Does Big House Get More Happiness.

Dear OP - The crux is DH is robbing you (Peter) To pay (Pal) your SIL AND want you to forget his kind acts . You endured at least two decades already and what is the point in crying over it when it has become rigid.

From this moment keep aside money your savings illiquid. Invest in precious metals gold ornaments. Accumulate in jwels.
Attending house warming by sil - you can just avoid pretending illness.
Or bluntly tell DH you don’t like to extend any opportunity to MIL to indulge in sarcasm and odious comparisons!

Still better MIL BE TOLD the plain truth in unambiguous words that you can’t tolerate any more sarcasm by her in presence of others.

Bod Bless.

 

I also feel big or small home does not equate happiness.

It is love and good relationships which makes a “house” a “home” and give us happiness.

 

I agree in toto.
When i happen to show the building plan to my late dad of my future home, he had one sharp look on that blue print and said only the adage in TAMIL
சிறுக கட்டி ப்பெருக வாழ். - construct small & live large life - Now after nearly four decades later, his utterance reverberates in my ear & how now i wish i had gone for two small tenements instead of one huge single storied building.

In terms of maintenance , future renovation & repairs, security, electricity charges, illumination, taxes etc huge house costs within (now corporation ) area expenses are much more than two small houses. Largeness may provide comfort but it has nothing to do with happiness . Large house divides the family in the name of excess privacy every member occupies at different levels a separate room for himself or herself. In small home there is a possibility of get together and family unites.
And when children grown and gone on their wings, parents feel large house to be unnecessary.
OP here bemoans of large home out of fear of possible comparison byher MIL of her status vis a vis her SIL. Comparison always causes bitterness in domestic arena.
When a dad was admonishing his son for poor grades in school - the boy retorted. “At your age Rajiv Gandhi is PM Of India. you are poor clerk”.

 

It’s a little unclear to me what exactly you are looking for here. Validation? Venting? I can’t figure it out. You are unhappy but you also seem to have very set ideas and a fixed worldview like ‘ I’m not this kind of person, not that kind’ etc. So OP to me it seems like not only are you in a bad situation even worse you have some not very rational but fixed ideas about who you are, you have defined yourself as ‘typical South Indian girl’ whatever that means and unwilling to step out of that mind view. This is the biggest chain around your neck, tying your hands, preventing action and keeping you unhappy and in this situation- your conviction that you cannot take any action because you are not ‘some’ kind of person, not ‘this’, not ‘that’ and not ‘the other’. Maybe you look down on such people also I don’t know. You are convinced you are a ‘good’ person and according to your personal definition a ‘good’ person cannot or will not do ‘x’, ‘y’ ‘z’…. etc. It’s a strange definition for sure but that’s where you are. That’s your biggest problem. So inspite of college topper, education, job you wait passively and mutely for things to get better by ‘themselves’ since your worldview of a good person dictates that is how it is to be, ‘good’ things happen to ’good people’ by themselves, they just have to wait patiently I guess. I’ve seen many South Indian movies and daily serials with similar plots, maybe those are your inspiration? I don’t know. Now you are upset and aghast that the anticipated good things are not happening at all, opposite in fact, it’s getting worse.

You can do as much spiritual seeking and trying to rise above it all aka escape the situation rather than deal with it as you want but already you are seeing it doesn’t help. Things are getting worse, your resentment and bitterness is growing etc. Meanwhile understand clearly your situation will continue to get worse. This is just the beginning. First one house, now second one, next he will fund parents bungalow then jewels, then sisters childrens education then marriage whatnot.