What Do You Do When Your Parents Disapprove Your Marriage

When your parents or family disapprove of you getting married to someone you love, I don't think it is wise to just go ahead and get married to whomever you want to marry or quarrel and fight with family members. This will make things worse. It's also not wise to break up engagement your engagement with your fiancé or fiancée, because your family disapprove of the person you want to get married to.

In Nigeria where I come from, the respect for parents and elders is very important. Also, if they don't approve of your marriage, they would not give their blessing. Getting your parents or family blessing is one of the best things that can happen to any Nigerian. There are some things which I think you can do to get their approval.

1. Try to find out the reason behind the disapproval of your fiancé or fiancée. This is because there are several reasons why parents and family disapprove marriage with a particular person. Some of them are ethnic, religious, social status, family background, or educational background of the person you want to marry. This will help you in explaining to them why you want to marry this person despite their bias. In Nigeria, there are families who discriminate against other tribes. They will never agree to the marriage of their son or daughter to someone who is not from their tribe. Although there have been several campaigns against this trend. People are now being enlightened to know that we are all human and should not be discriminated against. Today, there are inter- tribal and cross-cultural marriages.

2. Find out who is most influential in the family. This is because if you can get the favour of this person, he or she will go a long way in influencing the decision of the family. You can win this persons favour by sending gifts to the person and try to make him or her see reasons with you why you should marry the person you want to marry.

3. You should also try to explain to the family why you actually want to marry this person. This is because they may be acting in ignorance. There might be something they heard that might not be true. Try to make them see beyond their bias, especially if their reason is based on tribal or religious sentiment. They should know that times have changed and that the world is now a global village.

4. Don't be pushy. If they don't approve of the relationship, give them some time and go back to them. With time and continual persuasion they may finally give in. Especially, when they discover that you truly love your fiancé or fiancée.

5. You can also send friends of the family to speak on your behalf. By the time you continue to send people over and over, they may be force to consent.

6. You need to be patient with your family. Don't be in a hurry to break up. If the reason for your family disapproval is ethnic or religious you will really need some time to get their approval. There are some people I know who spent three to four years before they could get their family's approval.

7. Finally, if you have tried everything humanly possible and you don't seem to be making any headway, then you have to involve the supernatural. By this I mean, you have to involve God. The way to do this is by praying to Him about the situation.  Pray asking God to turn things around in your favour. This is because with God, nothing is impossible.