Need Help

You can try talking with a counselor, to share all feelings, they may help. if your H listens and gives positive vibes, you can try talking with him, but he may not like to listen all those feelings you have for his mom and sister. so counsellor is better.

 

Hey OP,

Good that you are out of that place. Looks like husband is supportive now. Dont jeopardise this this relation.

I know forgive and forget might seem easy to say but unfortunately its the only way out of it. Sharing your problem always lessens its burden. You can go to a counsellor or you can share it in IL.

I can relate to your situation a bit. Basically whenever i couldn't talk back to the person who was unfair to me, i had this frustration built up in me and showed it on husband later on. It did nothing but ruin my relation further with him.

How i overcame it was by sharing. I used to tell my friends about it and cry and get it done with. Sometimes when i find that even talking once didnt help, i used to open a new mail draft, pour out my ferlings...or imagine that person infront of me and write what i would talk to her/ him. It can be sometimes filled with nastiness but it helped me calm down. I used to do this every time i felt in need of a vent. And delete the mail draft later on.

You can do it too. Luckily you now have IL. You can just come here and post it as a vent. If not, just write wherever you want and get it done with. It can be 10 times a day also. Eventually you will feel your negative feelings coming down.

The first step is knowing you are getting frustated. From there work on minimising it. If you tend to be the same way, then you letting your mil win this war.

Just be yourself. Think of what hobbies you had before and try starting them again. Watch a movie you like the most. Cook and eat the food you enjoy a lot. Listen to songs. Every time your mind thinks of mil just pour it out in a paper (make sure you throw the paper out later) and continue with doing things you like.

It is a little time taking one but trust me you will eventually feel better.

Hope this helps. Take care!

 

OP, You have your DH on your side! Do not ruin that for anything. That is the bottom line. The more you pick a fight for the past experiences, the faster you deplete your goodwill with your DH. You live separately, let it go.

Now, i totally get how you feel and that you are depressed. That is normal. Have patience. Time heals all wounds. So until then, come here to vent. We are here to give support.

 

It is difficult to forgive. Especially when your self esteem has taken such a hit. It is natural to feel angry.

All the same, make sure you keep your husband on your side. Venting your anger on him is dangerous . Though it took a while for him to realise it, he did see through his family's double standards.

It is best to compartmentalise family units in your head as them and you two. Your husband did not cause the mischief - in a way, he was a naive victim himself.

Tell your husband that you need to work through the mental trauma you've been put through as you see yourself fogging up. Go for some counselling if you can find a good counsellor.

I hope you haven't given work up - focusing on work and proving your worth there would help a great deal. Remember this is a test of your strength of character - you would do well to rise about your IL's pettiness rather than let it define the person you have become.

I wish you the best.

 

OP...getting married does not mean giving up your culture,your way of living.
Inter region marriage should be about taking in the best of both cultures and making a new culture.
Your mil and sil had the opportunity to show you and make you experience the best of their culture.Instead they chose to show you the worst and the most regressive side of their culture.
Their loss!!!

You don't live with them.Don't let them live in your head and spoil your present peace.
it is your home...d things your way.Pray the way you want,cook the way you want and refuse to follow any regressive customs. We should try to discard the 'bad' from our customs...not adopt the bad of others customs.

Your home...do what you want.
Don't talk about this issue now to husband.Cook the best north Indian cuisine...celebrate the north Indian festivals without making it an issue. When you have kids...raise them the way you want.

If they want their culture to be followed too...let them please you and teach you the right way.

Discourage husband from becoming' messenger boy '.Tell him t is better if they talk directly to you...as this will cause issues between husband and wife.

Op...you have a chance to blank out the experience and start afresh.Do that . Make your home and life a happy one ....that is the best way to get over the bitterness and resentfulness.
cheers!!!

 

Op...don't depend on them for anything .
People who send you home when you are not well cannot be depended on.
Use this incidence to go to your parents for child birth or to call them for delivery.

Child birth is a major event when differences with with in laws creep up .Save yourself the grief and future confrontations.This is the time when difference in culture will stick out like a sore thumb.They sent you to your parents when you were not well.
Let your parents be there for you .

 

Yes. It was injustice. your husband did enable your ILs. However by your own admission you see that he understands now what they are like.

You have two options. 1. Push your luck and end up alienating him. 2. Work on moulding him into a better man tactfully.

Which one would you choose?

 

Dear @Lakshmi6197

I went through your OP and many other posts regarding your problems.
In a nut shell, your problems were no different from the general MIL/DIL melodrama that happens in many household in our part of the world. In fact, I have faced almost all of these problems in my inter-religious marriage for the first few years. In addition, I have also faced financial abuse, which made me more vulnerable.

The only thing which helped me to move on from these emotional trauma and disappointment was understanding the problems clearly.

Like you, I was also backing my H from all these troubles, saying he is loving, and he did not cause me these troubles. So my anger was so up on my MIL and I could never forgive that evil woman.
But later on, after posting so many threads here on IL, I came to realize one thing clearly.
That is... The main trouble maker to my marriage was not my MIL, but my H.
My H failed to play his role as a husband at the first place. He was way too much irresponsible to call him naive and silent spectator to the abuse that his wife has to face.
Would you keep mum if your own family ill-treat your husband or kid this way? Hell no... Then how come he kept mum or ignored that fact that his wife is ill-treated.

Trusting parents and loving them is one thing. But keeping a blind trust on them like this is definitely shows that the husbands are enablers of these abuse.
Because these same men voiced against their parents when and where an injustice happened to them. Be it a simple restriction to go out or spend money or partying or even other silly things that men do before their marriage. They usually rebelled against their parents at that age, and do what they wanted to do.
But after marriage, they behave as if they were the super obedient kids when their parents abuse their wives. It shows how irresponsible they were, and how much careless they were about their wives.
The husbands who really care for their wives, will someway or the other see through the problems, or at least listen to their wives when problems occur. They find a way to carefully take care of their wives from these abuse.
So, blame your husband for enabling such abuse on you. He must apologize to you, and that apologize must come naturally from his heart. Then only you can truly forgive him.

If he understood his mistake, that he enabled these abuse on you, he would take actions to protect you the next time when such things occur.

Running away from close family members like parents (MIL) is not an option. From your other posts, I hear your worries about having to take care of MIL down the line.
She could repeat the history, and your H could stay silent or pretend as if he doesn't know all these. Your SIL and others could also enable the abuse, and blame your MIL's old age or insecurity for this.
Whatever happens, at the end of the day, it is YOU.. who is gonna be the victim. No matter what, it is your sanity and your patience that is gonna be spoiled.

Your MIL is an external party. She can have only so much influence to your personal life.
But your H is an internal party, and his influence is everything about your marriage.
Don't let him escape from the faults. He must accept it, and make necessary actions to get you out from this emotional trouble.

PS: I went through almost same abuse as you. We too escaped from MIL, and lived as nuclear family. We sailed a smooth life, and had another child in the mean time. But I could not let go of the past or forget the fear /insecurity or that unexplainable feelings in my mind.
In fact, I would lose all my control the moment I hear MIL's name or her call to my H. All such insecure feelings, doubts, and past memories will repeat. Thus, I will fight with my H only to spoil our present happiness.
It continued for sometimes until I acknowledge that the real culprit was my husband.

Then I worked towards it. I was really angry on him and understood him as who he is.
I confronted with him, and explained to him the things he would have done to me to prevent those abuse.
He came up with an apology from the heart, and promised me to protect the family (that he created) from all such abuse from that point onwards.

He keeps up his word till today. There were so many instances since that time, where MIL and others tried their hands on me. They insulted, compared, abused but subtly and differently as I was very much assertive this time. Even then, my H stood by me, and protected me by asking them to back off.
That's when I trusted him back wholeheartedly. That's when those fear and insecurity vanished from me.
Now that PILs are living very closely, and we interact almost daily. But I care a damn about their presence.

Only your H can change your life. No amount of counselling or self improvement will help if your H is the same.