I got married 7 months ago and we’re living with my in-laws in the same city as my parents. My hubby is a student at uni, and I’m studying/working from home. I’ve known my DH for nearly 6 years and alhamdullilah feel so lucky to have such a wonderful hubby and the love/trust between us is still amazing. There’s no actual problems BETWEEN us two, and practically every argument we’ve had has been due to external influences, though we’ve never lasted more than 12 hours being angry and mash’Allah always manage to make things fine between us. But there’s a pretty huge problem that’s getting bigger by the day and I’m scared it’ll drive us apart.
My in-laws are wonderful, they treat me with so much love and respect and I’m grateful for that. The problem is, I’ve always had this notion that I’d get married, we’ll have our own little love nest and gradually our little unit will get bigger. My in-laws house is huge, and they did this years ago with the thought that my hubby would live there with his wife and kids and everything would be perfect. I was aware of this before we got married, and DH did know that I wasn’t too thrilled but I did promise to be ok with it as I genuinely believed I could make it work. 7 months on and I’m hating not having my own house, not being able to feel totally comfortable where I live and I don’t consider it as my ‘home’. I tried to hide these feelings from DH as I knew it’d hurt him, but he realised pretty soon anyway so we talked about it. I know that my MIL and FIL are pretty great as far as in-laws go, they don’t get involved in our business, don’t force me to do any housework and never stop me seeing my parents. But the major problem me and DH are having is that he expects me to stay up late with him, watching movies and just generally spending quality time as we don’t get much ‘us’ time during the day, and still wake up early, make his parents breakfast and do most of the cooking and cleaning myself. This might sound trivial but it’s the same depressing start every morning - hubby realises its past 9am, pushes me off the bed and demands I go down and ‘help out’. I’d like to make it clear here that I don’t sit on my butt and do nothing everyday, I help out with the housework, sometimes make the whole salan myself, often times just perhaps cut the vegetables etc, try to make myself useful generally. But to him I’m not ‘looking after his parents’ and just being selfish. Also, most of the food my in-laws make, myself and hubby don’t personally like it but another problem is when I make something seperate for me and hubby, my MIL hates it and starts complaining the family system is dissolving etc and how everyone is living as tenants in the house. And yet she hates when she finds out me and DH ordered a takeaway despite knowing the fact that hubby does not like and never has liked a specific salan that she’s made, and I’m not too keen on it either. So it seems like we can’t win either way. It’s either eat the same as the rest of the family or stay hungry. She hates when we have breakfast at a different time to them. Also, she expects things to be done at the exact time she likes, so all the housework & cooking must be done by 12pm otherwise you can’t manage a household efficiently apparently.
A major problem is me communicating with them - I don’t have very good Urdu, having grown up speaking English with my family, so although I can speak it, I’m not that great at initiating or holding a conversation. This has led to them complaining that I’m too ‘cold’ and I don’t like them, and because I’ve always been a very reserved, shy person, I prefer spending most time on my own, though they hate this and complain I spend too much time in my room and am too quiet. The problem is amplified because MIL hardly ever says anything to me - she’ll tell my husband if there’s an issue and this I believe makes it worse as it makes it sound worse than it is to him. He then is expected to ‘talk’ to me and explain, clearly it frustrates him, making things tense between us.
These are not the only issues, its other little things like not being able to feel totally comfortable - I wear hijab and abaya when I go out, so when I’m at home I’d like to feel more free and be able to wear whatever I like and look good for my husband - he adores when I wear nice little dresses for him or wear makeup/do stuff to my hair. But living in this system I have to wear salwaar kameez, make sure my dupatta is always covering my chest, make sure its on my head if male relatives come around, have my hair tied at all times, and I personally would never feel comfortable wearing lots of makeup or jewellery here.
I always feel so tense and expected to make conversation when I’m with my in-laws and feel nervous. I hate and dread the mornings because they’re the worst and I often feel like crying.
Me and hubby did have a long conversation about how I’m feeling and he made me see from his point of view aswell - his father spent £££ on building this house for him and it’d break his heart if he just packed up and left. He’s very close to his mum and I know it’d kill him to have to leave her with no one to care for her. Though he did vaguely state we would leave one day, I’m not too sure when he meant and I’m too nervous to ask, but I think sometime after him finishing his studies and around the time we eventually insha’Allah have a baby (still 2 and a half years of uni left), but like I said this was not a definate.
This is really driving a wedge between us because he accuses me of not caring about his parents and just acting like a ‘typical’ wife. I got fed up and said that he is my priority and I’m not obliged to do anything for his parents etc but he just gets angry when he sees his mum doing some work and I’m not helping her.
I’m so confused and fed up 
I know we love each other so bloody much but I can’t keep living where I’m not happy. I do love my in-laws a lot, just not living with them 