Unreasonable DILs

I donot want to be judgemental on who is right or wrong.. But i am puzzled at the way world looks at it..

If a man listens to his wife and cares for her parents and siblings, then he is called henpecked!!.. On the other hand, after marriage a woman has to whole heartedly accept her in-laws and leave back her parents.. She is the ideal DIL.. I dont understand what is wrong if a woman loves her parents more than in-laws and cannot wholeheartedly accept her in-laws.. Why are they being called hypocrites!!..
There definetely would have been a valid reason for the girl not to accept her in-laws.. More importantly for the husband to take such a call on his own parents.. He is an adult and definitely take reasonable decisions, when he takes such a stand for his parents, i believe there again must be a concrete reason behind it..
If the girls parents are warm , curteous and nice, there is nothing wrong if their son-in-law likes them and has a close friendly relation with them..

Just like in-laws can have one set of rules for their children and another for DIL, the above equation is a just a reverse coming from the DIL.. Honestly speaking, overnight you cannot accept in-laws and treat them like your parents.. That parently status has to be earned by in-laws.. Meaning they have to behave like your parents, only then you can look upto them as parents..

 

This does not work always rathi. I put this into practice, i kickstarted the talks and relationship so well with my ILs but they were finding faults in my Parents immediately after wedding, though I did not mind that then. They were good to me so i was fine. My ILs live in India and we in Europe. I was speaking very well over phone also, during my last india visit i realised that they were hiding on evrything that they did and when I realised that I was shocked. They manupulated things, so i didnt visit them frequently during my India visit and stayed at parents city for 2 months for some studies, on call one day my MIL shouted at me like a monster and badmouthed my parents, she even said that I will take away their son from them. Ever since then I dont like to speak to them. So now I am a bad DIL to them. Though they were bad i tried to be reasonable earlier which is of no use. (my MIL does not like me spk to my parents on the other hand she does not spk to any of my FIL side relatives and my DH and his bro dont know them also, but close to only her side relative)

 

Having seen working women in my family for almost 3 decades, a certain amount selfishness has always been there with the women in question. Not only strained family relations, ignorance of the hypocritical elders with ignorance of their contributions to the family-either side, has been the cause- absence in major family functions citing professional work or the fact they wanted the delusion as such.

Economics play a major factor...everything in the market has found its place in homes...And a holiday for the matter has been elusive, when it comes to family members..Where is the question of love for the family?

Males donot have a say in family matters- it is the women who drive the strength. One of my sisters-in-law has been the unifying force of all the youngsters and this what she said to me- Ignore the negatives, find positives.

 

No human being can be bad until he/she has not had a bad experience in life,a person is what her surrounding makes her.no dil will come with the intention of separating her dh from his parents,ils dont know how to handle them and that is where all the problems start.
if ils behave with her with love and respect and encourage her in what she does for them then why will any girl behave ill with them.it should come from elders first,because they would have lived their lives and know what is required for a girl to be happy in her ils place.but rather for no reason they have a grudge deep inside them that she should not be happy and come in way of her happiness,and still they expect dils to bear all that and love them and accept them wholeheartedly haan?

 

Hi,

This topic has been discussed before but it evokes quite mixed reactions from MILs and Dils.



BTW,I do have a very good relationship with my children. But there always are small instances which one finds strange because one is used to living in different circumstances and in different environments. So I feel MILS as well as DIls should keep that in mind. All that DILS say is not always correct either.

On my first visit to my son and DIL after their marriage, I found it very strange that my DIL would check my son's wallet every morning before handing it to him when he was going to work.

She was in the habit of counting every small change there was in his wallet too. Of Course I did not say anything but it was very strange for me for in our family we never were doing something like that.

My son too has never seen anything like that but I am sure in order to keep things at an amicable level he too did not say anything to her.

Another thing, she would just keep our son away from us . Even while visiting any mall or store should would drag him away far ahead and we would be left walking way behind. The intention was not to let us have any word with him.

We just accepted the relationship at the level that she wanted to maintain it. Today we do not expect anything from her and have grown used to living away from them. Life has to go on.

 

Hi Ennaye, just so you dont feel bad abt this point anymore - maybe she is checking if he has enough cash in there for his day.. I have seen my mom do it every morning.. she will fill in money if it is not there in dad's wallet. Ofcourse she will go not go thru any other details in his wallet. same here - though I dont do it often, if my DH mentions that he spent soem money here and there, then I will check his wallet the next morning to fill in enough money. he does the same for me too.. I too hate it when someone goes thru my wallet, but if it is for refilling money then I dont mind )

but taking him far ahead in shopping malls and letting you come alone far behind is rude and irresponsible.. if you are visiting them at their place, it is their responsibility to give you company atleast when you are going outside.. Hope you still have good bonding with your son atleast if not the DIL.. Hugs to you.

 

@Geetha, Your SIL's SIL sounds just like my brother's wife!!!

Hi Riya, There is nothing wrong with a woman loving her parents at all. Everyone - man or woman - will be closer to their own parents only however loving and good inlaws are. But this is the case for both men and women. It becomes a problem only when women think that only they can be close to their parents and siblings but husband should forget his parents and siblings and make demands to this nature. These are some women that I term preying mantis. Unfortunately for my parents, my brother's wife is a preying mantis.

This is really an insulting assumption that if the girl does not accept the inlaws then they must be evil. For preying mantis type women even inlaws like Shiva and Parvathi will not be good enough. They will still not accept them and find fault with them. Regarding why husband takes such decisions, there are two major reasons. One, to keep peace in the house. Two, to save his sanity. If he keeps fighting with his wife for his parents' rights then he will be unable to concentrate on anything else. Some women are like bull dogs. They are capable of vicious attacks that will leave a man feel torn.

It may seem hard for you to believe but there are such abusers out there. Not every dil is a saint and not every mil is bad, evil woman. I do not know why people have such negative stereotypes and condemn innocent in-laws as monsters when really the dil may be mentally ill and / or have severe personality issues. Also men are practical problem solvers. They are rarely emotional types. So when they realize how much the wives are fighting they try to solve the problem by not doing or indulging in behavior that triggers wife's hysteria. Then they start indulging in secretive behaviors. Then when the wives find out that the husbands are still keeping in touch with their families through calls on office phone or cell phones or visiting them during weekends, more fights start and more abuse is piled on the husband. Eventually the abusive wife succeeds in separating the husband from the inlaws. And then the inlaws get termed monsters and are blamed while wife is given benefit of doubt and termed innocent lady who must have genuine reason to shun inlaws! What a logic!!

I have shared my brother's story here many times before but let me tell it again. When my sil started fighting right after marriage to live in a separate home, my uncle and parents fully agreed and gave them a flat that they owned to live in. In fact, it was a flat that my uncle had bought from them immediately after their engagement because he felt the new dil is a little modern and might not fit in the orthodox house. But after honeymoon, they stayed in the parents' house for about 15 days. In these 15 days, she used to have long face and would sit in her room all day long, not join the family for meal times or for family discussions etc.

My father and uncle had their own business and even though my brother did not go into the business right away, he was always involved in the business in an advisor capacity as it was thought that he would eventually take on the mantle from uncle / father. This was fully disclosed to sil's family when the alliance was first proposed itself. They all seemed OK with it. But when she started 'showing face' immediately after marriage, getting angry when my brother got involved in business matters or talks, my uncle - as head of household - decided to keep them separately. He gave them keys to the flat and they moved out within 1 month of wedding. After that, they would only meet once a month or so and my mother would call once every two or three days just to talk to dil / son. Even this was too much for my sil apparently, even though she was talking to her mother EVERY DAY and going to their house after work every evening. But she had issues with my brother talking to my mother once every two days and going to their home once a month! So much double standards!!

But, even in this setup, she could not be happy. She was happy for only two months in the flat and then started problems again. She raised issue that flat is about 7 kms from her mother's house and 4 kms from miy parents, so my parents were closer to them than hers!!! Don't know whether to laugh or cry at this nonsense!

So, then my brother vacated flat and found another rental about 2 kms from her parents' house. Weekends were all spent with her parents only. Brother would only visit during festival occasions - diwali, shankranti, etc. Then calls were reduced... brother once told my mother not to call his house and talk to his wife or him anymore as she starts fighting and that he will only call from office. In about 6 months' time, contact between brother and parents became bare minimum. This is how abusers work. They isolate the victim from the family and friends and the possessiveness is overpowering. My parents and uncle were very upset by then but didn't know what to do as any attempt to contact brother would result in explosive fights with sil. Then my husband and I moved to US and within a few months, they also moved. It was a matter of competitiveness for my sil. In fact for her everything is a competition. She even compares my son with her daughter and says nasty things like your son is so dark or your son is so short, look at my daughter, so fair, so smart etc etc etc. These comments are very hurting. Imagine how low she is to attack even my son!

Anyway to cut long story short, my parents' business failed, my uncle died suddenly in a road accident, my brother never even attended the funeral. But after 1 month he is calling and asking for HIS share of uncle's life insurance policy!!! And he says he has to think about his own daughter's future, too. He is earning 6 figure dollar salary but cannot send Rs. 5000 for my mother's medical expenses. But her parents have been sponsored greencard and are in US majority of time enjoying their daughter and granddaughter. My parents have visited US only once (we sponsored) and now they are no longer interested in coming.

Parents also have dignity and self-respect - when they visited brother, sil treated them very badly and now they have said they will no longer go to that house. But sil's parents are always there to rub salt in our wound. See, she is one of two daughters. So, we all (my parents, I etc) can understand that she wants to be there for her parents. After all, they have only two girls. But what about my parents? They also have only two kids - me and him. Her behavior and entitlement attitude has made us very bitter and we cannot digest how she treats my parents and how she has isolated our son / brother from us.


Fault is also with my brother. Instead of stopping her and standing up for him, he caved in because he says their fights will only affect his daughter. Another thing, in her family, it seems the women are all like her. Her father's sister was crying to my mother that we are not the first to suffer due these women. Her father's family has also been cut out from their lives, only contact is with her mother's family. Her mother's sisters are all also living with minimal contact with their respective inlaws. Now how can all their inlaws be bad? They are the common component in their relationship with their respective inlaws so they must be the culprits. But my sil likes to whine and portray her mother and aunts as such innocents when the inlaws' side of story is completely different. Now that we have also been treated like them we know who is the real culprit and who is the innocent. Anyway my parents have moved on. Till date, my mother has not said one word of complaint about my brother. It is my heart that burns. Son or daughter, equal effort goes into bringing up both. So it is really difficult to see one set of parents treated badly and monsterized while other set is treated like saints even if they are the culprits. Also please realize - all these bad mils were once dils. People don't suddenly become bad. Bad dils grow old to become bad mils! So just looking at some of these really evil mils you can see that they must once have been really evil dils, too! So the argument mils are bad and dils are saints, sorry, given the preying mantis my sil is i cannot able to digest it.

Yes, true. But for dils to be treated like daughters, they should also BEHAVE like daughters! They cannot overnight expect to be treated like daughters when they do not behave like one. The status of daughter also has to be earned by the dil. But anyway in my honest opinion, no matter how good, mil can never be mother, dil can never be daughter, fil can never be father, and soninlaw can never be son. But all can be good friends and have respect for each other. So it is better to have realistic expectations from mil / dil. Don't expect mil to be mother, and don't expect dil to be daughter. But expect and treat each other as good friends and your relationship will be better. Be respectful of each other. Be considerate. Just like you want your parents to be taken care of, remember to take care of inlaws too. After all your hubby is not self-made. He is the fruit of someone else's hard work, sacrifice and labor. So expecting hubby to suddenly forget his people and become immersed in wife and wife's family only is really sad. Just like expecting wife to forget her people and become totally involved with the husband's family is also really bad!

Just my humble opinion.

 

Hahahahahahahaha. So sweet!!!!!!

 

Anuradha! We are online sisters :thumbsup

I am new to this forum, i did not know your parents' tale! Very heart breaking!

The point you make is very valid.

Exactly the same arguments that your SIL made was seen in my SIL's SIL case. She moved place to a location equidistant from her parents and ILs. The when the little one started to go to school, she moved in to the same apartment complex as her parents. Ok fine, you need some support when child is small, but my SIL's parents cannot see their grand child more than once every few months!

Even I have observed the same. When a child sees that in his house only her mother's side is being entertained and her mother is dominating her father and not maintaining marital balance, she is consciously or unconsciously impacted! So when this girl grows up, she cannot tolerate the closeness of her DH to her parents. Moreover, unfortunately some mothers prod their daughters and are bent on destroying their marital life in the name of helping them.

Prime examples of such people are the mothers of your SIL and my SIL's SIL! But Anuradha, what goes around comes around equally well, isn't i the Law of Karma ? But like your mother, my SIL's mother is very much impacted but silent. I think they have internalised it and "let go". Sad, but unfortunately there is nothing we can do.

 

So much like our story. So we are not the only ones. Anyway, parents will always say God bless the children. We only try to scale down our expectations from our children.