A Status Quo In My Marital Life

Dear ILites

I have been a sort of a regular here at IL, though more a lurker than an active participant. I have read thru many of the posts, and have to give it to you gals for being moral support systems for so many women. Yes, I do have some issues in my life as well. Here is some background before we get into the banal mid-life crisis I am finding myself in.

WARNING - REAL LONG!!

I am one of 2 kids, the eldest, with a brother 7 years my junior. My mom has been a career woman cum homemaker, and so I have had to chip in quite a bit raising my brother. Meaning that I was conditioned early to be co-caretaker, though not necessarily under pressure – in fact, I liked to feel needed and important. I learnt to cook early, make sure bro’ had his lunch when mom was out, and generally didn’t make it a point to rebel although I must have been a handful in my pubescent years! Yet, I have also had a rather self-reliant take on life, graduating per my desires (and then completing my PG thereafter), with little if any interference from my parents. Also, my family has been pro-modern with no strict spiritual beliefs enforced, although we comply with traditional south-Indian Brahmin practices. In short, I have had a fairly free reign as long as I upheld commitments, willingly I may add.

Now, I am a married woman, with an active 2 year old boy. And, three years down the road, my marital life has been nothing short of a muddled mess, a ship in turbulent waters with the shore nowhere in sight. I must admit I really can’t point to when my marriage moved to its current hopelessness, but there I am now. To make matters clearer to you, the reader, I am dividing it into the pre-kid and the post-kid issues. Read on, and please post thoughts.

The Marriage Hungama
Although I had some misgivings about this relationship pre-marriage, I had most of my rude awakenings via the expectations during the wedding ceremony and all the little functions thereafter. I won’t nitpick on the trivial details, but to give you an example, there was this demeaning fight staged by FIL the very day post marriage (called kattu sadam by Brahmins, or bluntly put the day after the suhaag raat). It was over the apparently agreed giving of 2 silver plates (thalis) that FIL claims was initially agreed, but my parents had explicitly made lists of all silver items to be given and got their approval prior to it and they had agreed (that is for 1 silver plate). The fight was rather dirty with FIL saying he won’t participate in the breakfast that day which is taken as an auspicious finale to the wedding ceremony. He also said that he deliberately waited until the morning, hinting that he wanted the night through, much to my humiliation.

To top it MIL staged a headache and hunger induced sickness drama because my parents had not invited them personally for the morning tiffin which caused her to go into bouts of nausea - her words. Finally a few days later my parents gave another silver plate, and when I told about this entire episode to my husband he pretended he didn’t realise the fight was about this and MIL complained that I should not have told him (well, he was very much present, but he says he had thought it was about his mom’s sickness and my parent’s oversight, bull in my opinion).

Now I am just an onlooker to all this, and though to me all this giving of silverware and gold and utensils and all that does not go down well in my opinion, I put up with it as part of this arranged marriage build-up. But frankly the entire hungama was enough to make me sick to my shins, and I still managed a stoic forefront and personally spoke to FIL and helped resolve it by intervening on my dad’s behalf. Although close relatives did mention the positive way I diffused the situation, to this day I am stunned at my responses then, and as to how I maintained a cool when all I wanted was to press a rewind button and run for my life.

[Continued in Post 2]

 

A Status Quo In My Marital Life - Continued

Pre-Kid Days
Other things happened meanwhile. My husband lost his job (he was placed out of India), and I had quit my job hoping to join him immediately after the marriage. We had just purchased a house, and the loan payments were due the first few months, and my in-laws accused me of leaving my job without seeking their permission. Excuse me:rant! My husband had put his foot down and said atleast a month before the wedding I must put my papers. Besides, I had changed jobs just during the engagement (some 4 months before we tied the knot), and at that time they told me not to join even since I will have to quit soon – to this my FIL’s elder brother intervened and so I joined after all. Anyway suddenly they were faulting me for quitting when they didn’t want me to join in the first place. Besides my husband had lost the job for having taken too many days off (visiting India on surprise visits as he called it – immature I felt but he would not listen).

I was still in India at this time, and joined my husband only about 4 months after marriage. My husband had got a job just bef I joined him, and he claimed he got a house rented and asked me to pack up in a few days (he was staying with friends until then). When my dad suggested he get settled into his new home and then call me he got all riled up and said I can continue to stay in India if I so pleased. Left with little option, I packed and booked tickets, only to be informed the night before I was to fly that the house contract did not come thru and we would be staying with his friends, who was also recently married. And I left without telling my dad this (though I did inform my mom but asked for her to support me and not tell dad). But my husband never thinks this was a big deal. And until a year back I felt I had to support him too.

And then, as luck would have it I got preggo immediately. When I thought things would get better, they got worse. First MIL would make snide remarks about our plans for me to get a job there, which got delayed because of my visa status and my horrible morning sickness. When I asked for my mom to be there, my husband kept putting it off saying his mom would come, which she never did for fear FIL would throw a show. Finally after losing much weight, and tired of it all, I came to India in my fifth month, although we initially planned a delivery there, but my husband suddenly got into his head that it was my family’s responsibility to handle the delivery :bonk.

The Delivery Stage Show
Meantime, my husband had a few ‘close’ friends recommending I have a c-section at an auspicious time since his jadagam was favourably set to bring him prosperity if he had a child born in the right hour. He had me sent to a doctor of his choice, and I was horrified at the suggestion. I refused and began to see another obs close to my place pleading that the other doc was located too far away (I kept going back and forth between my parents place and inlaws who live in the same city).

Then he came to India sometime in my 7<SUP>th</SUP> month (for our thalai diwali). He refused to come here for the function (custom demands it’s done in the bride’s place), but obviously they twist custom when it suits them. Anyway he again tried talking me into having a c, he visited my doc and made claims that people he knew did deliveries even as early as 7 months. He quoted a friend of his whose son was delivered in 7 and half months, at a weight of barely 1.5 kg! I was appalled, and again tried to diffuse things by pleading, by being stubborn, by reasoning. But he kept to his, and even after returning pestered me day in and out to get it done asap.

When we had my seemandam function, he came here and again continued the drama. It was just days before my due date, but they said according to the custom we have to do in an ‘even’ month or some such crap, and I could barely sit much less bear the bathing with cold water poured right over my head – of course the fact that I was practically shivering and panting from the shower seemed more a performance.

Finally, we had the delivery a few days after my due date since I never did get pains. I had a c, on a day my husband picked and conveyed to his parents. Meanwhile they threatened we move to the new doc because their son had said so. Finally my dad agreed to convince our doc to do it (I had a local anaes, and the doc team said I was in labor and would have had a normal had we waited just another day). Anyway long story short we had had another falling out, and my husband had not called me even after the delivery. He stopped talking to me until the time of the naming ceremony of our kid (a total of about a month – 2 weeks before and after the D-day) – this really shocked and pained me and I contemplated a break-up for the first time.

Post Kid
After the whole episode surrounding the way my son came into t he world, we had a reconciliation of sorts. I returned to my husband’s home, and then we came to India for my son’s first birthday last year. I had a talk with him about supporting me more especially since I had been working from home, freelancing as a writer. He agreed but did little, except occasionally remark that I never revealed how much I made from freelance work. This was true, but fact remained that despite my having moved in with him, I had lost a level of basic trust in him and his family. I was all but waiting for a separation, and I admit I was saving for the future – my son’s and mine. I was a disaster waiting to happen, and could not bring myself to get involved in the relationship wholeheartedly.

To make matters worse, my husband offered little by way of support in raising our son (he used to be quite affectionate and caring before the whole fiasco unfolded, sometime after I came to India for my delivery). I handled the bulk of the housework, cooking, cleaning, bathing and feeding baby, getting his cloth diapers done and dry, and also finding time to freelance. Husband went to office, shopped for groceries, and often just browsed the mall after work so as to return late. While I took my kid to parks, read books and sung rhymes with him, played and nursed him, my husband kept up frequent visits to the temple never missing the subrabatham sevai and basically taking the temple as an escape route. In short I felt like a single mom (except for a visit or two to the local temple his dad took little care of his son whose birth-time was to be his boon). Of course I sometimes took outings but having a kid in tow left little room for a long time outing unless I had help. I felt trapped in a loveless marriage.

Now...
A couple of months back, my mother visited us for the first time (my MIL had found time to visit when I was here post delivery as if wanting to take a trip before I could be there). I finally had a heart to heart with my mom, and laid it out to her. I said I was so frustrated I was going insane. She suggested a break and I returned to India, and have been here until now. Hubby is expected shortly and is intent on having us return. I have not visited inlaws this time (after this trip), though I did call a few times. They didn’t seem keen to visit though husband loses no chance to say I am denying them their rights to see their grandkid. I have asked them to visit since their house is very inconvenient for me to be in, with bathrooms outside the house (like in houses of old times), hard to stay with kid who is prone to falling and stuff. Now, with hubby soon to return I am dreading going back to square one. He claims he has realized his follies, but given his nature to promise but under deliver I am still uncertain.

Now, I don’t claim that I am a saint, but by nature I am more patient, and have been called stubborn but not unreasonable – I have been termed ‘azutham’ by inlaws. I have to say right off that I am far from the ‘Sati-Savitri’ types of yesteryears, who glorify their pro-masochistic tendencies. And I don’t qualify as a feminist either, more so because I think the crux of feminism leans too much on ’equality’, which I have problems accepting. To me women and men are what they are – unequals, which is not to concede that men be greater! A guy won’t be a standard I set for myself, period!
Anyway, what is your take on my tumultuous marriage? Do you think I should have handled things differently? I am at a fix, a crossroads of sorts, and yes I hope to return to my husband to try my hand again at making the marriage work. But I fear I am putting forth a confused front, which I am maybe! I am afraid this diffidence projects a weakness, and I need advice (from unbiased sources, since my family obviously take sides and confuse me further).

So sorry for this LOOOOONG post!

 

Re: A Status Quo In My Marital Life - Continued

Lavii / Vimala

Once again you guys have proved the worth of this board by providing great support. Thanks so much.

Fact is that the point you both mentioned - the way my first born was delivered. Can you believe he really does have friends whose child(ren) were delivered on a pre-decided date, I know of atleast one such couple who are still together some 15 years after the child was born. Beats me no end! In reality this has been the most significant bone of contention between the two of us, although I have to say that my husband often makes short work of the issue, shushing it to a case of me being adamant and not being a devoted wife. In my honest opinion, he is all but a shadow of his dad, to whom women are mere means to an end. I would say he would have much liked a docile and adoring wife who would fall over herself to meet his every whim. How unfortunate he got more than he bargained for - a wilful woman with a mind of her own.

Pardon my attempt at humor, but I have rehashed those incidents to the point of obsessing. I am perhaps reopening old wounds, but thankfully my son provides ample distraction. These days I focus my energies on him, trying to read up on being a good parent, since I fear his dad would thrust his hopeless idealogies on such a fragile mind. I blog about him, and interact with other mothers, and in a way this has been mentioned by my husband as me trying to distance myself from the relationship. In fact our sex life became virtually non-existent as can be imagined much to my husband's dismay, which he now knows is more an emotional distancing than a hormonal inconvenience.

Anyway, point being that my son is the very reason I am still keeping the doors open to a reconciliation. He is such a wonderful child, an ever smiling cutie with the patience second to none (seriously, even at 2 I can see he is very patient and observant). And when I think he might be denied a normal childhood, growing up in broken home my heart goes cold. Yes, at times I think it would be better than bringing him up with a person who can be so selfish and illogical in his religious mindset. But self doubts are my real enemy.

More thoughts welcome...