Situation with my Father in Law

Hi,

I am new here, but have browsed numerous sections for lots of ideas. Reaching out here since I am quite a private person and would not dream of reaching out to my family or friends with this.

My husband and I got married around a year ago. We had a love marriage having known each other for 7 years before we decided to tie the knot..having lived with each other before to figure out whether we could really live together or not.

I have never known my mother-in-law as she died before I even got introduced to the family, but my father-in-law lives with us currently. Just as a background, while we got married only a year ago, I have been more or less living under the same roof for almost two years as my husband was quite unwell and on bedrest for months..so I had practically moved it to nurse him back to health and never quite moved out...until I moved in post marriage.

I come from an extremely liberal house where as while my husband's upbringing was pretty orthodox, he himself is far far more forward than I am. However, he has also been an extremely pampered person, being both the first grandchild and the son in the family. Everything was pretty hunky dory before marriage, except for a few digs about drinking etc that my FIL would make..but nothing that was too bad.

Post marriage however, it has been a totally different story. On the one hand i have my husband who expects me to now be the woman of the house so to speak..and have the house running smoothly and efficiently like his mother used to. On the other, my FIL has turned out to be my FIL and MIL rolled into one and is extremely insecure about me taking his son away from him. Both of us work extremely long hours and are home only by around 10 at night...and leave by 10 in the morning. In this scenario, I am left with a little bit of housework at night (since we only have a part time maid)..which in my husband's opinion all falls on me. Over the last few months, I have managed to have my husband realise that he needs to help out a little more at home and has taken on somethings willingly, which is also not sitting very well with my FIL.

When we met 8 years ago, I had promised my husband I would never ever make him choose between his family and me as I felt this would be very unfair on him and I have kept that promise till date. When we got married, as we started talking about day to day life, we also decided that since my husband does not feel like he can ever say anything to my FIL (coz he threatens to kill himself or run away and freaks my husband out), wen friction does arise, he will stay out of it...so that he does not take sides at all in public. He is free to speak to his father or to me if he feels either of us was wrong so we can correct this behaviour.

Lately the situation in our house has become very very bad....my FIL says one thing in front of me and does completely the opposite behind my back that is making running the house very very difficult for me. Typically he will just buy whatever provisions he feels like and stuff it in different places in the house and we end up throwing away thousands of rupees worth of stuff every month since we have too much of it and all of it gets spoilt. On top of that, the few times when my husband decides to get involved, he will find something and shout at me right there without a single chance for me to even talk. My FIL will smile and talk to me very sweetly in front of my husband, or sweetly talk about me when he and my husband are alone...but when my husband is out of the picture, it is almost as if I do not exist for him. We also have a dog, and no matter how much we have tried to train her, it always goes down the drain as my FIL will never stick to how our dog needs to be disciplined. This would really not be a problem, except that everytime our dog then gets aggressive, my husband and FIL turn to me and have an instant solution for it..and blame me that she is not behaving well. As I have mentioned, my husband has been extremely pampered and has not lifted a finger all his life, and I while I have been pampered, also come from a house where everyone including my father does his share of work. Everytime I try to steer my husband towards even helping out a little bit in the house, my FIL will instantly do something that dilutes all my effort and paint me as the villain instead. Also he has a lot of difficulty in understanding the fact that my husband and I might like to have a little time alone or the fact that I do not like the kind of breakfast that they like or prefer north indian over south indian food...I know all of these are small incidents...

But day on day, every single day when there's constant friction, my husband turns and explodes..and always in the drawing room...so much so...that even though he says he will never take sides, I always end up being shouted at and ridiculed.

I have made every single effort in my book from day one to accomodate by bending over backwards. I have learnt and am still learning to cook the kind of food they eat in the house. I even hired a cook and made the effort to teach her since I could not cook every day with my work times...I have laughed off all jabs that me makes at me, I have tried speaking to him patiently time and again to explain things over and over again..I have tried to help him take care of his health...I have learnt to stay quiet when he wants to rant...and when my husband loses his cool..and talk to him later in our bedroom...While my FIL will do all this, he will still reach out to me when he needs something as my husband will be busy...and I always comply...I have learnt to ignore his moods and continue as normal..even when he takes everything, right form asking him to please not buy more sooji...till asking him to eat on time so his sugar can be controlled..so much so that now I pretty much leave it to him..and interact only when necessary...still...friction arises when my husband keeps pulling me up for example for my FIL not having eaten or when he shouts at me in the drawing room...never mind that he doesn't even know the whole story...my husband has some idea of specific incidents...for example when i was on bedrest for a week..and my FIL didn't even bother to figure out how i was feeling but still wanted to tell me how cruel I was by keeping old sambar for him..when I had not been out of my room for a week. When my husband tried to talk to him about it...my FIL told him I had given our dog fresh food and left old food for him!! This shocked even my husband coz he knows I will never ever do anything like that. But this is a rare incident, and more often than not, my husband will throw a fit at me invariably...no matter what the situation. The other day I had a complete breakdown at home coz I had just cleaned kitchen from top to bottom once again (within 2 days) on our few very precious weekends coz my FIL had as usual turned everything upside down. For once my husband saw what had happened, but still when my FIL asked why i was crying he just told him that i was genly in a foul mood and frustrated with the maid...and then asked me to keep it down..

I am not sure what I should do now. I cannot call my FIL's bluff as that would mean bitching to my husband about him..and that is something I cannot do, he will never believe it..and even if he did, he will not be able to do a thing about it. But I also need some amount of support at home. I cannot keep being the villain in public..no matter what my husband might say in private... I need some peace of mind at home with my husband..and I am completely at a loss...would appreciate any help you all can suggest.

 

Hi All of you,

Thank you so much for the advice. In the heat of the moment, I can now see, my husband came off coloured as far more of a monster than he is. Nevertheless, a lot of the issues do exist, and things at home are much calmer here. It helped to go and have a heart to heart with my FIL as well as with my Husband.

Just wanted to also say, that, it is unfair to my husband to have portrayed him with far less credit that he deserves...he is an extremely intelligent and witty guy who can reduce me to peals of laughter at the drop of a hat...and is one of the most liberal men I have met in my entire life

Thank you all again...for the advice and more importantly for helping me feel a little less alone navigating the ups and downs of marriage