I've posted in FDS before, when I've been confused and seeking clarity or reassurance, and you've never failed me yet. So I apologize in advance for the rant and vent ahead, but I'm feeling truly miserable tonight and really don't want to break down because of something so seemingly trivial. I'm hoping that some of you have experienced this before, and maybe have some advice for me.

I grew up in a horribly, horribly abusive desi family (desi is another term for people from south Asia). Think orthodox muslim family, physically abusive at every turn, emotionally and sexually abusive at every possible opportunity. To this day I don't know how I'm still alive, and how I'm sane enough to string a coherent sentence together.

I had zero self respect. Negative, even, if that level exists. I consequently entered a series of relationships, but blessedly in decreasing order of abusiveness, as I grew older and less depressed, and refused to resign myself to a lifetime of being treated like how I was growing up. After a long, massively messed up and 5 year long, progressively decaying codependent relationship that fell apart on its own, I was a wreck, but I scraped my way out. I spent time focusing on myself for the first time in my life. As I was in my late twenties, most of the extended family and relatives had given up on me ever getting married and I was basically 'discarded goods' on that front. My own family wasn't interested in getting me married either. because let's just say that my father did some things that a husband would discover and reject pretty much on the wedding night.

After a year of recovery, an HVM from my ex's friend circle asked me very seriously about marriage. He'd known me years but since I was dating his friend at the time, he'd never expressed his interest. I will not hesitate to say that this was the first and only time in my life that I'd met a desi muslim man with any HVM characteristics AT ALL. For the first time in my life, I felt as though I had the option of having a traditionally happy life as well. I know exactly how oppressed these systems look from the outside, but I've lived in them and outside them, please believe me when I say that there is real security offered within them. Especially with the kind of people who make up my family, I was relieved, grateful, and hopeful of having a traditional family of my own that wouldn't be drowning in toxicity, because his family was and is ridiculously well balanced, warm, and very close knit.

In a crazy twist of events, before we did the official telling-our-parents thing, a placement I'd been trying to land for years finally happened and I left suddenly for Australia. I think my father had been anticipating rebellion from me for some time, in any case, his greed and hunger for money won over his itch to keep me under constant observation, and he let me go. Me and the guy decided to postpone talking to our parents till I came back after six months. A teacher I trust a lot and had confided in told me to keep an eye on his behavior during this time, and maybe spend some alone time with him in Oz so that I'd be able to gauge him better.

Predictably enough, he started acting funny in just a month. Calls sparsed out, the friends were always there, he was always busy. He insisted that I come back ASAP and get the marriage thing done with. I grew progressively more spooked by one more man seeking control. After a lack of communication from him for almost 3 weeks, I had the talk with him and broke up. He apologized profusely and admitted to having some issues, that he promised to work on. In any case, it was amicable. I took FDS guidelines to heart and did not 'stay close friends' with him, but maintained a bi-annual type of text contact with him.

Now, I'm in a stable relationship, and more mentally stable than I've been in my life. I've also resigned myself to never getting that 'traditional muslim family' that I grew up watching everyone attain, and to some extent, also aspired to. It was that thing that I knew was not for me, not in this life, not the way I was raised. I'd never be one of those loving wives with sharm and haya (grace and modesty), I knew too much ugliness. But with my ex, it had been a possibility and a promise, even. I've resigned myself to not having that, not ever. Muslim men and desi men, especially, are intolerably, suffocatingly regressive, and I don't ever want to let any man have that much power over me again. My atheist Irish boyfriend has an impeccable moral compass, and he's loving and dedicated. That holds much more value for me.

In any case, my ex got married today. It's not like I was head over heels in love with him. I'm genuinely happy for him, really. The girl he's marrying is a pretty good match for him, and I know well enough that he's HVM enough to keep her very happy. He actually worked on himself after I left him. And I'm happy for them. But ever since I saw his wedding pictures earlier today, I've been feeling strangely heartbroken. It's like some vague dream I'd had has irreversibly died and vanished, and now I'm left with the facts that yes, these are the only options open to me. I'm not going to have that traditional wedding I'd secretly hoped I'd have one day. I'm probably never going to be able to visit my hometown. And I'm never going to have that 'normal' version of life I saw around me.

Idk. How do you all deal with resigning yourself to the end of such dreams? Not necessarily exactly this dream, but something, anything that was important to you? I haven't felt this shaken in a long time, all I want to do is curl up into a ball and BAWL. Idk. Do you have ay advice for me?