So this is going to be extremely weird..... Me and my husband met in college and were part of a tight knitted friend circle of 4 more people whom we are friends till this day. So due to personal reasons that I won't dive into, my husband asked me for marriage. It was supposed to be just a paper marriage and nothing emotional which we had decided to end after some years.
It was perfect for me because we all belong to south asian country where women are expected to get married at a young age and I had pressure from my family so I did it and got to work on my career like I have always wanted. We were supposed to get divorce after 3 years and only our friends knew the truth about our marriage.
After only a year my husband's sister and her husband died in an accident and their children a boy of 7 and girl of 10 had no one beside us. My husband does have a brother, but we were clearly a good option for the children and we genuinely wanted to take care of them.
I just fell in love with the children and being a mother to them, they were so young when we had them and we just couldn't go through with the divorce because it would have been traumatizing for the kids who were just starting to adjust and plus I did have a really great relationship with my husband that i think we got alot comfortable with just the idea of what we had as a family.
So we just kind of stuck with that. It's been 7 years now and we never consummated our marriage and have no romantic relation and we don't intend to as well. His mom found out about that through our friend's parents who apprently knew and she is extremely disappointed in us. She wants him to have a real marriage and have true kids of his own.
If we are not willing to do that than we need to end this marriage and find our true partners. After us rejecting that and telling her she gets to play her part of being grandmother. She went insane and told everyone in our family and we are getting a lot of heat from the people. So AITA?
[deleted] said:
Sounds to me like you have a real marriage. Marriages and relationships are all different. Doesn't matter how it started. As long as you are both loved and fulfilled by what you have going for your family, everyone else can eff right off.
FashionBusking said:
NTA. IT'S NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS!! You have a beautiful family and by your account, you and your husband have respect, admiration and true affection for one another. Honestly, what you two have is A LOT MORE than other married couples have who consummate their marriage. A tremendous amount MORE.
[deleted] said:
A healthy platonic marriage where you are raising children who lost their parents? Your MIL wants you to ruin a family so her son can try again for a 'real' family?? Newsflash you are a real family. NTA
ET318 said:
NTA. I can’t say I entirely understand the desire to marry for purely societal reasons but what you described sounds very mature. As long you are and your husband are happy with the current situation and the kids are well cared for then I don’t think you have done anything wrong.
thebadgirlnextdoor said:
NTA because your marriage is no one's business but your own and your husband's. Since it seems to be working fine and no one is complaining, its definetly not the MIL'S place to be upset.
Extremely overwhelmed by the responses here, i guess when we started living together we just saw how easy it was for us, we have talked about our arrangement, we just decided that this work well for both of us, we jave good communication and just mutual respect and we don't need anything other than that.
Reason for making this post was that his mother told the relatives really recently and i didn't know how to respond, i have decided to just agree that yes my marriage started that way but we are truly a couple now and not share anymore details with anyone else.
The reason our friends knew about this arrangement was because they helped set it up but I'll be more careful now. Will update you guys after this mess gets sorted out. Thank you so much I am truly grateful for everyone's advice.