MOHAMMAD ELYAAS
Today, I want to shed light on a painful reality that continues to destroy countless lives behind closed doors—a reality many people witness yet choose to ignore. The lives of countless young women are being turned into nightmares because of false promises, fake personalities, manipulative words, and unrealistic expectations created before marriage. What was once considered one of the most sacred and beautiful bonds in human life is, in many cases today, becoming a source of emotional suffering, depression, and silent trauma. Marriage was meant to provide companionship, peace, emotional security, and a lifelong partnership built on trust and mutual respect. Unfortunately, for many individuals especially women—it has become a beautifully decorated cage where reality often begins only after the wedding celebrations end. Families spend months portraying themselves as ideal, respectful, and progressive while hiding their true mindset behind sweet words and carefully crafted images. Once the marriage is finalised, many women find themselves trapped in circumstances they were never prepared for, surrounded by people who appear completely different from who they claimed to be before marriage.
One of the biggest contributors to this growing crisis is the immense societal pressure placed upon women to marry early. In many communities, a girl’s life is treated like a countdown towards marriage, as if her personal ambitions, education, career goals, and self-development hold little value compared to becoming someone’s wife. From childhood, many girls are conditioned to believe that their ultimate destination is their husband’s home. They are told to adjust, remain silent, tolerate everything, and prioritize others over themselves. They are taught to endure mistreatment for the sake of family honour. Girls are often trained to compromise, while men are rarely taught emotional intelligence, responsibility, household contribution, conflict resolution, or how to treat a spouse with dignity. This imbalance creates disastrous consequences because marriage requires far more than biological maturity—it demands emotional intelligence, financial stability, patience, and the ability to protect and nurture a relationship. Without these qualities, marriage can become a battlefield where both individuals suffer.
Another pressing issue that makes marriage a real hell is the practice of imposing marriages based solely on parental choice while depriving children of their right to choose their own life partners. In earlier times, endogamy was often encouraged to preserve family ties, maintain social harmony, and strengthen relationships. However, the social landscape has changed significantly. Today, both men and women increasingly aspire to marry according to their own choice, yet many families continue to suppress this freedom particularly in the case of daughters. In many cases, girls are forced to marry within their relatives or restricted from marrying outside their caste or community. At first glance, such arrangements may appear peaceful and convenient. However the long-term consequences can be deeply damaging when two individuals are bound together despite lacking compatibility, mutual understanding, or emotional comfort. Over time, unmet expectations, resentment, and emotional disconnect can turn the marriage into suffering, often leading to the collapse of the marital relationship even to the deterioration of long-standing family ties that were once meant to be preserved. Marriage, which should be built on mutual consent, understanding, and companionship, risks becoming a social burden when individual choice is ignored in the name of tradition.
A deeply disturbing reality is how often marriages begin with carefully crafted illusions. During the proposal period, many men and families present idealised versions of themselves. They promise freedom, education, career support, love, and equal treatment. Women are assured they will be treated like daughters rather than daughters-in-law. Some men become extraordinarily attentive before marriage—sending affectionate messages, making grand promises, and painting a future filled with dreams. The same can also apply to women, as deception and false portrayals are not limited to one gender. However, once the marriage is finalised, these promises frequently evaporate and become hollow. The same husband may become emotionally distant, irresponsible, aggressive, or indifferent. The same in-laws who promised warmth may become controlling and hypercritical. Restrictions begin appearing one after another—limitations on clothing, friendships, education, social media use, mobility, employment, and even communication with parents. In some cases, women are forced to produce children immediately, often male children, while their emotional well-being remains ignored. This betrayal creates wounds far deeper than ordinary conflict because it destroys trust at the very foundation of the relationship.
Another destructive factor is excessive interference from families, especially in-laws. Marriage is supposed to unite two individuals, yet in many households it becomes a relationship governed by parents, siblings, relatives, and societal expectations. Private disagreements become public family discussions. Parents dictate where couples should live, how they should spend money, when they should have children, and how the wife should behave. Some mothers refuse to accept emotional boundaries with their sons, while some relatives constantly fuel misunderstandings. Many husbands fail to protect their marriages from unnecessary interference because they fear being labelled disobedient children. As a result, wives often feel abandoned after leaving their own families behind. They may feel like outsiders in the very place they were told would become their new home. Continuous interference destroys emotional intimacy because couples never get the privacy required to understand one another independently.
Dowry culture, material greed, and financial exploitation continue to poison marriages in many societies. Some families treat marriage as a business transaction rather than a sacred commitment. They demand expensive gifts, luxury items, vehicles, cash, property, or endless financial support from the bride’s family. Even after marriage, these demands often continue through emotional pressure and humiliation. A woman may be constantly reminded of what she “brought” or failed to bring into the marriage. Financial greed has reduced many marriages to marketplaces where human dignity is sacrificed for material gain. Such practices not only burden families financially but also destroy the ethical foundation of marriage itself. In the religion of Islam, there is no concept of dowry. While voluntarily giving gifts out of love and goodwill is a personal choice, turning it into a social expectation has become deeply harmful. This practice should be discouraged so that financially struggling families do not feel pressured to compete in a destructive and unfair race.
The suppression of women’s independence remains another painful issue. For generations, women were discouraged from seeking education and careers due to societal fears and patriarchal restrictions. Today, women have proven their abilities in almost every field—they are doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, scientists, and much more. Despite this progress, many women still lose their freedom after marriage. Their degrees are ignored, their ambitions are dismissed, and their right to work is often taken away by husbands or in-laws who prefer them confined within household boundaries. Many highly educated women are forced to abandon their dreams simply to serve others, despite having the ability to become financially independent. This not only destroys their confidence but also creates deep frustration and emotional exhaustion.
Social media has introduced an entirely new layer of deception into marriages. Through carefully curated profiles, filtered lifestyles, and selective conversations, both men and women often present themselves as far more ideal than they truly are. Some portray themselves as highly religious, well-mannered, emotionally mature, obedient, family-oriented, flawless, and deeply committed individuals while hiding their real habits, attitudes, financial struggles, toxic behaviours, or personal shortcomings. During online interactions before marriage, promises are made, dreams are sold, and unrealistic images of a perfect future are created. However, once the marriage takes place, these carefully built illusions often begin to collapse as real personalities emerge. Before marriage, many couples appear completely comfortable with one another and seem to trust each other without even the slightest doubt, yet after marriage, even minor disagreements can escalate into blame, character accusations, and deep mistrust. This painful transformation often reveals the stark difference between illusion and reality. The affectionate words, ideal behaviour, and attractive lifestyle once displayed online may prove to be nothing more than temporary performances. This betrayal often leads to severe trust issues, emotional detachment, conflict, and, in some cases, the complete breakdown of the relationship.
Domestic violence remains one of the darkest truths hidden behind closed doors. It often begins quietly with insults, emotional manipulation, humiliation, constant criticism, isolation, and threats that slowly break a person from within. Over time, this emotional abuse can escalate into physical violence. Many women are threatened with divorce simply for speaking up for their rights, staying connected with their parents, or refusing to tolerate injustice. Their character is questioned, their upbringing blamed, and their suffering is often ignored as if their pain holds no value. In extreme situations, such abuse pushes women into severe depression, trauma, self-harm, and even suicide. What makes this reality even more heartbreaking is that society frequently pressures women to adjust and save the marriage instead of holding the abusers accountable.
At the same time, failed marriages cannot be blamed solely on men. Women too may sometimes contribute to marital conflicts through manipulation, emotional immaturity and many other ways. In some cases, wives may pressure their husbands to distance themselves from their families, disregard their guidance, or completely cut ties with their parents, which is not a healthy approach. However, when family members become controlling, humiliating, or unfairly target a woman, a husband must be strong enough to set clear boundaries and protect his marriage without fearing societal judgment. Likewise, families on both sides often worsen conflicts instead of helping resolve them. The real issue is not gender—it is ego, dishonesty, control, poor communication, and a lack of emotional maturity. Marriage cannot survive where one person seeks domination instead of partnership.
Another overlooked issue is financial instability. Rising inflation, unemployment, expensive healthcare, educational costs, and modern economic pressures have made marriage far more challenging than before. Love alone cannot sustain a household without practical planning. Many people rush into marriage without stable income, savings, emotional readiness, or long-term planning. This often results in stress, blame games, and shattered expectations. Both partners should be financially prepared and should support one another’s growth instead of limiting each other. It is not necessary that every woman will marry a government employee or someone who is financially well-established; in many cases a husband may be a labourer or someone with limited income. In such circumstances, couples should make practical and responsible decisions—such as family planning and maintaining a manageable household size, so they can meet their basic needs more effectively and avoid unnecessary financial strain.
At the same time, wives should also practice financial understanding by limiting unnecessary expenses and unrealistic material expectations so that financial pressures do not become an additional burden on the household. However, this should not be used as an excuse for husbands to neglect their responsibilities or deny their families basic necessities while shifting the burden onto the woman’s parents through false justifications. Furthermore, it is extremely important for men to continuously seek better, progressive, and productive opportunities to support their families to the best of their abilities. After marriage, a husband carries a significant responsibility to provide for the basic and essential needs of his family without becoming entirely dependent on his in-laws.
The long-term societal consequences of toxic marriages are deeply alarming. Children raised in hostile households often grow up carrying trauma, fear, and distorted understandings of relationships. Young people—especially women—who witness broken marriages around them increasingly fear commitment altogether. Many now avoid marriage entirely because they do not want to inherit the suffering they have watched others endure. This growing fear reflects a broader social failure that cannot be ignored.
Marriage can still remain one of life’s most beautiful relationships—but only when built on truth rather than performance. It requires honesty before marriage, emotional maturity after marriage, financial responsibility, mutual respect, personal boundaries, communication, empathy, and accountability from both individuals and their families. A wife is not a servant. A husband is not a financial machine. In-laws are not rulers of a couple’s private life. Marriage should never feel like imprisonment, emotional warfare, or social obligation. It should be a partnership where two individuals help each other heal, grow, and build a peaceful life together. Unless society begins addressing these painful realities honestly, countless people will continue suffering in silence behind the illusion of “perfect marriages.” We are collectively responsible for many of these wrongs, complexities, and broken marriages—and only through empathy, accountability, and a healthier mindset can society bring this sacred institution back to the right track
Muhammad Elyass is a columnist.
