Arranged Marriage Scenario: How I spotted a cluster B

I am sharing a terrible experience I had in the context of arranged marriage. For context, I live in the EU, have traveled around the world, hold a prestigious job, and have a Ph.D. My parents live in a big city in India, handling the shaadi.com matrimonial website profile. They found a match, let’s call this person P. P lives in the US, his parents live in India (in a different state, so a different mother tongue). He has exactly the same profile as me, a little older, but was just getting his Ph.D. at that point and had a good job. My father spoke to his father, they called back and wanted us to talk. So P and I talked. We discovered that we have mutual friends – colleagues – because we come from the same field of work, and there was an instant spark. The first call went for 3 hours, and then I insisted on keeping the phone because it was getting late.

He kept on calling in the following weeks, which led to him saying he has had tremendous amounts of emotions for me since the first call. While this information ought to fill me with joy, I suddenly became taken aback. Arranged marriage is not supposed to be like this, too good to be true. I wish I had listened to my hunch then.

When I would not pick up his call, he would call again in the next few hours, drop me messages, etc. He was good at talking, extremely attentive. The calls became a daily affair, 2 hours a day, all about finding out how compatible we are, planning our future, kids, etc.

One thing I remembered and that struck me later was that he was very stuck up on good cop/bad cop parenting style where I, as his wife, was supposed to play the bad cop. I was not very fond of the idea but did not say much. Later read that this parenting style is highly criticised by child psychologists and are apparenting used as a method by controlling spouse to turn the kids against the bad cop.

Meanwhile, I was supposed to travel to the US for a work trip, and he asked me to visit him. I originally thought we would meet somewhere in the middle, but he said he wanted to show me where he worked and meet his colleagues. My parents said it is probably a better idea as well since it is a better way to verify this man and his job. His dad and my dad spoke again, and his family said they have no qualms at all; the only thing that matters is that we like each other. P and I spoke, and it boiled down to finding out if we are attracted to each other in person – not just the phone calls and FaceTime – and figuring out how we sort the long distance. Both of us were happy to compromise a little and move to the US – maybe to a different location and then come back to India in the future. I told P on the first call that it is very unlikely that I will get a job that I like in his city, but I can apply. If that is his only choice, we shouldn’t continue this. He vehemently disagreed and said he is very, very open to moving as well.

Cool.

We meet, he comes to fetch me from the airport. I stayed at his place – he said there were multiple bedrooms – there were, but what he didn’t mention was that it was a shared house, there was no guest room, he had roommates. Well, we end up doing the obvious, but it was a little unexpected for me, although completely consensual. What else can you expect when two people talking about getting married for 3 months ended up liking each other in person and there is just one bed.

Now the conversations start. He suddenly mentions he wants to live with his parents (every day 2 hours call for months, no mention of this before) and if I earn any less than him, I should do all the housework. Huge red flags; should not have been ignored. I get a growing gut feeling that verges on being uneasy. One afternoon while he was at work, I went for coffee alone and came back with an Uber. When he found out, he was extremely petulant and said, “Why didn’t you ask me to pick you up, so you don’t need a man, do you?!” I was too taken aback to respond to this. Again, red flag; should not have ignored.

He also shows me pictures of his ex-girlfriends and one girl he said he was again set up in arranged marriage but never met. I get a bit suspicious of the timeline, as the last girl feels like it was only 2-3 months before I entered the picture. He brushes it off, saying she did not want to move from Florida to Seattle, and hence he rejected her. Again, there was something off in the story; apparently, this girl worked in software, getting a job in the same field could not have been a problem.

He sees me off as I travel to another city in the US for my work trip; the send-off is extremely romantic. He keeps calling the next two weeks as I am in the US, asking me if I liked him and saying he really, really liked me. The relationship, from being flirty, now becomes serious (and cheesy).

I return to the EU, and the day after I reach home, we chat over the phone as per usual. By now, I am getting a tad uneasy that his parents haven’t called my parents after the visit. He tells me he is visiting the EU for work the very next week and I should visit him. The place is 3 hours by flight from my hometown. He said that I can tell my parents. The very next day, when we are on a call, and I am about to book the flights, he says, “Please don’t tell home now. I won’t either; they will ask soo many questions.” This was too big a red flag for me to ignore; I told him that I am not going if the parents are not told. He gets very, very angry. This man, the one I saw before, was extremely polite, very soft-spoken, but that moment, even over the call, it felt like his anger will burn me. But he said okay. And his dad called my dad, asking me to come and see him. I booked the tickets, but he doesn’t call me for the next two days. The first time in 4 months, he went like this. The silent treatment, a classic sign of emotional abuse. Later he told me he had to do this because “otherwise you won’t learn.”

On the third day, I call him. He says he has been very busy but calls me the very next day asking me to extend my trip to visit him for another 3 days so that he can take me up to visit some more places. I flat out refuse. My tickets were booked and non-refundable. And I am suspicious of him. Very.

We met again; I stayed with him in the hotel. But now I start observing him minutely. He starts softly putting down my work, saying I should shift from academia to industry. I love my work and have been very upfront about it from the beginning; so this comes as a surprise for me. He then keeps pushing about having kids soon and says – “It is not for me; you don’t have much time given your age.” I am 30, for context, in excellent shape, look much younger, and have no illnesses, and he is 31. I still keep my calm. Then, at the last dinner, he suddenly, very contemptuously, throw at me, “can you make rotis” (a type of flat-bread, this is known to be a very demeaning question to ask a working girl in arranged marriage)? He was not joking.That, ladies and gentlemen, was the last straw for me.

Had he not actually been sitting in front of me, I would not have believed it was the same person I “knew” for 4 months. The contempt, the expression. He could see the anger in my eyes, and before I could speak, says, “This overreaction is also being noted,” in a low voice of threat. I throw caution in the air and basically, politely, tell him this has finally crossed a boundary for me. He then tries to cover up, saying maybe it is a cultural difference, and I come from a more liberal part of India. Anyhow, I tell him, he has many friends and ex-girlfriends from my region, and 4 months and two trips later, he really needs to decide if he wants this. He says let’s finalize everything in a week. He tried to be sweet and have sex when we returned; I turned him down. I could not. A hug was okay, but I was sensing something menacing.

I get back, he continues the sweet talk for a week, the usual. Then when I tell him if he has spoken to his parents, he says let’s do it next week. I suddenly find him prowling shaadi.com.

Meanwhile, I get a job opportunity in his city. I call to tell him; he sounds very excited. But somehow I start to find him phony and decide to ask some mutual friends about him. While 3 said they don’t know him personally well enough, one said, “I hope you haven’t said yes to him yet. Stay under the same roof for a month with him before even daring to decide. Being a playboy is one thing but this guy is dangerous.” Another friend comes back saying he is well known to dupe women, saying that he is in love with them to make them sleep with him. Another friend told me that once his parents insulted an American girl, saying she can never be their daughter-in-law, after she learned their language and stayed with the guy in spite of him straying. In short, a very bad case history, from people who ACTUALLY knew him. Others, his mask of sanity is impeccable.

My dad calls his dad, and he says his son has not told him anything concretely yet. That week, he again disappears “with his friends” for two days for a trip, dropping me a text every day (classic breadcrumbing) and finally calls me. I behave as if nothing has changed. The next day, I dumped him. Written, over text. He calls, very angry, accuses me of seeing 100 men, accuses me of not understanding he has a tremendous workload at the moment, saying everything was fine yesterday, and I spoiled a chance of “us” being forever. I keep my calm.

Anyway, I am off for a one-month field trip with very patchy internet. Coming back, I heard that my parents and his parents saw each other when my dad was in their city for a work trip. His parents had no idea that I have dumped him. They begged forgiveness with folded hands, but I suspect it was to save their mask. They say that they did not interfere. But again, I suspect it is not sheer callousness on his parents’ part; there is something more insidious. Maybe my career was too much of a threat; not sure, but I feel they maybe realized he was heading towards me, and they tried to push him towards “a better-matched” doormat. Probably something akin to his American ex (he kept on saying that I was so much like her, again a red flag. He could never give me a plausible reason as to why they broke up since she was so awesome. And his ever-changing reason from “she was so good in her career why does she need me,” “I wanted to return to India, she agreed to come with me but I did not want her,” etc., did not make sense). His dad calls my dad the next day and says apparently his son is now saying that he dumped me, saying that we are incompatible. My dad forwards him the screenshot where I dump him.

In short, I realize I have dodged a huge bullet. He is rotten, and so is his family. However, the dangerous part is that an outsider would not have guessed anything. They are immensely polite, come across as modern and with high values. None of this is true. Outsiders would not know that these people are capable of essentially what is emotional abuse. He juggles multiple women at the same time, putting the classic love bombing – devalue – discard cycle. He has done that before and has been doing this in an arranged marriage scenario as well.

One good thing was after my parents unmasked him, and his parents said sorry with folded hands, his profile has been deactivated from shaadi.com. No doubt he will return and have already collected victims, but a temporary hiatus might have saved some more girls.