One Direction Preferences Book 2

309. your parents force you to marry and you fall in love after marriage

LOUIS: "I cannot believe our parents are forcing us to get married. How barbaric is that?" you grumble, folding your arms across your chest as you pace the room. "It's only for like a year and then we'll be out of each other's lives forever," Louis reminds you, just as angered by this as you are. "That's a year I'll never get back," you mutter under your breath. "Right back at ya," he retorts. "And don't you just love that they are making us do this without giving us the full reason why?" you carry on. "All I could get out of my parents is that it has something to do with money - but they wouldn't tell me what exactly." "That's more than I could get out of my parents. I wonder what kind of money issue could be such a big deal that it's come to marrying off their children in order to resolve it?" Louis chortles. "Who knows? Could be anything, I guess." Until now, you and Louis had felt nothing but bitter resentment towards each other, but as you discuss the various possibilities of the reasoning behind the impending marriage, you begin to laugh and joke and bond. From that moment on, you start to see this marriage as something that could actually be tolerable rather than something forced upon you to ruin your lives. The year goes by fairly normally for you both, despite now being husband and wife against your wills. As time goes on and the date approaches that you'd both been looking forward to so you can finally divorce, you both start rethinking the situation and acting weird around each other. Finally, Louis confronts the elephant in the room. "Instead of tiptoeing around each other, the truth needs to just be put out there. I love you and I think it's pretty safe to say you love me too," he states bluntly. "I do...I love you too, Louis. I don't know how it happened, but I guess you managed to win me over..." "And you managed to win me over too," he confirms with a large smile, pulling you into a warm hug.

HARRY: "You know what this means, don't you? You two need to get married. As soon as possible," your dad states firmly. "Dad, come on. This is the 21st Century, it's not so taboo for this to happen anymore," you argue. "That doesn't make it acceptable in this family, [Y/N]," your mom tells you sternly. "No daughter of mine will be walking around as a single mother," she adds on. "We're not even in love!" you shout, leading your father to groan. "Shouldn't you be in love to get married?" you interrogate. "Shouldn't you be in love to make a baby?" your mother is quick to rebut. You sigh, defeated. "For what it's worth, I'll be an active part of the baby's life regardless of whether we're married or not," Harry tells your parents, trying to simmer the situation. "Well, in that case, there's really no reason why you two can't get married then," your dad holds firm. No amount of debate is enough to change your parents' minds, and several weeks later, you find yourself amidst a quick wedding ceremony in your living room surrounded by your relatives. Months go by with you and Harry basically playing house just to humor your parents, and before you know it, it's time for the baby to be born. You wake up from a nap only a few hours after bringing your baby into the world to see Harry standing off to the side, holding the little bundle in his arms. "Your mum doesn't know this yet, but I really do love her, and going through this whole process with her has only confirmed that... And you know what else? I think she loves me too. It didn't start out that way...no offense, but you were kinda the result of several poor decisions, but your mum and I have loved you from the first second we knew you existed," Harry tells your baby softly. You smile to yourself as sleep overcomes you once again, elated to hear that Harry loves you back.

LIAM: After spending nearly a year and a half planning your wedding, not to mention the tens-of-thousands of dollars you'd spent, you and Liam have come to a mutual agreement that you're better off not getting married after all. With less than three weeks to go before the big day, your parents aren't taking this news so well. "Do you know how many of our relatives have already booked their flights and hotel rooms? Do you plan on reimbursing them for those things? You two have to go on with it. It's too late to back out now. You can always get divorced later if you still don't want to be together," your mother insists. "Do you even hear yourself? Either way we'll lose money!" you argue. "You're walking down that aisle and that's final," your mom decides for you. After discussing it seriously, you and Liam decide to just carry on with the wedding to humor everyone. "You know we'll regret this later, right?" you ask him. "Hey, at least it was a mutual choice to call it off in the first place so there were no hard feelings - otherwise this whole thing would be really awkward and our guests would probably sense that something's up," Liam reasons. "You have a point there," you agree, reviewing the final guest list in an attempt to put together a seating chart. You both spend your wedding day smiling and putting on the act that you're madly in love, but come that night, when you're both at his house unwinding, the truth begins to come out. "I cannot believe we actually did that...all just to please my parents," you stew. "And now we'll have to act this little game out for a while before going through a divorce..." Liam reminds you. "How long do you think is an appropriate amount of time to be married before getting a divorce?" you wonder aloud. Liam gets a chuckle out of this as he responds, "I really don't think there is one, but I'd say we should stick it out at least six months." Over the course of those six months, you and Liam are reminded of all the things you loved about each other in the first place, ending up falling in love all over again. "Still regret getting married just to please your parents?" Liam asks nearly a year later. "Not at all," you answer with a smile.

NIALL: "I still don't understand why we have to actually get married and can't just pretend to get married," Niall inquires. "Because I have relatives who will literally keel over if they ever find out I 'got married' and didn't invite them to the wedding," you explain. "Ok, so why can't we just tell them we got married on a whim in Vegas or something?" "Because that kind of thing just doesn't fly with my family." "This whole thing just doesn't fly with me..." Niall mutters. "Trust me, it's no picnic for me either," you agree. "Speaking of picnic..." Niall mentions. "There are leftovers in the fridge; help yourself," you permit him. Normally you and Niall get along well enough, but this whole unwelcome wedding fiasco has you lashing out at each other left and right. It gets to the point where your only form of communication is yelling and hostility. Finally after one particularly stressful night, you both reach your breaking points. "We've been legitimately planning a wedding that neither of us wants but both of us are going through with - what part of that isn't stupid to you?" Niall shouts. "How many times do I have to tell you that we don't have a choice? And I promise that we can get a divorce as soon as possible!" you holler back. "Maybe I don't want a divorce. Maybe I do want to get married, did you ever think of that?" Niall challenges. "Well yeah sure, of course you wanna get married - I do too - just not to each other, right?" Niall's face sinks a bit. "I do wanna marry you, [Y/N], I just want it to mean something." You stare blankly at him, not having expected that. "I know it sounds crazy, but I've actually fallen for you during all this...and I can't pretend that I haven't anymore." You smile at him before leaning over to kiss his cheek. "Let's plan this wedding for real then, shall we?" you ask cheerfully.

ZAYN: "Can you believe we've been married for five years already?" Zayn asks you wistfully, obviously thinking back on your last five years together. "I honestly still can't believe we made it to our first anniversary, so five feels like a lifetime," you muse. "Who woulda thought that after all that time we spent trying to keep this marriage from happening, we'd end up so happy that it did happen?" Zayn continues. "Remember when you tried to convince my parents that they shouldn't force us to get married because you'd caught so many diseases from bad tattoo needles and too many promiscuous nights?" Zayn laughs at the memory. "Yeah, they saw right through that lie." "That's because underneath the bad boy image they saw the sweet guy that you are - why else do you think they chose you to be my forced-upon husband?" "Maybe they didn't actually see all that and really believed that I was some diseased bad boy but still made you marry me anyways because they figured those would be good reasons for you to divorce me later?" This time it's your turn to laugh. "Then I guess the joke's on them because that's clearly not gonna happen." Zayn kisses the top of your head. "Remember how you tried to convince them that you wanted to be a cat lady and never wanted to get married in your life? No offense, but that one was pretty lame." You giggle. "Shut up! I was trying to think of any reason possible not to have to marry you! And now I can't think of one reason why I wouldn't wanna stay married to you. I love you, Zayn." "I love you too, babe." With that, he kisses your lips lovingly and pulls you closer to him.