Yes, it’s another in-law thread.
I’m living in Canada and I had a love marriage earlier this year. I moved in with my hubby and his BILs (as his parents were in Pakistan). After a few months of managing the home, cooking and cleaning after hubby and the BILs and spending every weekend visiting the married SILs, my inlaws moved back from Pakistan. We all moved into a house together far away in the suburbs, over an hour drive to my family (rather than close to downtown where we used to live).
Growing up, I was always the very independent type, very ABCD. My grandparents lived with us for some years and they made my mother’s life a living hell and nearly drove my parents to divorce before they left to live with one of my uncles. This experience scarred me and I swore I’d never live with inlaws. Then I met my traditional future husband and he convinced me that it was possible to live in a harmonious family environment. Being the eldest son, he made it clear that in the long term he wanted his parents to live with us, so we struck a balance in that we decided to live independently for the first few years of marriage because having that independent experience was very important for me and it would allow our relationship to grow, and then his parents could move in with us at a later time. He assured me that his mom “probably wouldnt want to live with us anyway”. So thus I conceded on this because I truly cared about him.
Fast forward to a few months ago, his parents were returning to Canada, and since it had been quite some time since the family had been united, everyone really wanted to live together. I was feeling sentimental at the time, so I agreed to give it a chance and just have everyone move in together. I didn’t want to be the cause of keeping them apart. So I agreed to move in together and from the start is has been challenging for me. My inlaws are very nice and their are no major dramas or issues. I guess it’s more of an issue of personality that is affecting me easily adapting to this situation.
The factors that influence this:
- I am a VERY introverted person. I like having my space and my own time. I’m used to a small family like mine was. His family is very extroverted and has no idea what the term “Personal space” means. Everyone is in each other’s face all the time and while I do integrate myself a great deal, it’s also very emotionally exhausting for me.
- I’m also very independent and I hate being told what to do. It’s not that I’m a rebel, I guess you can say I’m a typical good girl. But I like to do things my own way. For example, if I’m cooking a dish, I hate when someone hangs over a pot and asks me “What is this? There is too much water. You should cut your onions finer, etc etc etc”. Which is EXACTLY what my MIL does. His parents both are very involved and are strongly opinionated and have dozens of unnecessary input to provide each and every day.
- I am no clean freak, but their cleaning standards are very low, and MIL does not expect any of her sons to contribute to the home. So they create the mess, she doesnt care about the mess, so I’m the one running around like a crazy person cleaning up after them every evening and weekend. Mind you, I work 9 hour days and have a long commute. My MIL makes dinner which I appreciate but with the amount of cleaning up I have to do after her, it’s very frustrating.
- Husband makes very minimal time for me as he prefers hanging out with his family all day. He makes zero effort with my family and I have to drag him to go see them every once in a while. He’s always coming up with excuses when I want to go sleep over with my parents (I go over there very rarely) and talks me out of sleeping over saying he’ll miss me etc etc.
Mind you, my inlaws are VERY NICE. I do care about them deeply. They have made efforts to integrate my into their life even though their son did not have an arranged marriage like they wanted. It’s just that they are very traditional and it’s challenging to adapt to. Also I get hit by the fear that this is PERMANENT..it’s going to be like this forever, and that just terrifies me. And I feel resentful to my husband because he did not fulfill his promise to me to have some time living separately. He doesnt listen to me. I try to talk about this with him and he just says that I should get over it and deal with it because this is how life is going to be.
I need some advice because my strength is wearing down. I have to be very strong to get through the day without getting upset. All my energies go to putting on a happy face when socializing with his family so at the end of the day, I literally have no emotional energy to give any sort of love and attention to my husband. It’s unfortunate because we’re supposed to be on the same team, but resentment is starting to build. When we have a fight, I sulk by myself in the corner but he goes and hangs out with his family and pretends that nothing happens. It’s so hurtful for me that he can act all normal and I am completely alone and due to the fact that he doesnt have to dwell on the fight, there’s no effort on his end to resolve it because he can just walk away and be with them. This is resulting in me feeling depressed.
I’m specifically looking on advice on how I can handle this situation better. I know that more communication needs to happen, but I don’t know where to begin. I’m just hating living here at the moment. I know that moving out will not necessarily solve all our problems. I’d LOVE to live independently, but I know that it may not be feasible. Also growing up in Canada, I was raised to be strong and independent, and seeing my mother getting walked all over by her inlaws made me vow to be strong. So now I get my husband telling me that I need to change myself and adapt to everyone (not vice versa) and it just doesnt feel right.