What Is A Healthy Mother-daughter Relationship?

My mom was my best friend.. i removed the "best" now and she is just a friend who afterall has her own life and family to deal with. When i was in my lowest point in my marriage, my mom encouraged me to develop thick skin and not to punish myself for others mistakes. Till then it was good. Later on, she wanted me to rebel as soon as things started to go down..like fights and issues with my husband. Cuz she didnt want to see me depressed again. Initially things went bad as i started to rebel.. i was making a hill out of mole..and i felt that i stopped understanding and thinking in my H pov. Btw, mine is love marriage.

Then, i started to analyse my mom's pov. She never stayed with her mil. She too had issues with few of my relatives when they stayed long term with her. She doesnt know my H and his side well. She was purely trying to stand by me and make me strong and victorious. But winning a fight with H doesnt mean victory all the time. It def has its negatives too.. after all this analysis, i stopped over-communicating with her..i dont tell all my problems, i try to deal with it along with my H(and not with mom, after this my H also stopped involving his mom), for every advice she gives, i dont implement it, i analyse pros and cons. Luckily, after seeing my marriage issues, she is able to understand what goes on in other families,like my grandma(mom's mom) and her DIL(my aunt) have issues..and she is accepting my aunt(mom's SIL) more than my grandma now. And my mom can sense the distance that is growing btw us. But she is happy that i learnt to deal with issues by myself.

But anyday, my mom is better than my dad , who advised me to adjust after marriage. He was my hero during childhood by raising me equivalent to boy, but after my marriage he changed. He is just like any other man now in my view...

 

Are you a USA citizen.??what about ur husband.

 

Often what we think of as depression is merely unhappiness or a prolonged exposure to unhappiness. The West has a great penchant for depression and creating cases of clinical depression out of thin air. Most of us are not depressed, we are just unhappy. If we change our circumstances, so shall our mood and our level of well-being. What were you like before you got married? Were you as unhappy as you are now? Obviously, you and your parents have had a difficult life. They moved to a foreign country and were forced to survive their on your own. The only source of support your mother had was you. Hence, she put all her hopes, energies and expectations on you and you are only responding naturally, not wanting to rock the boat as you put it. Unfortunately, Indians love marriage and shall do everything to ensure that their children get married. I find this a very unhealthy obsession as it is not the product of any kind of reflection but merely a reflex action designed to allay social pressure and ensure that the family keeps its "good name". But these kinds of things have no currency in the West so I don't know why they do it.

From what I understand, there are two things making you unhappy:

1) Your marriage
2) Your unhealthy relationship with your parents

My somewhat bold and aggressive advice would be to move away from both. From what I understand, you have never been happy in your marriage. Your husband does not appear to like you very much and is always cribbing about your behaviour. On top of that, you are an introvert and need to spend a lot of time by yourself. I do not see you being given an iota of space in a traditional Indian family like yours. You can either choose a life of duty and obligation to your husband and live a life of misery (which will not help your son) or you can decide to live a life of individual freedom and happiness by leaving your husband and taking your son with you.

You are scared of leaving your husband because of the disappointment and loss of face it shall cause your parents. However, you cannot worry about that. Your parents may be traditional and so, to some extent, are you. But, they made the decision to come to the U.S. and they cannot expect to get a cookie-cutter Indian daughter out of that experience. The conditions, rewards and intense social pressure required to produce that kind of human being simply do not exist in the West. So, I think you need to take a stand. Having declared independence from your husband, you need to declare independence from your parents.

You only have one life and you are the one responsible for living it and making it happy. Nobody else is going to help you and nobody else is going to take responsibility if your life is a failure. Your parents think they have done their duty by marrying you off and they shall not take any responsibility for its failure. So now, it is up to you.

Focus on the basics:

1) Financial self-sufficiency: Thank God you have a job and can support yourself and your son. Keep at it and try to create alternative sources of income. I can imagine as an introvert it must be hard working in an office.

2) Define healthy boundaries with your parents: I think you need some time away from your parents. They will do everything in their power to stop you leaving your husband because it makes them look bad. So, you need to cut yourself off from them, at least for a little while. This may be painful as you have been preternaturally close to them your entire life. You might also lose ready-made and free babysitting services which I assume they provide. Losing access to their daughter and grandson shall hurt them but that is a shock they need to undergo in order to appreciate the new boundaries you are trying to define.

Remember, you live in the West. There are immense resources available to you as an individual. There is no need to be scared. Nobody can touch you. Nobody can take your hard-earned money away from you. I hope you are keeping your income to yourself. Don't even think about sharing it with your loving husband. That money belongs only to you and your son.

You need to find a place to live for you and your son. You need to provision for adequate child-care services when you are at work. Look into work from home options. Then you need to start the process of leaving your husband and ensure you get sole custody of the child so that your husband cannot meddle in your affairs. If there has been any abuse in the marriage or you feel you were coerced into it, you need to share it with a good lawyer. This is to ensure that nobody tries to take your baby away from you. It is better to divorce now while the child is young rather than put him through avoidable trauma later on.

So, in conclusion, you need to build an independent life for yourself and your son. This can only be done at a distance from your husband and your parents. While your husband is disposable, your parents are not. For some time, you shall need to keep away from them and deny them access to yourself and your son. They won't be able to apply any social pressure if they don't have any access to you. Keep your home address secret so they cannot turn up at odd hours. In the West, you don't have to worry too much about overbearing relatives as you can always get the State involved. It will take some time, but after the wounds have healed and after they see you are independent and self-sufficient you can think of opening yourself up to them again. But for now, you have to be determined and steely-eyed. I do not know if you shall follow-through on my advice but I wish you good luck all the same.

 

Oh.so he married you for USA citizenship.but expects you to be a typical Indian wife.
In India itself,no girl takes care of inlaws, husband's abuse.
In future, does he have plans to move to india

 

Glad I could help.

When it comes to dealing with mood swings and becoming stronger and more confident I can recommend the following basics:

1) Eat well (I assume you are doing that already because I assume you cook. You can always sate any hunger pangs with Soylent and its equivalents).

2) Sleep well

3) Get exercise (indoors and outdoors): Running and jogging are excellent aerobic activities. It gives you a feeling of accomplishment and an immense boost of endorphins as you are doing it. It is probably the most enjoyable thing I have ever done. It does wonders for your mood and wonders for your health. You can do it on your own, it doesn't cost a penny and it allows you to spend time in and commune with nature. Ensure there is a three hour gap between a heavy meal and the start of your run. Your body needs to digest the food before it can run. Most importantly, remember to take it slow. When you start running, do it as slowly as possible. It's not a race and you're not trying to impress anyone. Running slowly is the best way to run.

For indoors activity, I would recommend you buy a pair of dumbbells and start lifting. As a woman you might be a bit reluctant to take this advice but all kinds of bodies can benefit from strength training. Just like running, it shall do wonders for your confidence, give you a sense of accomplishment, boost your endorphins and strengthen your bones and muscles. Nothing makes one happier than looking after one's body.

 

OP,
When i was in lowest times of marriage(may be i was depressed too)and i refused to take help of my parents cuz i wanted to solve things myself, indusladies was of great help in showing me others perspectives. After understanding others pov slowly, i started making friends and this helped me a lot.. every friend had some or other issue in life and i counted my blessings as my situation was better and something i could take control of. All my friends are hi/bye types cuz they were busy too...but the lunches that we had once in a while refreshed me. I did few girls trips , sometimes with kid and sometimes without..and i think i enjoyed that time off the most..infact everyone of us made most of that time...
I started taking one project at office soo seriously cuz i wanted something to take mind off domestic life..and you know what,that project went on to get recognized throughout the company and i got an award for myself and my girls team. And we said "cheers to our MILs" ,cuz without their negativity, we couldnt have brought out the best in us. All the male team members were astonished cuz they know my domestic issues and the mountains work that i do at home. I filed many techinical patents and gave sessions in many tech conferences. My parents are proud of me now cuz their names were mentioned in the tech articles and my H doesnt doubt my capability anymore. He knows that i can very well stay without him.
My suggestions would be to make friends, just one friend would be enuf.