It is indeed strange when you need to explain that it was not ungratefulness on your part but rather your integrity. It is difficult, most, to explain yourself to the people who you call family while they never stand by you. Or at least that is truly how I can feel about it.
Anyway, so what do you do when your difficult, orthodox folks call off a wedding because of what seems to you (and to any other unbiased person) like an ego clash with your prospective in-laws? WOW! Isn't that like 'Oh, your friend laughed at my haircut? You are not going to that school anymore!!'
No seriously, I wonder how a family of 20+ people can be okay with that while ignoring the fact that their child is for once very happy and 'right' by their original definitions. It may make you question all the things you have learned while growing up...wonder if it's hypocrisy on their part or stupidity on yours to have believed that the morals you were given were actually things your folks believed in and followed too.
So yes, this is when I decide to do what I think will make me feel proud. I decide not to betray someone I love and who loves me back. Walking out on one's family is very difficult. Because it makes you feel that there is no one you can come back to when things go wrong...and it makes you want to make sure you never have reason to ever depend on anyone else. And you know, in anger, all you can do is act, but you can not change your feelings, erase your memories and start afresh like nothing ever happened.
The strangest part is when they call you selfish. And you wonder which fool said that being selfish is wrong and easy. Because it so is not easy and it is so much of a right thing to do.
Row for yourself, and you're never going to sink. And when the storms overturn your boat, you'll drown without regrets.
Yeah, call me selfish. What do you think I should call you? Coward?
