Regardless of country or culture, upbringing or lifestyle, one thing is true across the world.

There are many people who are kind, respectful of others, and generally good people.

Then there are the other types of people: the people who think they can stomp on anyone and everyone to get their own way – and won’t give up until their wishes are granted.

Unfortunately for the woman in this story, her aunt is one of the latter people.

And what she wants, is for this woman to marry her son.

Read on to find out how this whole situation panned out.

AITA for yelling at my aunt after she kept pressuring me to marry her son?

I’m a 24-year-old woman from Pakistan. Here, cousin marriages are common, and my aunt keeps pressuring me to marry her son (25, male) – and has done since I was a teen.

This started in my teen years when my aunt would start making jokes such as “You’d make a good daughter in law” or “You and (her sons name) would make a good couple” etc.

I used to brush it off back then, ignore it and such hoping it would stop but they never did. Instead it started being more common.

She started doing it every time we met and I’ve shut her down politely every time saying I’m not interested and it wont ever happen.

Read on to find out how the situation affected her family life.

My mom knew how much it bothered me. She didn’t want to disrespect her elders so she kept quiet and only spoke about it in private when my aunt messaged her.

My mom told me to keep quiet and ignore because she won’t let it happen.

This was very uncomfortable. This whole thing gave my cousin some wrong ideas because he started messaging me in private saying things like, “We’re getting married in the future, so why aren’t you talking to me now?”

I’d just ghost him and ignore his messages.

But then, things really escalated.

Just a few years ago, I lost my temper at a family gathering after my aunt said “You’re all grown up now, when are you going to marry him? Our decision is final”.

The strong feeling of ick and cringe just made me lash out. I yelled at my aunt calling her stupid for not listening to me and not understanding what no means. I used mild swear words as well and it was a whole heated argument.

To end the argument my brother had to physically carry me out of the house, where I had a breakdown and we all just left her house.

My mom was hurt by this a lot and I could feel the pain in her voice whenever we spoke about this. She said she just wished I handled it differently.

And things just got worse and worse from there.

After this came a series of unwanted toxicity and drama.

My aunt yelled at my mom making her look like a terrible person for letting that happen, and cut off all ties. She influenced mom’s oldest sister and brother to do the same.

My cousin got married to someone else, and we found out about it through someone else.

He got married and divorced just later that year, and somehow my aunt managed to partially blame me and mom for that divorce even though we played no part in it.

Let’s see how this is impacting this woman’s family.

My mom deals with her siblings often, and sometimes they drag her into dramas. I’ve seen her cry in her room alone because of this and it makes me feel bad.

I feel like I should have done better or done things differently for the sake of my mom. All this toxicity and drama would have been avoided if I did things different.

AITA?

Cultures vary from place to place, and if marriage between cousins is a cultural norm then this isn’t the issue here.

The issue is the fact that this woman’s aunt is trying to pressure her, to the point of harassment – which has consequently enabled the cousin to do the very same thing.

That simply isn’t how consent works – which thankfully, the woman and her mom understand. It’s just a shame that the rest of her family don’t seem to show the same levels of respect.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit have to say about this.

While others thought she should be glad the woman was out of her life.

Many Redditors gave sympathetic advice from a Western perspective.

While this Redditor gave her advice from a more local perspective.

This woman absolutely did the right thing by standing up for herself.

Sure it might not have been the most elegant way to do things, but after years of harassment it’s no wonder that she reacted – it was always going to happen in the end.

Though family are very important in many cultures, it seems like her life will be better off without the wider family’s toxicity, and ultimately her mom’s will be too if she is also allowed the freedom to make her own choices, free from their judgement.

No one should be treated like that.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.