u/C0smicPunchingBag

Yesterday, I turned 31. My parents were visiting me for the week to celebrate my birthday. I live over 1500 km from my hometown and have been living alone, away from my parents since I left my childhood home for college.

My wife, with whom I've been married only 4 months now, had prepared a small celebration at home. All on her own, without any help from anyone else. In between, it came up that we don't usually have the western style of celebration at our home, but rather keep it traditional, a temple visit, puja, homemade multi-course meal, etc. We did all that by lunch time. My wife usually celebrates her birthday by decorating her home with balloons and other decorations and a cake cutting ceremony at night. That's exactly what she had planned.

While preparing the cake, she expressed her surprise that we don't usually have cake cutting to celebrate birthdays at our home. My father took it as an insult and started berating her about her behaviour and responsibilities as a wife that he found questionable. Most of it happened while I was in another room changing. When I got to them, things had already escalated. I tried to calm things down but my father, and his incredibly inflated ego, refused to back off.

And that was it for me. Right there in front of everyone, I started berating my father and insulting him every way possible. This wasn't the first time he crossed his boundaries when it comes to my family. I'd warned him many times before to stop interfering when it comes to my family and let me live my life my way. Every time, he said he'll not interfere. And the next opportunity, he does the same thing again. And this time he didn't stop at small things. He started berating my wife's job, their family status, comparing it to himself, his job, and his financial status. He has done this many times before with my mother's relatives and now he is doing the same with my wife. The biggest mistake I made in my life by making another woman suffer through the hell that is my family.

What started as me trying to calm the heated discussion between my father and my wife ended with my wife and my mother trying to calm me down and stop me from shouting at my pathetic, disgusting father. In all this, my mother has completely broken down. She knows and agrees that it's my father's fault. Whole of last night, she tried to make him understand why he was wrong. And my father stuck to his stance "what I did was the right thing to do. She deserves to be treated like this"

Needless to say, my wife left for her parents' house. The last interaction we had was me checking on her whether she reached safely or not. There's no way I can ask her to come back to live with me after what happened yesterday. My father is leaving for his home tomorrow. I'm never setting foot in my childhood home ever again. This is the end of my relationship with my father. My mother will stay with me for a few weeks. Then, if my wife refuses to return and ends it all (like she should), she says she will go home, pack her things up, and come live with me. But if my wife (in an act of extreme foolishness) does decide to come back to me, she will suffer through living with my father so my wife and I can have the space we need to heal from this mess.

And in all of this, I no longer have the motivation or the willingness to do anything productive anymore. I've been absolutely numb since last night. Just counting each second, staring at the ceiling.