firstly, I feel very bad and guilty of posting my private issuss on a public forum, but I don’t know where else to get my frustration out. I don’t want to talk to my mom about this because she’ll get really upset and she lives far away so she’ll just feel helpless and very worried for me.
I live with my parents in law, my husband’s older brother and his wife just moved out (about a month ago). We will eventually move out too, but it might take years.
let me just tell you about my everyday life first:
I wake up around 7 every morning, I make breakfast and lunch for my husband and my younger brother-in-law. (I don’t mind this at all, because he’s a really nice person and since I am already making it for my husband and might as well make it for him)
Then when my husband leaves for work me and my saas have breakfast together. (I sometimes make her breakfast as well) After breakfast I empty the dishwasher, clean up the kitchen, broom the floor (clean it properly every other day) and take out the trash. Twice a week I have to cook so I do that too. None of this bothers me, since I am sitting at home doing nothing so I might as well make myself useful. (I’ve applied for my immigration, and once that come I will start working, InshAllah, at the moment I am doing some online courses to keep myself busy)
The only thing that’s been bothering me is that when my older brother-in-law and his wife come over for dinner, she never helps me clean up the kitchen afterwards. One of my other choors is to clean up after dinner (put the dishes in the dishwasher, put the food in the fridge, wash the dishes that doesn’t fit into the dishwasher, clean the table and counter table)
I wouldn’t mind this, it’s just that they I wouldn’t mind this, but they come over everyday! she just sits there and watch me. it obviously bothered me a little, but i tried ignoring it and just talk to my husband every now and then about it.. Since I’ve never lived in Pakistan I know people here don’t have servants and we have to do it ourselves. It bothered my husband a lot that she doesn’t do anything.
I’ve learned she’s pretty shameless, because she doesn’t really help my MIL either, but yesterday was really bad, I had hurt my hand pretty badly and on top of that I was feeling really sick. I didn’t even eat dinner, I just sat with the family and had a cup of tea. Once my borther-in-law and his wife were done they just got up and left. I cleaned the kitchen and when I finally got to my room and was about to pass out, my husband was soo angry at them and my mother-in-law for not doing anything, he finally went to talk to my mother-in-law.
My mother-in-law thinks that fighting with them over some plates isn’t really worth it. She also thinks that she does 80% of the housework anyway, so me or my husband shouldn’t really complain. I felt really hurt by hearing this. I mean all you girls out there, you know we didn’t do that much when we lived with our parents. I’m really trying here.
the reason I’m writing here is because I need advice on how to make sure that my sister-in-law also helps me with the dishes, but I don’t want there to be a fight or bad feeling over this. But I also don’t want it to keep going like this because it does make me feel pretty bad and frustrated. I also need advice on how to ignore this your MIL says, because the comment about her doing everything really hurt my feelings.