Description
Despite being raised in Canada, I was expected to have an arranged marriage before I became "too old" for the people in my family's religious community to view me as a potential bride. I grew up thinking that an arranged marriage within my religious community would be my future. When the time came for my sister to get married, I could do nothing but watch as she was forced to marry a distant relative overseas and become trapped in a miserable situation. As I got older, I realized that I needed to take drastic action to avoid the same fate as all the women in my family before me. They had been stifled and traumatized, and they chafed under society's expectations. However, they could do nothing but rely on religion and repeat the cycle of marriage-kids-marriage. Having failed to convince my parents that I needed to have other options, I left. This is the story of how I decided that things needed to change. This is how I took charge of my future.
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