DEAR EMILY,

My boyfriend and I have been together for three years. He has a 10-year-old kid who is living with his mother. His father died a year ago.

He has five siblings. Three sisters are working abroad, and one has a kid also living in his mother’s house. His eldest married brother, who is constantly being laid off from work, is also living with them, together with his three kids. His eldest married sister occasionally visits them.

He has been supporting his parents since he got his first job, and it’s only occasionally that one of his sisters from abroad helps in their expenses. We would like to settle down, but we can’t, since he has to keep on supporting his family. His mother gets angry when his monthly support is delayed or is not enough.

I pity my boyfriend; he can’t even buy his own cologne, because what remains after all his expenses at home go to his transport and food at work. He borrows money from me every payday to make ends meet.

I broke up with him before. He asked for a second chance, and now it’s happening again. I want to break up with him for good and go on with my own life. Am I being selfish if I do that? That won’t make me happy. I don’t know when he will find the time to stand for me and his son.

LIZ

You are single and have a job of your own. Are you willing to take on the task of supporting your boyfriend’s extended family once you get married?  Remember, you are marrying the entire family, like it or not.

How in love are you with him, and he with you? Enough to sacrifice your privacy and your financial independence?  Are you willing to go the distance? Love, despite what you read in fairy tales and romantic novels and watch in movies, isn’t all that it seems.

The colors and lines in your relationship blur; what were intense and passionate emotions, once upon a time, dissipate into thin air, and nothing seems to stay the same. You oftentimes become entirely different persons. Are you ready for that reality?

You can still complain about your boyfriend and his family freely at this point. But once you’re married, you’d have to hold your tongue, turn a blind eye, play deaf and dumb to everything around you—if you wish to maintain a peaceful existence in a marketplace you’ll be calling home.  If you’re game to all that, go ahead. If your love for him is unshakeable and boundless, great enough to even go through fire for him, go ahead. You’ve been warned. It’s your life.

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