u/KeyLivid3770

After my divorce (cheating ex), I met my current husband (never married before) on Instagram. We are from 2 different countries but similiar South East Asian backgrounds. We formed a good connection. I flew to see him and eventually we got married. I am older than my husband and its uncommon in our culture for younger never-married men to marry divorced older women. He was obviously okay with it. Before the wedding, my mil tried to cancel the wedding several times because I was not 'her choice' and she wasn't ready to let her son get married for another 3 years. My husband and I were adamant and we constantly had to keep begging her not to cancel the wedding. It was only when my husband said that he will still fly to my country to marry me whether his family joined him or not is when they begrudgingly attended the wedding. On the condition that my husband and I pay for everything for his whole family, including flight tickets, pre- and post- wedding accomodation and tours. We usually give dowry during the ceremony but just before it, my mil visited my husband in his room and demanded that no dowry is paid to me and that I didn't deserve it because I was marrying her younger son. All this didn't matter to me because I always thought that once they spent time with me and got to know me, our relationship would improve. Because I have a good paying job in my country, my husband and I mutually agreed that I would be visiting him every 3 months until I was ready to permanently move in around 2 years time. But every time I would want to visit, she would threaten to throw my husband out of the house if I came. They had just started a company together and she had a majority share. She started misusing her position and began controlling my husband's finances. (All this was very weird to me. I used to wonder why he would take her bs and not stand up to her. I only knew later that he had undergone a lifetime of emotional abuse under her and I guess that had somehow affected him). At some point, she agreed that I visit. But when I went, she blocked all my husband's money so he couldn't access or spend any money while I was there. And sometimes, she would come to me and tell me that I should not get pregnant because she was sure her son would cheat on me a few years into our marriage once my age catches up to me and I start wrinkling. (I currently look younger than my husband). I later found out that she had been telling him that she will get him a wife of her choice and name all his inheritance under her so that he would be forced to marry her and leave me. One day, my husband decided to confront her with one of his sisters present. They were in the sitting room and I was inside the room with the door closed so I had no idea that there was an argument going on. The next day, I was accused of brainwashing my husband and his mom and sisters demanded that he leave me. A lot of horrible things were said about me (ugly, used, etc) and her son (she wished death, cancer, paralysis, infertilty, getting crushed into pieces by a truck on a highway and a lot worse for him). We both refused to part ways so she gave my husband a ultimatum that he either leaves me or she will remove him from the business, take away his property and throw him out. I was thrown out of the house and my husband chose to let go of everything and join me. She threatened to burn his passport and academic degrees if he didn't go back. So a couple of days later, we went to her house to pick the rest of my stuff up, some of his, and to take his passport and degrees only to realise she had locked them in a drawer and taken the key with her. We had to pry the drawer open with a screwdriver and take his documents. The next day, she realised his documents are not there and calls him to demand that he returns them which he refuses to. A couple of minutes later, she calls again and says that she is missing some gold coins that were in the same drawer and that I must have stolen them. A few days later, she calls him again and demands that he comes back and threatens to get him locked up on a trumped up charge if he doesn't go back. At this point, my husband got scared because around 12 years ago, she had intentionally injured her children and called the police accusing her ex-husband, my husband's father of domestic abuse which got him jailed for a couple of weeks. So when I was returning home, my husband came with me and now he has to start all over again here. This was 9 months ago, his sisters haven't talked to him at all. And his mother only talks to him to demand he returns, threaten him, or say a lot of shitty , hurtful stuff about me. Also, everyone she knows has been told that my husband and I stole her gold and ran away.