does a housewife deserves to be treated well?

Hi,

According to me one always chooses to be treated the way one is treated. If you are taking all the crap in this world then people my friend will give you crap and nothing else. Its not about being dependent and being independent.

If a housewife can have a courage to stand up against the mental abuse then there will be no abuse. If your friend's husband does not understand her worth then I would say your friend should seriously consider her relationship with this man.

There is no point in dying everyday and that too in self pity. Give courage to your friend, tell her to first talk to her husband nicely, if that is not working then she should be bold enough to stand against her man. As per her's being a love marriage does not matter, only she and no one else can stand for her.

She can take help from women organizations if her family is not willing to help her, but the point is that she should take the first step and then decide if anyone will help her or not. May be she will be surprised to find that people are actually willing to help her.

 

The root cause of your friend's problem is not her being a dependant housewife. The real cause is that her DH is insensitive towards her and doesnt respect women in general - working or non-working. Infact, he is an epitome of Male Chauvanism. I am sure , even if she was working, he would still expect her to do all the housework in addition to her job.

But ,if she really thinks that having a job would make a difference, she can try to find a job. Even if she has not worked before,it is never too late to study further to get a job. It is not easy, but there are many student-moms who manage to do it. So, she can do it if she has the determination.

 

your friend has given him too much room.

as you said being a love marriage & no support from her side, she has given too much respect to him, which the opportunist made use of.

in any relationship, if one is always giving too much, the other will keep taking it and in due course the love, affection, etc. will have no place at all.

self-respect, independence, freedom all should be exercised, otherwise it's of no use.

if you friend doesn't have any of them, how can she lose them?

ask her to identify whether she has them & if so let her start exercising them.

in a family if the wife is not earning, it doesn't mean she can be treated as a slave.

let her start believing in this & gain confidence to tackle the situation.

 

Hi,
my mother used to insist that a woman should adjust to her husband and his family and it was nothing new that those people may iltreat the dil. I had been like brainwashed in to adjusting to wedded life, though I had a good job. I could not talk back to my husband and inlaws as I felt that I may face wrath from my family if I am to separate from my husband. They all just witnessed my husband and his people's bad behaviour (in front of them too) and so I was emotionally subdued, thinking that I will not be able to manage if I walked out of my marriage. So I suffered so much in life.
I thought that my husband would realise that I had done so much in due course of time. But that was only a day dream and he is still the same though my inlaws are now nomore. I feel that I should have been more agressive when he started to iltreat me from the start. He would have been tamed, had I taken the initiative with courage. I still feel bad about myself. Now I am in a position where I cannot think about getting out of this relationship due to several reasons. But the net result is that I am very miserable in life though I have all things I need materially.
I would say that your friend should have a talk with her husband and try to take him to a councellor. This is not an easy task. But she has to do it for her and her children's sake. If he does not comply, then she should think about moving out for some days to make him realise her worth. There are so many ways one can take care of the monetary side, I am sure that your friend would be well educated also.
Leaving the children behind will make life hell for the husband but I am against that. The mother will lose respect that way and it is not good for her. She needs her children more than her husband.

 

IMHO It doesn't matter: housewife or career woman..any female deserves to be treated with respect , care and love.
there is no thumb rule that a housewife has to be treated with more respect compared to a working woman or vice versa

I have seen many cases were career woman were treated badly and housewives pampered.

I am a living example: I used to pay all the expenses, cook, clean and still got pushed around.Forget about pampering but I thought I atleast needed some respect. I made my point strong and clear..treat me with respect or leave me alone because I am capable of taking care of myself. I got yelled at for being aggressive,not being a typical indian married woman yada yada...Well, 2 yrs into the married life my DH has changed a lot...but he still has a long way to go...:spin

 

Exactly as coolphani said... irrespective of working or non-working status.. wives do get haunted & taunted at.
One needs to fight back to gain status in all such cases. Only thing when a wife has no financial independence thats when the DH & his fly starts feeling that they can use this gal to vent out their frustrations & she has no where to go.

So once a person realises that she's being used.. she has to get financial freedom to get over with the traumas of daily life.
However I've also seen many housewives making their DH dance to their tunes.. so I guess this also is an art to make ppl respect you even when ur not doing anything for that person or his family. I am also trying to find how do they do it.

 

I find it not so easy to standup for onself in married life. If DH is not understanding, what ever you are he would not understand.

Am also in my 8th month and my DH hardly does any work, so lazy to even get the grossery from the near by supermarket (as i cant carry weight) most of the times we wd be left out without necessary stuff at home..mostly on wk ends where all shops are closed. How much can we pester DH, they get irritated and shout if we remind. Same thing with throwing trash or help in cleaning the house. My friends say just leave things as it is and dont bother if the house is dirty... I tried it but DH does not bother. When I express something depressed he just bluntly says "u should have left me and gone" why are you here... What reply can be given to such sick person. Speaking back just invites fights.

 

The question itself sounds very strange. Any doubt that a woman is also a human being. Well, working or a housewife, she is a very important member of the family and needs due love, care and respect.

As all have suggested, your friend must stand up for herself. But the problem is the way girls are brought up and the different way the boys are brought up. All such problems are a result of the upbringing. The girls are taught to adjust to the husbands' and inlaws' needs till the end(death). [I remember a common saying that women used to recite for the inlaw's house " Ubhi ayi hun aur adi jaungi" which means that I have come standing to the inlaw's house and would go back flat-meaning death-come what may.] Even when they face such things, they are still asked to adjust by their mothers, And the MILs who are themselves women, in most cases add fuel to the fire.

On one hand these old women folk would tell any girl or woman shameless if they discussed matters like child birth with men folk, but where does the shame go when the mothers convey this message to the son that working hard till the time of delivery would help easy delivery, and the men forcing their wives on this advice. I am siting this example as only one point to show the double standards of people, men or women.

Your friend could not fight back or resist to the treatment she is getting because she herself thinks that it would be improper or sinful to talk back to her husband because she has been fed with such traits. Moreover, her husband also knows that no one else would come to support her and has taken her for granted. I have seen a friend carrying buckets of water to the 4 th flour of the house from the ground in the 7th / 8th month of pregnancy. The neighbours would question her why she is doing this, but the Dh or the inlaws would ask her- "WHere is all the food that you eat going- you can't even do this little work?'

Your friend must be so stressed and tensed that she will not be able to think more than the moments she is living and would like to only see that she doesn't get the next bout of scoldings or harrassment and so would just surrender and keep quite.

You must help her in need. First of all you must make her understand that she is not a slave , but a human being and must care for herself only then can she take care of her kids. Give her the mental strength and encourage her to first try finding solutions amicably. It very much differs from person to person, so she must judge how and when to talk to her DH. That part if she does confidently, would work. Otherwise, she must find different ways like getting into a job and so on.

But the first and foremost is she must get out of the fear, realise that she is also as respectable a human being as anyone else and stand for her rights. I think once she herself prepares mentally, she will have the courage and strength to fend for herself and her children and be able to pave her own way to happiness. You need to be a moral support to her.