motherinlaw and sisterinlaw breaking my marriage

Surprised to hear aabout some of the thoughts here...I am NOT Referring to OPs situation. (I totally agree on things that were suggested about OPs situations) but when a man says more than the interferring inlaws, it bothers him if his wife voices it out to him that its bothering her...this is called nagging???. wife is not supposed to answer/talk back but just maintain cordial relations with these people...WHY?? because in future they might help us??? (doesnt sound like a good reason!!)

I always WONDER how do men address these issues, if a MIL keeps bad mouthing the SNIL and his parents n siblings. If MIL keeps calling and all she can do is NOT LIKE the SNIL. I have seen men who totally STOP talking to inlaws (for the silliest reasons like these SNILs are not given respect in the wedding or not served mineral water ) and guess what would happen if wifes mother calls from India and shouts at SNIL or points out every step of his...the way he bought/did not buy certain things for his house...his dressing sense, his laughing / talking style...etc

Also these MILs and SILs who are also women, who MAY also be mentally tuned to being biologically unhappy all the time no matter how their sons marriage is or how much the DIL is trying....I wonder how do men treat their mothers/sisters when they do the nagging yeah the complaining thing of your wife is this your wife is that...your wifes parents did this...they didnt give this or that etc..etc..

my only thoughts are ...just because there are women who are unnecessarily worried about inlaws doesnt mean that every woman who voices out issues belongs to that category..(please lets try to keep this mind...only the one who is wearing the shoe knows where it pinches....we all can keep thinking that the lady has to ignore such stuff, but I guess many women ignore these things for years togehter or atleast during initial months before they say anything openly) also if a woman cannot come to her husband when she is really hurt and upset thats the worstest thing.. .

By the way..am NOT advocating that DIL should be allowed to cut off ties withher inlaws or she should STOP letting kids meet their grand parents etc...etc..what I am suggesting is...why do husbands think it as nagging when wife tells them about this? yeah if someone is talking about 10 yr old thing..that means they didnt get the closure properly (atlast this is what most psychiatrists also say...) why not give the wife a proper closure...acknowledge, the issue, ask her how she wants this to be resolved, suggest there is no further solution if relaly there is none, and last but not least..GIVE HER IMMUNITY to this so called keeping in touch with inlaws until she feels comfortable. birthdays/festival celebrations will NOT be stopped just because the DIL didnt call the inlaws/ wish them. just give her time to recover and recuperate...why dont people understand that? (including husbands...) we cannot ask people who are hurt to maintain cordial relations with the one who hurt them isnt it?...even if it means FAKING. becuase later the husband himself comes back to blame the wife stating anyways you were just faking and you never cared to really call them whole heartedly.

I am learning a lot from gentlemens posts.. its good to know how some men think...

 

Exactly. What's the meaning of marriage when a partner cannot comfort a partner when they are hurt. Does any one realizes that all the vows exchanged during the wedding ceremonies are between the man and wife. The man has some duties towards the wife and wife has some duties towards the husband. Faking, pretending, keeping the in laws happy is none of the vows.

 

Again i want to add...I am not referring to the CONSTANT WHINERS.

I am referring to only those men/women, who have had some issues which never came out for discussion and either husband/inlaws/wife kept pushing it under carpet but never really acknowledged there is an issue and tried to give some closure to the DIL/SNIL.

If someone is acting lik a kid and whines about every small thing...totally understood we cannot fix them..(but this we dont know until we pay attention to that so called nagging/constant whining if we ignore it just going to increase day by day rather than calmind down...) even if this calms down the wife will end up having mental stress and it would show up on her health and kids. (as they always say..a happy family is possible only with a happy wife)

 

I am not sure are the vows culture/region dependent. But in my region there are 4 vows for man and 3 for woman. I am not sure are women really ready to sign up for those.The 4 vows of man are simple and I guess many husbands follow them(includes providing security, not keeping any financial investment secret, providing for her and never to look at any other woman amorousy). Woman's on the other hand include to keep together husband's family together as beads in a necklace, never come to her parent's house without explicit permission of husband.

Now, I consider myself a propent of equal rights and respect for males. But I NEVER use these vows to argue my case, as they are clearly not gender nuetral and if a feminist were to say that they are unfair to women, I would agree. But if a feminist were to say we should follow vows, I think most men would be game for it.

Are you saying SNIL should nag his wife and criticize her parents! That would be very cool if he is allowed to do so!! In India it is actually against LAW for man to criticize his wife's parents in front of her. This is considered harrassment of girl in DV act 2005. I am glad to find supporters to change this on this forum.

About, who is responsible for divorces, nagging wives or nagging inLaws. I would say, nobody, be it man or woman marries to get divorced. No inlaws would choose to marry their son, ony to later advice him to divorce. No girl would get married, only to walk out of it. IMO most divorces are result of miscalculation, misrepresentation by a party. Yeah, sometimes its nobody's fault and two people simply grow to hate each other due to incompatibility.


There is one more angle to it. Since many of you might be mothers here, I would like ask do you consider it possible EVER, that you shall place your self-interest over your child's? Parents pushing husbands for divorcing their wives, is actually much rarer than wives percieve. In my case, my parents always adviced me to NOT divorce my wife if I saw myself leading a happy life with her. She on the other hand always insisted that THEY are feeding is this idea into me. My mother on the hand, I know, will fully support whatever I decide to restore my happiness and self-worth. If it would mean, living in a foreign country away from her, she would whole heartedly support that as well, as for her, my happiness comes before hers. If it would mean divorcing my wife, she would support that as well, even if it means loss of so-called reputation. And same usually applies to girl's parents too. I have heard, men saying that girls parents are inciting their wives for divorce. My take usually is, if they are doing so, it is most likely because, in their judgement their daughter would be happier divorced than married. Their judgement may be wrong(as they may not be able to fathom full picture of whats going on), but not thier INTENTION.

 

I think you are more informed than I am in this regard. I did a quick search and came up with these-
The Seven Vows:

Groom:
You will offer me food and be helpful in every way. I will cherish you and provide welfare and happiness for you and our children.
Bride:
I am responsible for the home and all household responsibilities.

Groom:
Together we will protect our house and children.
Bride:
I will be by your side as your courage and strength. I will rejoice in your happiness. In return, you will love me solely.

Groom:
May we grow wealthy and prosperous and strive for the education of our children. May our children live long.
Bride:
I will love you solely for the rest of my life, as you are my husband. Every other man in my life will be secondary. I vow to remain chaste.

Groom:
You have brought sacredness into my life, and have completed me. May we be blessed with noble and obedient children.
Bride:
I will shower you with joy, from head to toe. I will strive to please you in every way I can.

Groom: You are my best friend, and staunchest well-wisher. You have come into my life, enriching it. God bless you.
Bride:
I promise to love and cherish you for as long as I live. Your happiness is my happiness, and your sorrow is my sorrow. I will trust and honor you, and will strive to fulfill all your wishes.

Groom:
May you be filled with joy and peace.
Bride:
I will always be by your side.

Groom:
We are now husband and wife, and are one. You are mine and I am yours for eternity.
Bride:
As God is witness, I am now your wife. We will love, honor and cherish each other forever.
There were other results much similar to this.

I get your point but I think most of us when we get married have a rather vague idea of what we are getting into. The vows if taken seriously can provide a guideline to our responsibilities and rights as husband and wife that we must fulfill.

Agree with all of this, totally.

 

This is exactly how most men think.. Dont know who is right or who is wrong.. But this is the way many men think

 

REALLY???? I didnt know about this law.....if this is really existing how come so many men still ill treat their wifes parents, call them names...push the wifes to cut off ties with her family or siblings?

Forget about the husband, have you heard of inlaws calling names and using abusive language for the DILs parents??? and always pointing out DILs brought up??There are many living examples of such incidents. So all these people should be arrested as part of DV??? Thank you for this insight. I remember you gave another insight in one of your threads that DILs parents cannot be part of the family but only the guys parents are family.

I didnt say that men also have to nag about it, but men take it out in a diff. way. they stop talking to their inlaws. they dont visit them or just totally ignore their inlaws and will also start resenting if the wife talks to her parents. MY QUESTION WAS: WHY are women not given that opportunity to stay away from such people when DILs are hurt?? why husband/inlaws dont give time to the DIL to recover and come back to normalcy?? why these phone calls are so important even living far far miles away??

Its easy to say MEN already accept that wife may have some disagreements with his parents..but tough to face it when she voices it out...or expresses it or when she ignores anything related to her inlaws.

Our culture so far has been womens parents by default think no matter what they dont have to open the mouth because it would spoil their daughters marriage. Mens parents think they have all the right in the world to judge the DIL and her parents...they even start comparing, we kept quiet infront of our Daughters inlaws and now its our DILs parents turn its like taking frustration from one side and giving it to teh other side.we did this for our daughter why cant you do it??

Also, just because your parents were adjusting and were ready to do anything for their DIL, doesnt mean every inlaws are like that. Do not post in threads only where you can preach n preach about how inlaws are not responsible for divorces. Start posting in threads where you hear and read much more to an extent of DIL being beaten up by their son and the parents watch and instigate him saying beat her beat her!!! (read threads here)

Agreed there are monster DILs too...and sadly your EX is one of them (remember your divorce is also indirectly due to parents...she wants to live with hers and you want to live with yours and there is no common ground that could be reached and easy thing to do was divorce...sorry dont know if there were other incompatability reasons..but this is what I could gather from the info you provided)....

but just because your parents are the soft human beings doesnt mean all parents are like that. there are hell lot of monster inlaws and the best part is everytime they open their mouth they utter the word " RESPECT US" or " WE are guys parents and we should be treated with respect". (doesnt matter if the son is married for 10 yrs or 20yrs still these people act as if the DILs parents have to bend down every time they see their SNILs parents.)

 

I disagree with this.Just an example.I have seen quiet a few cases out there(even the so called educated ones) where the in-laws tell the son to get married to a different person just because the lady was not able to provide a son.The son, I am not sure whether he is really dumb or did not study his science subject properly gladly agrees to get married to another lady.And there are cases where men believe/made to believe that it is wife's parents responsibility to fulfill his monetary desires.

I have seen the same men complain about their Brother-in-law and sister's ILs when it comes to their sisters.BTW, how many of the ILs help in child care and illness?My MIL has not even given a piece of cake to my daughter though she claims my hubby is her favorite child.But when it comes to her daughter's kids, she would bathe them , feed them and what not.And why do we have to depend on others when we give birth to the kids?I think it is unfair to expect from them and it is altogether a different topic.

And finally , it is these kind of men, who can accept the mother,father and sister with all flaws but cannot bear the wife even for the slightest mistake of hers.They just simply divorce the wife and get ready for the next scape goat.To me these men should be called *********.How many of these men give respect to their In-laws?Aren't his in-laws old enough to get respect like how he expects his wife to show respect to his parents?

See this statement.This is the second time I am seeing such statement from a male member of IL."My parents and family"-who is the family here?Isn't it suppose to be husband , wife and kid after marriage?

This is very cheap.How could your MIL do this?She openly says that "character" means nothing to her.This clearly shows that she does not want you to have a happy married life.Now that you are away from your ILs , just do not think about them (I know some things haunt your for life time) and your priority should be to keep your family happy now.Forget about your ILs and take your hubby to your side.

 

The moment I hear the mention of PARENTS when a man/woman talks about their marriage/disagreements..its clear that the man/woman did hear to some comments from their parents. (thats how I look at it). You dont drag your parents into issues related to your marriage....(unless the parents know about the issues in the marriage and by the way who shared that info with the parents???).


I started feeling we WOMEN are thankless human beings....see how MEN are sooo thankful to their parents and siblings...how men treat their parents and siblings as their family (infact these people come first in the list of family)...but we women leave the parents and siblings behind...we are not supposed to insist on wanting to take care of our family and our parents/siblings will NEVER be part of our family. our parents also want a happy SNIL and a happy marriage for their daughter. and our parents choose to stay away so that they dont become the reason...but on the other hand...a mans parents choose to involve and be PART of the family in the name of being family

 

You are welcome and you can pass on this knowledge to any female victims you know. The law explicity spells this as violence. Not arrested, but penalised though(DV being civil in nature). Getting arrested is anyway much easier, all you need is to allege dowry demand and criminal procedure kicks in.
You seem to be very happy learning one sided laws like this, take a reading of IPC, you will find them in plenty.

Do NOT MISQUOTE me. I am very careful about making sure my approach is gender-nuetral when discussing how things ought to be. What I had said was that guy's parents and girls parents are not same family. Remember, somebody had suggested OP of that thread that mother of her DIL is family, to which I said I believe they are separate families. Many ladies took exception to it and said no-no, in India both families become one family. I said ok, then my sister's MIL also becomes my family(because my mother n her MIL are same family then) and the transitive closure will continue infinitely. I never understood, do you have any relative of yours who is not family. I did not want to restart this useless debate, but you seemed to have got wrong insight, so corrected.

What I also did say was that under Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) definition the DIL becomes part of family but not Son-IL. I will be glad if we were to change it, because the same definition is used to decide rights on ancestral property. If Son-IL becomes part of HUF, then he should get undivided right on ancestral property of inlaws.

aah, this family debate never dies, does it? last time I heard ILs were of view that husband+wife+husbands parents + wifes parents+siblings all become one family in India.

But you do say that women should be allowed, even expected to nag about it. Why do you people think only women have emotions, men should be super-human never feel hurt, keep women as princess, listen to all their nagging but never nag themselves? The Son-ILs who do not talk to their ILs are doing the only legally permissible thing they can do. Those who are badmouthing them are breaking law and liable to be fined.

I agree I do not read all threads and that is partly because if my advice/opinion is same as other posters there is not much point reading/posting/following them. I am as against spousal violence as most people here. That said if you do feel my opinion can be of use to OP or ILs in any thread, send me a PM regarding thread, and I shall contribute on it.

I think we all agree that there are monstrous ILs as well as monstrous DILs. No point repeating that. Only thing I wanted to say there was even though DILs always 'think' that ILs are pushing their husbands for divorce, that is not always the case. Only the son can know what his parents really advised him, and wives always try to second-guess that, and their guess can be wrong.

Though you say this half sarcastically, I do kind of agree to this para, though I have a slightly different angle to look at it. I always believe women should be very firm about how they want to thank their parents, it is their right. My feeling is(and it actually got strenghened by some threads here) that many women have a "I have to get married and that is my objective and I shall have it" attitude. Even you (who I assume is a well-educated and well-versed woman) echoed that sentiment when you said that I should ask my sister what is the condition of unmarried girl(in why would a girl pay dowry thread). So in order to acheive this goal, it seems women are ready to break law(paying dowries), make promises which they themselves believe to be unjust, unhuman and impossible to keep.
It goes without saying that all women are not like that, there are very nice women who are boon to their parents, husbands and whole of society. But those, who are currently flagbearers of feminist movement in India, do want to portray women as thankless, selfish creatures who should have only rights, no responsibilities. All women gathered to amend law to get them equal share in parent's property, not a single voice from whole of feminist movement that also the law which makes only son responsible for well-being of parents(under crpc 125) should be amended. No woman said that parents should have right to sue their daughters for mantainance the way they can sue their sons. WHY? Are women really selfish, I wont think so. They have just let wrong people represent them.