Background...who knows..who to tell...

In response to Sharin and Robbie Deol, who have asked whether I have told my husband, in-laws or parents about my dilemmas..I thought it best to give you a background on who knows and reactions etc! SO here it goes....

Who knows
Well to some extent or another my husband and my parents know. My husband knows pretty much everything as I do not believe in hiding the truth and if it was the other way round I would hope he would tell me if he was upset with anything my family has done...which he has told me.
My parents know to a certain extent - I do not tell them everything however over the years they themselves have noticed a few things - and that is all they know. I do not want to tell them to the full extent as they will worry about my happiness and that is not what I would like them to do.
My in-laws however do not know - as far as I can tell! I have never once said how I feel to them and never will I! (I know you are saying why...the reason will come below)

Reactions/Results
My parents will never do anything in the fear of making things worse. And I would never wantthem to, in the fear of them being hurt. I would rather they believed everything was fine. At the end of the day every parents fear is that their daughter has ended up in the wrong family.

Husband - you ask what his view is and whether he sticks up for me? I cannot answer this fully and maybe in time he will post his opinion. In my view and what I have seen - he sees what is going on, doesnt understand why his parents are being like this and not something he EVER expected from them. However what can he do? If he says something to his parents, they stop talking to him, they tell him he has taken my side and I have made him say these things and made him stand up for me, they think even more wrongly of me...does he want that? No! He is split between his wife and his parents...do I want that? No! Do I want him to stop talking to his parents? Never! So what can we Indian women expect our husbands to do? Either way they lose!
All I can say is in this day and age - why would people still have this mentality? Why do people believe all women are evil! Why are there people in this world who no matter what you do for them always see the negative side? Surely Life is just to short to be angry and if they took a good look at me they would realise that all I wantto be is a Daughter to them with no secret plans to take their boy away from them - if anything I want their Boy to look after them and be a MAN who will take care of both his parents and wife! Is it just a dream to be a happy family? They say thats what they want...yet they destroy it at the same time!

Who am I?

I'm not loved yet not hated
I'm neither friend nor foe
I'm not blood yet thicker than water
I'm not wrong but not perfect
I'm not the devil nor an angel
I'm not your child yet you are my parents
Who am I?
Just a girl, or a daughter, family or enemy?
I am..just a Daughter-in-law who is the middle of all opposites!

Fed up...

So I havent posted for a while as after reading "The Secret", I felt that maybe by talking and thinking bad things they are happening more - so instead of using this as a diary of what is going on and thinking negative I set out to be more positive on the situation. I started to believe that one day I will be accepted and the more happier and content I am the more likely my in-laws will see I am not out to be th mean daughter-in-law they are imagining.

However, there is no point me thinking positive if my FIL insists on conjuring up bad things in his imagination. He dreams up bad things even if they are not! He believes all women are evil even if he has sisters and after all they are also women! He believes he creates no evil but people around him are out to get him - including his own family! SO if thats what he thinks? What hope do I have?

Things did go well for a while - I seemed to feel part of the family..but all too soon I fell into the trap and now again I am getting abuse by phone and email about how all I care about is my family and my life. How I havent realised I am now a part of their family and they should be making all MY life decisions for me. I am even being threatened that when my BIL gets married I will have to think about his wife as my actions will affect her!!! (They not even married yet!!)

Everything seems to be my fault and I am an evil person plotting against him.

Most say MIL are the pain, but for me this is not true - if it wasn't for her and how she has now started accepting me and being proud of me and dare I say it even loving me, I think I would have gone crazy! However with my FIL i think I will never be able to please him and he will never see that maybe - just maybe - all my intentions are good and there is nothing evil about this woman who doesnt see herself as the family's DIL but as their Daughter who will always look out for them

Am I always to blame?

Every day I wake up and pray that today will be a good day...today my in-laws will be happy with me! Today I will be the perfect daughter-in-law...yet everyday I wake up to a phone call, text or email to say what a horrible daughter-in-law I am..how I am breaking up the family! Is everything I do wrong? Does spending two hours with my sister once a week if that mean I am putting her before my husbands family? Does trying to ensure my career is secure and I progress mean I don't care about family life (I mean I would quit..but how would we as a family survive?) Does dancing 2 hours a week mean I am putting my passion before my family? Surely not! Surely I am just a woman trying to balance all things in life...I still go and have dinner there every day, I still try and talk to them, I help wherever I can..I work late so cannot always make dinner but try and do everything else..even offer to make things the night before...I go out with them, never said no to any social event, wear what they want me to wear..talk to everyone in the community! Yet I am still not good enough...I'm not there enough..I havent taken responsibility of anything..I am not the perfect daughter in law..so what do I do? And everything is naturally interpreted as my idea..never have they thought that it could be their sons...that they are actually pushing him away and hence I am stuck in the middle of it! But somehow in some shape or form it will always be my fault..even if I wasn't even there....
The line at the end of this blog http://quackrites.blogspot.com/2009/01/daughter-in-law-dilemma.html will always stick in my head: "While a woman can work, and be at the top of her career, she may have kids and rear them real well, but at the end of the day, she still would remain the Indian daughter-in-law, forever vulnerable, and never quite up to the mark." How do you make it to the mark? What do you need to do? Cos feeling like you are not good enough every day of your life....well I think I have gone crazy!

Who should decide?

Do you honour your husband? His parents? or yourself? I feel I am torn between what I want, what my husband wants and what his parents want from me! My parents and family don't even come to it...and its a shame...as with only 2 daughters is it right to leave them to their own devices..just cos they had girls! I have so many questions running through my mind at the moment I just don't know where to start and who to ask!!! Who does have the answers?? When does a girls life stop being her own and becoming the property of someone else? In this modern day is too much to expect to live your life the way you want to? And if it is someone elses property whose is it? Your husband or your in-laws?
This weekend the in-laws told us that as the eldest we should be taking on more responsibility and therefore less for them to do...and I agree and always have done...however the problem is not in the idea but in the method by which it should be conducted. How is one supposed to take responsibility of a house if you don't actually live there...and they don't actually want you to live there!! I am quite happy to move in with them..but they don't want us too! However, they do want me to cook lunch and dinner, help with cleaning, do the shopping etc...but they will not tell me when or how! I am meant to GUESS! So if on a Saturday I get there at 10am..lunch may already be ready...but I will get bad marks for not being there...even if MIL told me she wasn't making it until 11! Or if I go there and want to leave early as husband wants to go out...and MIL does the curtains after...how am I meant to know? Is that fair? For me a relationship works two ways...give and take! Surely, MIL can call me and say lets cook at 11am and we will make xxx...or I want to go shopping today..what time will you be free? Is it too much to ask? I have never been able to guess what my mum wants to do...so how can I be expected to know what in-laws want to do if they don't tell me? I have a million questions...each one with no answer? Should it be one big Guessing game? Surely thats not how life is supposed to be lived!

one kitchen...two houses

The usual routine for us at the weekend is to wake up, clean and go to the in-laws. As that...they believe is the main house and really our place is just for sleeping and having friends round...everything else is done at the theirs...thats the "true home" so to speak. However this weekend we decided that we would stay at ours as the in-laws was out, hubby wanted to watch IPL which wasn't part of the in-laws channel package and I could get some much needed rest as well as do some extra work I needed to finish. The in-laws at the last minute invited some guests round (which was a whole different issue I will cover in another post) and so wanted the guests to meet me...however being a saturday night we already had plans so we said we would try and pop in...when we did...they mentioned to the guests that we lived at a different place and the reaction was "oh seperate??" to which MIL replyed..yes but only ONE kitchen...as in we cook together, we eat together but we live seperately!! To which I and the hubby were shocked at why do we feel the need to explain how we live...and so what if son and DIL do live seperate to parents..I mean..in-laws aren't living with their in-laws so why should we? Shouldn't it be follow by example? so what is the big deal? why should we eat together if we don't live together? Is it such a social shame if we do or doesn't it show that your son and DIL are actually capable of standing on their own two feet...

Should girls be brought up differently?

Yesterday I was discussing with the friend who is about to get married and just getting a taster into what married life may be about...not just the joys of being with the man you love but the baggage (sorry family) he brings with him. We went on to discuss how boys have been brought up and there seemed to be a lot of similarity between her fiance and my husband....until they got married they had mummy doing everything for them and after they have a wife...they have always been under the umberella of their parents and never had to venture out and do things by themselves...not even walk to a station...god forbid!!

However strangely enough, both me and my friend and all the girls I know have from a very young age been taught to do things ourselves and not just the house chores but looking after our finances, getting a job, walking to school, walking to a station and actually even taking upon ourselves to help our parents with their responsibilities..now some of you may think well thats right because at some point she will have to go and look after her own home and be independent..but is that really true??

Lets take married life for a girl...or for me...

We have to listen to everything in-laws say, abide by their rules (whether you live with them or not!), tell them everything, dress how they want you to dress and to be honest go back 10 years when you were a young kid and not know anything...they expect you to have been brought up the same way as their son..who relies on them for all the know-how and answers...so shouldn't parents of girls wrap up their daughters in a bit of cotton wool as well? I am not saying this to undermine women but to make their lives easier when they get married as then they will be used to these rules and lack of freedom..rather than having it all snatched away from them

Daughter OUT lawed...what does it mean?

After a few years of marriage and the usual ups and downs with the in-laws and not knowing whether all this was normal I have decided to share my views and experiences to the rest of the world in the hope to unite others who feel like this and get advice for myself (selfishly) and others from those who have managed to find the secret of survival with the in-laws. Do you feel that instead of becoming part of your husbands family they have kept you on the side line? Well then..WELCOME to Daughter OUT Law!

Tired of the trying hard to please the in-laws, the constant battle between modern life in the western world and the traditional values of an indian daughter-in-law, the promises to your parents you made as a child seemingly more distant, the arguements with the man you love, the guilt for arguing and making him choose between his wife and parents...and the millions of other dilemmas that are created once you go from a single indian girl to a married daughter-in-law, I hope this will become a window to every daughter-in-laws life not to bash the in-laws but to share the experience, knowledge and advice in the hope for sanity.

AND...before you think this is just the girls view my Husband will also be sharing his views in this blog...how he feels, are his parents right? or his wife? whose side should he take..Parents who have brought him up to be the man he is today or Wife who will grow old with him and bring up his children..till death do us part! Why is there a constant battle once a son gets married and what is the future for the next generation of in-laws... So men and women Welcome to Daughter Outlawed...a place for all of us to let off some steam when married life just gets a little too much to handle!