearing a kameez with biker shorts during summer when it’s a thousand degrees outside - does anyone have a recommendation for a website where I could get a couple more? They’re so good over bathing suits too! I’m talking really casual, cotton or linen. I’m unfortunately in a smaller (US) town and don’t have any clothing shops to look at in person. Thank you so much!

Hi! My sister is going to Pakistan soon and will be doing lots of shopping for me, I wanted to get recommendations for Pakistani brands that don’t already ship to the UK (I can just get them myself lol), thanks guys!

On a different note - does anyone know how we in the UK, can access the Pakistani versions of websites ie khaadi. We used to be able to access them and see the price differences but now I can only get onto the UK versions.

I find myself thinking back to my childhood a lot when I was made to feel small and othered by white girls.I know a lot of desi girls experienced this, but I haven't been able to fully get over it and I don't like this about myself. When I think about it, adult white women have always been kind to me. People become more chill after high school and friendlier. And yet part of me still harbors lingering resentment and negative ways of thinking. For example, I haven't been able to fully shake feelings of undesirability even though, as an adult now, men of different races have sought me out. I feel distant from white women and like I'll never be as pretty as one. I think I feel that they live life on easy mode so I feel distant from them.

This post makes it sound like I think about this a lot, but it's a realization I'm having now. I was dissecting my overall lack of confidence and self worth and I'm pretty sure buried feelings is affecting every area in my life.

I'm waking up to how true it is that everything is impacted by self love but its just so hard. I ended up sheltering myself so I never got to grow up and find my confidence either.

For some context I grew up in a small southern town which is predominantly white and I'm still living here. For a few years in high school there were two other desi girls but they came from a much more liberal household than me and I got bullied by them too

I'm a typical brown girl I was raised in the states and as much as I love my culture there are some terrible pitfalls. I love my boyfriend he's not my culture and my parents are claiming they will cut ties with me if I marry him. I'm losing my mind over this cuz they want me to pick them or him. This is a stupid choice. They're of the mindset that if you care for us you won't do anything that would hurt us (like marry someone we don't like/date people/keep contact with people we don't like). They think every decision that we make that they don't like or approve and therefore hurts them means we dont care for them. They said they will not attend the wedding and that will be theast day they will be in contact with me. My mom has told me I'm being selfish for taking my kids grandparents away from them. It's been a lot of emotional blackmail and I'm at my wits end. To make matters worse they want me to get to know(marry?) this rishta that they've been talking to. I've told them to cut it off multiple times but my mom is obsessed with the fact that that guy has an IT job and education meanwhile my bf is still in school but makes about as much as I do. I'm not 100% on him for the rest of my life yet. I love him but we do view things differently from time to time. I enjoy my time with him but we're kind of opposites. This is a huge decision on me to either pick him or my parents and he doesn't want me to pick between them but rather go with my parents. We've been getting to know each other for the past year and a half but half of that has been chaos between what my parents want and how they talked to him and they didn't like him (I feel it's because they can't bully him as if he's their child like they can do to me). He stands his ground and he's willing to take on challenges/conditions but they don't even want to give him the stage. My mom keeps saying if Ive decided on him then go and I ask her if she'll be at the wedding and she says no why do I need her if I've decided to hurt her. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄. That is beyond stupid and frustrating as if me choosing my happiness is inversely proportional to her happiness. I feel she's a control freak and has made me like her in some ways too. She keeps asking me how much more time I need to make a final decision (of marrying him or not). I can't be making these decisions under all this pressure and don't want to make the wrong decision. I'm scared and under immense pressure, so much so that most days I go to sleep hoping I don't wake up. My parents have hurled all kinds of insults at me and been hostile towards him to his face and behind his back to me. My parents keep saying "if you love and care for us then don't go with him". Wtf as if marriage wasn't already a big decision now I have losing them on my conscience. Me and my bf think they might be bluffing but I can't risk the choice that they aren't. My mom already has an exit strategy of what she'll tell others. She's so embarrassed of what others will say and how I'll be the reason for their embarrassment. She'll just tell everyone I got transferred for work. I'm so tired of the BS. I have never felt close to my parents and that's another regret I have. They're aging, I'm 28 we don't have so much time left together to be wasting. We don't have a close relationship like most mother daughter duos. We live in the same house and I avoid staying with them too long so that they won't start any convos about the topic with me. Sorry for the long rant. I'm just distraught and can't think straight. Has anyone been in this situation or have any advice?