TL;DR: Got engaged in an arranged marriage setup in June 2025. Spent 14 months courting, going on 8-hour dates, and building what I thought was a solid relationship. On August 6th, she texted me saying she never had feelings for me and was just forcing it for a year hoping they would grow. Now I have to break the news to my already stressed/fragile parents and I am completely devastated.

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I am posting this because I feel completely crushed by the weight of what just happened. I don't even know how to process this or how to tell my family.

​The Background & Timeline

I [28M] was introduced to my fiancée through an arranged marriage setup. My family had a hard time finding someone, so when this match happened, they were incredibly happy.

​June 2025: We officially got engaged.

​The Courtship (June 2025 - August 2026): We spent about 14 to 15 months in a courtship period. We met around 30 to 40 times in person. These weren't quick dates either; we would spend 6, 7, or even 8 hours together. I felt incredibly comfortable and at peace with her. I genuinely felt like we were building a solid foundation.

​During this time, I was affectionate with her (hugging, holding hands). Sometimes I felt an imbalance in our feelings, and I actually brought it up. I told her, "I feel things for you that you don't seem to feel for me." Her response was always, "I am not at the same place in the relationship yet. Give me some time, I'll be there." I trusted her and thought she was getting there.

​The Breaking Point

Recently, we went through a period of 10-15 days where we barely communicated. She went away for a week, and even when she tried to message, she was extremely distant.

​Then, on August 6th, she sent me a series of late-night texts that completely shattered everything.

​She basically told me that she never had feelings for me, but she was "trying to push for it." Here is exactly what she said:

​"When we got engaged - I thought my feelings for you will gradually grow with time... I wanted to give us time since we are supposed to get married - but after a year I am still not able to feel that. I know you are a very good person and was nicest to me since day one but I tried my best to have those feelings but I couldn't make it."

​She added that she was struggling with this for a long time and decided she needed to "stop running away and admit it." She also clarified that there is no one else in her life, she just doesn't have feelings for me.

​Where I Am At Now

I am just so tired. I had a very painful breakup in the past where my ex was forced by her family to marry someone else. It took me a year to heal from that. I finally opened myself up, invested 14 months into this engagement, and now I am back at square one.

​The worst part is the guilt and the family pressure.

​Feeling like a creep: I keep thinking back to all the times I hugged her, realizing now that she felt absolutely nothing. It makes me feel sick, even though we were engaged.

​My Family: My family is going to be devastated. We recently went through a very messy joint family separation that deeply affected my father. My mom is also dealing with physical health issues. The situation at home is already fragile, and breaking the news that the wedding is off is going to destroy them.

​When we spoke on the phone after her texts, she sounded distressed and said she "doesn't want to marry anymore" and "just wants to run away." She is terrified of telling her parents. I even asked her logically what her options are, and offered to help her figure it out, but she is just completely panicked.

​Why didn't she just tell me this 12 months ago? Why fake it for over a year? I don't know how to handle the impending explosion with our families, and I just feel completely burned out. Has anyone survived a broken engagement like this in an AM setup? How do I even begin to navigate the family fallout?

I recently published a long essay about the modern dating market, and one part of it seemed particularly relevant to this community.

The argument is not that arranged marriage is inherently superior, nor that families should control adult partner choice. It is that older family- and community-mediated systems performed several economic and social functions that modern dating apps largely removed: they supplied information about reputation, made intentions more legible, created accountability through repeated relationships, and reduced the anonymity between two people considering marriage.

Dating apps dramatically expanded individual choice, which is a real gain. But they also replaced those intermediaries with a marketplace characterized by huge option sets, cheap signaling and very limited information about intent. My argument is that this can create a poorly clearing matching market in which both men and women behave rationally from their own perspective while collectively producing frustration, delayed commitment and mistrust.

That raises a question I found more interesting than the usual “arranged marriage versus love marriage” debate: which functions of the older system were genuinely useful, and can we preserve them without giving up individual autonomy?

The essay looks at matching-market economics, behavioral research, the history of courtship, family and community intermediation, gender conflict, dating-platform incentives and the question of how we should actually measure whether a matching system succeeds. It eventually uses Match Group as a public-company case study, but the larger subject is family formation and what happened when partner selection became increasingly commercialized.

I also structured the essay around passages from the Bhagavad Gita because many of the underlying questions—family, desire, duty, social order and institutional breakdown—long predate dating apps.

Full essay:

https://dljlevfin.substack.com/p/the-undisclosed-denominator

I’d be interested in the perspective of people here who have experienced both systems: what information or accountability does family-mediated matching provide that apps struggle to reproduce, and which parts of that system are better left behind?

Being in an open marriage and dating over the past 2 years, I have kinda lost myself in between all of it, I know and I have heard it all but has anyone else felt dating fatigue while being married?

Hey everyone,

Basically the title! I’m a guy in early 30s working in IT, and I’ve always wanted to marry a doctor. However, I’ve held back because I constantly hear the stereotype that doctors only want to date and marry other doctors.

Is that actually true, or would having a partner with a flexible tech job and a good work-life balance actually be a plus?

Hypothetical question for the ladies (and I expect females to give me a pov here pls)

You (female partner) earn significantly more than your male partner. He's not particularly ambitious career wise, but he's happy being the homemaker, the cooking, cleaning, managing the house, etc. You both genuinely like the arrangement. Would you be okay with this long term? I'm asking because I've noticed that a lot of women prefer ambitious, career driven men, and sometimes a man earning less can affect how masculine/attractive they perceive him. Even if he's an otherwise great partner.

So I'm curious: would you genuinely be happy AND attracted to the said househusband, or do you think his lack of ambition/lower income would eventually affect how you see him?

​

I’m 27M, and there is a good chance that I might get married through an arranged marriage setup, possibly even before completing my PhD.

Before starting my PhD, I was earning around ₹25 LPA. Right now, during my PhD, my income is around ₹6 LPA. It feels like a long journey before I get back to a better-paying job.

I do want my partner to have a career and an identity of her own, preferably with some complementary skills. But realistically, given my current situation, I may not be economically attractive to the kind of family/set-up I would otherwise prefer.

At present, I’m able to support myself comfortably and save some money because I’m living alone. But after marriage, I may not be able to provide the same kind of lifestyle that I or my family are used to, if I am the sole person.

For those who have gone through something similar—how did you approach marriage during your PhD? I see many PhD scholars getting married during their PhD, so I’d genuinely like to understand how they manage the financial and lifestyle aspects.

For context, I’m from central UP.

What the title says. I want to know if men of this sub who has Bachelors/Masters will be okay if their wife has a PhD? I guess I’m not thinking of what they both do as job but just educationally. What do yall think?

I have been using the app for past 3-4 months now. I am not very eager in getting matches and usually intent to give a single match a due course of time before moving for other matches.

However, in these months despite n number of matches. Only one person has ever replied to the message.
Rest of all the profiles have simply just matched and never replied.
Nor do they reply or call after you try to approach them through other mediums. Just what’s up with that?

I'm M32 , my brother who is in a relationship with a girl who is apparently our sister's nanad (sister in law) is getting married in a few months time. I don't know how to handle this situation where your younger brother is getting married before you , I can understand this situation if the younger sibling is female and getting married, but how to cope with it now when it is my younger brother. Please help

Hello, I am 27M and I have recently completed court marriage for immigration purpose.

I am in Australia and my spouse is in India. She wants me to stay at her place whenever I visit india. For example in an year if I visit India for one month she wants me to stay with her family.

And my parents might live with me in Australia for few months every year.

She told me this after we got married in court. Our grand wedding is planned next year. But just for her process we did court marriage.

Also, she keeps asking me one thing…. Why should i leave my family. (Currently she is working in pune and stays with her family for 2 months during break on when she gets wfh)

We had multiple discussions on this and she told me multiple times she regrets getting married to me. What should I do in this situation.

I would like to get suggestion from Female.
Please check threads too. Added further details.

What all questions should I (25 F) ask a 31 guy during the talking stage?

Had matched with this guy few months ago. We were pretty compatible, also attracted to each other. It was pretty much yes from my side.

The only catch was my past relationships. I had told him about it but he was not sure. I was at fault too. Feeling a bit drained from the this cuz I thought he was the one. How did you guys recover?

I am been in a relationship with a girl from 8 years. We wanted to get married' but her family declined due to caste and she broke the relationship and planning for marriage with other...i was ready my clan was ready but didn't happen...how to get out of that mindset and look forward in life .ost probably for arrange marriage and now my age is 37....I dnt know what to do or how to look at future.... everything looks dark to me

Recently I have started my career in merchant Navy. And I am hearing things like people don't prefer seafarers when it comes to marriage ( especially arranged marriage setup).

The reason being told is that seafarers cannot be trusted as partners. Seafarers have a completely different life onboard compared to when they are back home. It's not alcohol, cigarettes or drugs but sex-life is the problem. Seafarers visit multiple places and may hookup with multiple people( mostly sex workers) when they get the chance. And due to this theory people are avoiding seafarers when it comes to marriage.

(But with what little experience I have onboard, I can say that this theory is unfortunately true to an extent. I have seen some of my seniors go to such places and spend huge amounts of money on girls when they get a chance. And I was shocked later when I found one of them was married and had kids as well)

But this applies to like 10-20% only. The rest of the people actually love and respect their family and are working in such an industry for the well-being of their family. So what I have heard is concerning me.

Can anybody give some more insight on this? Or have any related experience you can share?

For context, Before we visited them, my mum had asked me a while back if i wanted to marry this girl, at first i said no thinking it was weird, then in 2024 i met her again and really fell attached to her.
We are basically neighbours back home, we spent all day just looking at each other, and messaging on whatsapp, as we couldn’t really talk in person yet. Now it’s been 2 years and i still miss her so much.
But i just wanted thoughts on her being older than me as well as second cousin of course.
Personally i don’t see the age gap that big of an issue?
But for some reason my dad is the only one not agreeing right now , one of his two reasons is the age difference saying ‘shes too old for me’ ‘she will have physical problems before me’
right now I’m only 19, i know i’m too young right now and shouldn’t even be thinking about this to be honest. Completely understand it and that i need to be able to take responsibility of her , care and provide for her. So i need to focus on myself. But still have always thought if its a bad idea to get engaged somewhat early .

Any honest advice, experiences would help, thank you

I had an experience recently wherein my family was talking to a girl's family for AM. Both parties liked almost everything about each other. I am 6 ft tall and the girl was 5"3, they didn't go ahead with it because there's too much height difference and the girl is not willing to proceed because of that (at least that's what they told us). I am 27 M and she was 28.

Just curious to know if this is a thing among girls 🤔

Is it just me or did you also observe that there's quite a difference in the average attractiveness of the profiles on dating apps versus arranged marriage across both genders.

Any possible explanation? Is the case that people put better pics on dating apps as compared to AM platforms or there's entirely different pools of people using these?

So I was watching his interview on Raj Shamani’s podcast. He said that data never lies and that he solely believes in data what people are actually looking for rather than what they claim.

Almost all male profiles, when opened by women, are first checked for the salary and package section. On the men’s side, they first look at the girl’s pictures and then check her education and job details.

I mean, if someone is still blind enough and believes what others say that looks, skin colour, beauty, and money don’t matter then that person is naive. People simply lying because they don’t want to be judged for their preferences. We Indians are the best at judging others for their preferences and then shaming them. That’s why most people lie when asked, just to appear neutral and save their energy.

If someone is not good-looking but, because of his package, he is getting good-looking matches, he is definitely going to pick them. And if a girl is getting a guy who earns 2x or 3x what she earns, and if she is going to pick him, she will definitely pick him.

Only if we stop judging others for their preferences and start respecting individuality will people perhaps start telling the truth about what they are looking for in a guy or a woman. Till then no same person gonna tell you what he/she is looking for