Hi everyone! I’m fairly new to this forum but wanted to post my story to get some advice. I’m getting married in the upcoming months and am at a loss for what to do. (Sorry this is a long post!)
My fiancé and I met about a year ago, and it is not an arranged marriage. We have been engaged for just 3 months and will be getting married fairly soon.
He lives with his family abroad, while I was born and raised in the US. I have never been a part of, or seen a joint family system. And this is what I will be moving into, we will have a bedroom in his parents house. He his about 7 years older than me, and has only lived with his family. Which I know is typical of families in that region of the world. However, I moved out when I turned 18 for education, lived in my own apartment and had my own car etc etc for the last 5 years. I didn’t have a problem with moving in with his family.. but I was apprehensive bc it is something I have never known, so I do not know what to do or how to behave or what is expected of me. Whereas his family expects a LOT from me. We have already had several issues.. and they did not accept the fact that any issues that came up were simply because I was not aware of what was expected, but instead blamed it on me not caring or not being a good person.
Despite all of that, I have still been okay with moving to a new country where I do not know a single person and moving into his house adapting his lifestyle etc etc. But with the wedding approaching there is one issue that is making me want to run away! His sister.
She is older than him, and put simply just does not like me. I haven’t had that much interaction with her, bc we live so far apart. She is married with kids, and lives in the same neighborhood as my fiance and his parents. She spends almost all day at her parents house, from 8 am when she drops the kids to school until after dinner (around 8 or 9 pm)
When I first met her, I made every effort to become friends with her. I knew I’d be moving to a place where I had no friends or family, and saw an older sister as someone who could become my friend and help me in knowing what was expected from me and how i should behave. Several “misunderstandings” arose, where from my end I did not even know there was any problem! She would go straight to her father or brother (my fiancé) and say that I was being rude to her, or I would not respond to her phone calls, etc. etc. NONE of which were true! Every time these issues came up, I knew that she was making these things up. But I still felt that maybe it was a misunderstanding, and I would feel bad and apologize to her bc it was never my intention to make her upset.
But these things started happening more and more, and I lost my patience, and no longer believed that these were misunderstandings and knew she was making them up and telling her family, bc she wanted to create issues. Then even bigger things started to happen .. My future MIL had asked me what I wanted my valima clothes to look like and I had told her and my future SIL the colors I liked and the colors I disliked. And left the rest completely up to them! My SIL went and had the valima outfit made in the color I specifically told her I didn’t like! But, she’s very clever and went to a top designer. That way to everyone on the outside she looks like she is so sweet, she didn’t cut any corners and went to the best. But at the same time, managed to ruin things for me! When I brought up that I didn’t like that color, she played a victim and threw a fit to her parents (mind you, she’s almost 10 years older than me!) My future FIL called my mother and started yelling at her about how I was disrespectful and how I had took their son away from them and this was unacceptable.
Then SIL sent me messages saying horrible, horrible things I cannot even type out. Some of the less horrible things said that I wasn’t welcome in her house (she meant her parents house) or in her family.
When I told my fiancé about these messages he asked her, and she said that she didn’t send them. He believes her. I sent proof that they came from her number/account and still he said he believed his sister. Her parents knew about the messages too and don’t care at all! If i was in her position and had done such a thing to my brother’s wife to be, my parents would have killed me!
I was shocked and in disbelief.
Then recently, I started receiving messages from a fake FB account.. this person is saying such personal things that no one outside of his immediate family and my immediate family know. So I know this is also his sister. And he refuses to believe this.
I am at a loss and don’t know what to do. A husband is supposed to protect his wife from people that have evil intentions and actions towards her. But if he refuses to see reality, how will he ever protect me? In fact, he tells me to be even more friendly with her and spend more one on one time with her. While honestly, I’m terrified to be alone in a room with her. I fear she might cause me physical harm. All her messages have been filled with such hatred and evilness I could never have even imagined someone could be like that! I’ve never asked him to fight with his family or behave differently towards them, and I will never want him to do any of that. All I ask of him is to see what his sister is really doing, otherwise she will succeed in poisoning him against me and breaking us apart eventually. But he doesn’t seem willing to do even this. I’m so confused and don’t know what to do.
Sorry again for the long post! Any advice??