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Summary of Question:Relationship With Married Sikh
Category:General Q's from Non-Sikhs
Date Posted:Saturday, 4/27/2002 12:32 PM MDT

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about my problem.


I am a British single woman and I became friendly with a married Sikh man some 8 months ago. The man has 4 grown children, 2 daughters and 2 sons. Both daughters and one boy is married.

We have grown very much in love with each other and our feelings are very intense. We see each other as often as possible but this has now been reduced dramatically. He admitted to his wife that he was seeing me and the only way she would let him out on his own was for him to lie to her and say he was going to the pub or to his cousin's house, but as the weeks have gone on, his nerves have become very bad as he is being followed wherever he goes. The crunch came last week when he went to the school to collect his grandson and he was followed to a phone-box and caught phoning me.

Believe me, we have tried to separate, but the feelings and pain is so great. Last week when he was caught in the phone-box his wife telephoned his 2 older brothers and before he knew it there were about 12 members of the family shouting and swearing at him.

I have asked him, as I know very little of the Sikh way of life, how he doesn't divorce his wife if he no longer loves her. He says he wouldn't leave the home until he has found a wife for his son. He has been introduced to 4 girls so far but none of them came to anything. The other reason, and this is the thing I find slightly hard to believe. He says that if he is seen to be cheating on his wife and moves away to go with another woman (especially a white woman) the husbands of his 2 daughters would send them back home again.

I would appreciate it if you could tell me if this is true and is a practise within the Sikh community. He also says that his younger members of the family are not allowed to question him or what he does, but now his older brothers know of our relationship he is absolutely terrified.

Your honesty would be appreciated and I thank you once again for your time.

Thank you and may your God go with you.
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Greetings and blessings to you in the Name of God and Guru,

As hard as it may be from a Western perspective to believe all that you have stated...it is true. Traditional Sikh families hold the values of marriage and reputation to be most important. They also are duty bound to always respect and defer to their elders. They are not concerned with love as much as they are concerned with committment, which is the fabric of the spirit and holds their life and families together.

I understand the depth of your feelings and the pain of your situation. However, as a Western Woman, you can find another love, but he cannot find respectability if he continues being exposed and seeking this relationship with you. Let us imagine he had divorced his wife prior to your affair, and gained acceptence as a single man, and then moved forward in his life and found another marriage partner. It is highly unlikely that this would ever occur, and marrying a white woman would always be a blot on his respectability. This is the generation.

You should consider that this "love" of yours, as a karmic debt of some kind, that needs to be cleared or finished by you. Pray to God for guidence. Identify what need was fulfulled by this relationship. Understand that you too have grace as a woman not to be building your life on the ashes of another woman and the ashes of a family. This applies in any culture. Take your self respect and disappear from his life and move on. There is nothing good that can come out of your lingering here. I can give you a meditation to do to help.

God bless you my dear sister,

Sat Kirin Kaur Khalsa



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