Re: What should I do?
Hmm slowly convince your hubby to give you sole ownership of the house you are currently living in, find a job which pays outside the house, and also make it clear to your hubby that while he is their child and is welcome to put up with his parents controlling behaviour you are a human with self respect. I am not well versed with the legal system but if she's calling you bad names and taunting you repeatedly can't you threaten to make a case of long term emotional abuse with the local imam or court, I know this is extreme but sometimes a mild threat like this can work wonders.
This house is in my hubby's and my name. Hubby also bought them a separate house which is in my hubby's name but they don't live there even though it's bigger than our house. They come to stay for 9-10 months and their house is locked! Their "excuse" is that they're getting old and MIL can't handle all the housework alone and wants to stay with her kids. BUT, she doesn't stay more than a week with any of her other sons or her daughter, just us. Even the other sons and daughter come to stay with us since MIL/FIL are here. I didn't threaten her but a couple years ago we all did have a meeting with a Mufti because that's the advice hubby got from our local imaam. Mufti sahab advised to give me a separate house and told MIL to not interfere and all that good stuff. She agreed but only for a month may be. Then again, she went back to her behavior. I can't threaten anything because hubby won't like it either no matter how bad his parents are. He already tells me to ignore and all that, even though he knows how they treat me.
Your situation really does suck :(
If you dont want to handle all the drama that follows having a party at your home (considering your BIL will be there to witness it), then how about you have a party outside the home... how about a BBQ/ picnic in some nice park. Prepare the food at home and enjoy it with your friends outside.
And stop making her tea, stop washing/ ironing her clothes, stop picking up after them. Do what needs doing and go to your room (and lock it from the inside).
She'll scream and cry and if she/ anyone else confronts you about it then tell them its not farz on you to serve her. Yes she'll come out with maa-baap ka darja etc etc, but tell her politely that she's not your mum, so all that really applies to their son.
If she swears at you, quote the verse from the Quran that tells you not to.
If she screams at you for leaving the house to check the mail (!!!), let her.... smile on your way back into the house and ignore the rest.
She'll eventually (iA) get tired of being mean given her "old age"
You being a good submissive bahu has got you nowhere, so dont you think its about time you started living for yourself? (and dond pay heed to what makes the rounds in your community, just live your life).
It's not about having it at home or outside, the main thing is she doesn't want me to enjoy alone with my friends. She needs a reason to embarrass me or humiliate me. Last night hubby told me to cancel the party and have someone else have it at another friend's house so we can tell MIL that we were invited and we didn't THROW the party. He just casually told MIL oh we will cancel the party but another one will have it at their place, and she's like "khabardaar mere bagair kisi dawat mein gaye to, jaan nikaal dungi tumhari". And of course there'll be other girls whose parents/in-laws MIL knows, so word will eventually get out even if we decided to do so!
And if I stop cleaning after them, the house will be like a dumpster. I did that once coz my cousin does the same thing and she advised me that. But no, didn't work in my case. The dishes from the whole week were piled, the laundry was overflowing, it was just a mess! MIL is clever, she knew I wanted her to do it so she used to put even more clothes than her regular in the basket. Eventually, she started yelling and calling me names and I had to do it because I couldn't stand the mess either.
Do you think she would actually go ahead and call everyone you've invited and tell them the party's cancelled? If she really wanted to do that, how feasible would it be? Does she know who's on the guest list? If you think that's a possibility, like others have suggested you could just call or email the guests and let them know she'll do something like that but disregard it. From your other posts, I assume this wouldn't be a surprise to most if not all of them and with your little confirmation, it shouldn't really cause much confusion either.
What he/she said. I'm all for respecting parents and all that. But this type of interference from her part is unacceptable. As far as the MIL having to accompany you to leave the house and all that stuff, is it imposed by the in-laws or the husband? If it's by the in-laws, then I suggest you start standing your ground. You have a duty towards your husband, but not the in-laws. So for the topic at hand, I suggest you go ahead with your party. You don't need to bring up the topic, especially in front of your MIL anymore. That might avoid some immediate drama. When she goes, have it as planned.
YES, she WILL call the people, she has done it before. But she didn't do this type of thing of canceling but called them to see where I was because I didn't take her with me. I had a doctor's appointment and had to mail something out, and she was sleeping when I left. It was not here though, we were in a different city back then so not with this circle of friends. She has all the phone numbers of my friends, even the ones she's never met or talked to. She made me give her the whole contact list of my friends numbers. When I asked why, she said "kabhi zaroorat par sakti hai". Oh and also, whenever we have a dawat at home where aunty/uncles are also invited....she says she wants to call everyone, even my friends. She calls and invites everyone, even my friends that she doesn't even know or has talked to ever.
And taking her everywhere is not imposed by my husband. Actually, my husband doesn't impose anything but when she throws tantrums, crying spells, quoting quran/hadeeth, hubby gives in and tell me to do what she says. Like in this case, hubby agreed to have it without MIL and when MIL found out, he said "up to you but ammi naraz hojayengi" so, he basically meant "no". He never gives me a direct response, it's always "up to you, but ammi....." If it was up to me, I wouldn't be where I am today. Now, I told him, I'll have the party this time, I don't care what ammi says after she comes back, we can have another one after she comes and he goes "deal with it yourself when she comes back, don't tell me if she says anything to you". So basically, he wants to stay out of it. But when something happens, he tells me do as ammi wants and ignore everything.
Exactly I totally agree. When I get to that age I sure as hell don't want to be called old. As they say 40 is the new 30, 50 is the new 40 and so on. She is young enough to have her own friends and a social circle that she shouldn't need the feel to always tag along with her DIL. Or maybe THAT is the problem. She feels young enough that she thinks she can "hangout" with her DIL;s friends. Whatever it is, I really think BusyBee she should speak up this time. Obviously don't be disrespectful but you are an adult and you can make your own decisions without having to always wait for an "ok" from the MIL.
Actually, she does FEEL young. She compares her clothes to mine. I once said "ammi yeh color thora young logon ka hai" and she's like "tumhari maa budhi hogi, main to young hun". My mom's the same age as her! She even says to some colors like agar "tum pehan sakti ho to main kyun nahi" even though she has to wear an abaya on top anyways! Oh and most important part, recently, she has started to go to MY friends houses WITHOUT telling me. Some of these friends work, some don't even have parents/in-laws at home, just husband/wife/kids. She calls them when she's on their way! A couple of them she went without calling them first, after being in the U.S for almost 14 years!! Some of these friends I'm not even close to, to tell them how MIL really is. So these friends call me and just give me hints of how inappropriate it was for my MIL to "stop by". How embarrassing is that? Of course, I can't even tell this to MIL because she will throw tantrums and blame me that I don't want her to go to my friends' house or I'm making this up or something!
I'm just done with all this. I just want peace. I don't even know how to get out of this mess, which I created myself and decided to marry him even when my parents told me how his family is!