u/tryingtosurvive_99

Quick context before you read: My husband and I got married a couple of years back. He was working abroad and left a few weeks after the wedding and relocated back to India after his student visa expired. I ended up living with his parents for 8 months(5 with my husband and rest without him)- something I had never agreed to but was essentially bullied into by circumstances. We both finally moved out due to the toxicity I was facing there and have since gone no contact with them. I'm posting these incidents one by one because my husband thinks I'm the toxic one for cutting them off. Parts 1 and 2 if you want more context -

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskIndianWomen/comments/1tujv6r/my_fil_called_up_my_father_instead_of_talking_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

This one is less about what they did to me and more about what my MIL does to her own son. And honestly this one hurts differently because I watched it happen in real time.

Some background first. My husband had gone abroad on an education loan that he paid back entirely by himself. He funds my in laws' lifestyle and I'm not talking about necessities . They have their own pension and rental income for day to day expenses. What my husband covers is everything on top of that. Subscriptions, travel,hotel stays , internet, and a long list of luxury items(fancy expensive TV, laptops, Ipad, smartwatches, smartphones, appliances) I only found out about after we got married. I also found out a year into our marriage that he was regularly transferring a significant amount to my FIL every other month. He never mentioned it to me. When I asked why he never told me he said he assumed I wasn't interested in what he did for his parents. That's a whole other conversation. But I want you to have this context because it tells you the kind of son my husband is to them.

So my husband's visa didn't get picked and he had to come back to India. Around this time one of his cousins got his visa picked through his job and took his parents abroad with him. The cousin's mother, my MIL's co-sister, is the type who calls just to show off. And I mean that literally. She would call my in laws specifically to tell them which luxury car they rode in that day or which place they visited. Everyday. Like clockwork.

And everyday after these loudspeaker calls my in laws would sit my husband down and go on about how those two were living their best life and "look at our fate." Every single day. The implication was always clear even if not spelled out- their son should be taking them there too. My husband had already paid for their visa applications, the whole process, everything. The point was the trip. And they wanted their son to hand it to them.

I hated these sessions so I'd quietly disappear into the bedroom. But one evening my husband came into the bedroom after one of these and just lay down on the bed. He wasn't saying anything and he was visibly upset with wet eyes.

I asked him what was wrong and he said he just felt bad about his visa not coming through.

I felt really bad for him. This man worked incredibly hard, took a loan, built his career abroad, paid it all back himself, and was now being made to feel like a failure by his own mother.

I then did something I genuinely thought was the right thing to do. I went to the kitchen where my MIL was alone and I very gently told her that maybe we should avoid talking about the cousin's trip around my husband because he was really hurting. That was it. No accusations. I genuinely thought -  this is his mother. She'll want to know he's upset but instead she turned on me immediately and kept yelling Who was I to tell her what to do. Who was my husband to demand anything of her. That it was her right to speak to her own relatives. 

I was terrified my husband or FIL would hear so I reached out and gently held her hand trying to calm her down and kept saying "aunty please don't misunderstand me, he didn't ask me to say anything, he doesn't even know I'm here, I just felt bad for him." Everything fell on deaf ears because she was going like a broken tape . screaming. 

I still remember how hot my face felt and how I was shaking. Even as I am writing this I feel like i am right  back there in that kitchen hyperventilating. She kept going. "They are enjoying their lives" - she said this multiple times. "Look at our fate." And then she said this- 

"He didn't work hard enough."

That made me snap and I came out of the frozen state  I was in and said "no aunty you cannot say that. This is completely a luck based system. It is not his fault."

She probably didn't expect me to push back and just wanted to keep ranting. Her waterworks had started. She started justifying herself and said  someone she knew had managed to get through because he "worked hard even after his h1b did not get picked." Never mind that this person had taken a completely different route that she didn't have the information to even understand properly. In her head her son just hadn't tried hard enough.

Then she started doing the "ok fine, his luck is bad, my luck is bad" routine and slowly calmed down. I begged her not to tell my husband any of this happened. She didn't respond. Just walked off without looking at me.

I went back into the bedroom still in complete shock trying to hold myself together. My husband saw my face and asked what happened and I just broke down. I told him everything between sobs. He asked me why I did that .. I knew he would  but I think because I was so visibly upset he pulled me into a hug and said nobody had ever done something like that for him.

I was still sobbing, almost gasping for air as I was trying to say I never meant to come between him and his parents and I had no right to do that .. I kept abusing myself calling myself stupid.  He kept me in the hug all this while.

But now, when I bring this up, he trivialises it. He says his parents have a right to have dreams. I agree they absolutely can have dreams. But there is a difference between having dreams and guilt tripping your son and holding him  responsible for fulfilling them. 

This was also not the only time she did this. One of my co sister’s parents went to Singapore after their retirement (They funded and organised it themselves, did not depend on their kids) and my mil kept throwing this at my husband with the same routine “our fate” /” they are so lucky” etc. Thankfully I was there the rest of the time and I would change the topic or talk louder to my husband before her guilt tripping routine would reach him .

One time since my fil was also sitting there joining her I casually said “uncle never took you anywhere haan aunty? My father always made sure to take us for holidays every year. Even now they go for holidays and my father does everything on his own” . She didn't like it but I just said that and then turned to my husband to ask about cricket scores. 

What kind of mother does that? Why is my husband so full of guilt and ignorance that he keeps trivialising this. Am I in the wrong for even taking this to his mother? He still keeps calling himself a bad son for not doing this “bare minimum” for his parents when in reality he has done much much more and is still doing all that for his parents. 

Before you start calling my husband spineless and ask me to get out of this marriage, I know all of that . I know he has a hard time taking a stand for himself despite being 32M. I really hope you understand that I am an independent person on my own but when it comes to being in families at max 1 or 2 women are head strong enough to recognize and call out toxic behaviour. I am already the villain of the house for daring to use the word “boundaries” to my in laws. Everyone just expects women to “forgive and forget” and because my forgive and forget expired after 10-15 passes I am labelled arrogant and toxic. It is very hard to even be right when you are simply surrounded by 100s of wrongs or enablers of those wrongs. 

My parents are better people than this, they recognize it is toxic in fact they had even tried to warn me before getting married how they were not very happy with the family I would be marrying into (they loved my husband but not his family not so much) . They wanted me to marry a man I chose and I chose this man. I was just young and did not know I would have to take in the family as well.

[Part 1 here for context]-

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskIndianWomen/comments/1tuix7h/am_i_being_unreasonable_for_going_no_contact_with/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

So after about 2 months at my in-laws place things had gotten really bad and I really needed a break. They would outright not talk to me and give me all mean girls energy. They would talk in a language I didnt know when I was around and call my husband and say I am being mean to them , drinking tea inside the bedroom , “had a swollen grumpy face all the time”, didn't open the bedroom for my fil's pooja where he wanted to go inside our bedroom when i was sleeping.. (long list) .

I got approval from my manager to work from my parents' city for a while, told my in-laws I was going to stay with my parents, and left on good terms. Kept texting them updates through the journey, my parents called them when I arrived, all civil.

I called them twice after reaching. The second call about a week in actually felt warm. I told them about a road trip I'd taken, included my FIL in the conversation even though he barely ever spoke to me. At the end I casually mentioned I might fly back on a Thursday so I could go to office the next day( fulfilling the- atleast one day wfo mandate) , and that I'd let them know once I booked my tickets.

Key thing - I said I'd tell them once I had a date. Because I didn't have one yet.

About 10 days  later, on a Thursday evening, my FIL called my father.

My father is a man who spent his entire career in a senior leadership position. Nobody speaks to him disrespectfully. He was exhausted after a workday and trying to rest.

My FIL called and started yelling at him. That I hadn't given them a return date. That I never called. That I was irresponsible. "Who does that!" "She never called once!" "She did not inform!"

My dad's phone is always on full volume. I could hear every word from across the room. And all I heard from my father's side was "yes yes it is her fault" "yes she should have" "yes you are absolutely correct" "yes I will scold her."

I was shaking so badly I could barely use my phone. While trying to call my husband I accidentally , also trying to record thinking he wont pick up his call , i could barely think straight but eventually managed to hit voice note on his WhatsApp and it ended up recording the tail end of the call. You could still hear my FIL yelling and my father apologising. Then I called my husband properly, already crying.

My own father after hanging up turned his anger on me. I think he was humiliated and I was the easiest target and was extremely furious.

My husband's response when I told him what happened was that it was “partially”  my fault for not giving them a return date.

I then called my MIL while keeping my husband on the line so he could hear everything. She immediately started screaming - not asking if I was okay, not expressing any worry about me  She started yelling  " You have put me in a bad situation with my sisters" because her sister was mocking her for not knowing when her DIL was returning.I was so overwhelmed I just said it was my fault and that it wouldn't happen again. I just needed it to stop and i was sobbing non stop at the events.

When I later pushed my husband to confront his dad, my FIL's explanation was that he called my father because he assumed I had already boarded a flight and wouldn't pick up.

So just to be clear:

• I had never given them a return date
• He invented a scenario where I was already on a plane with zero basis
• Did not text me
• Did not call me
• Went straight to calling my father
• Not to ask if I'd landed safely
• But to scream about my behaviour

My father who paid for their entire wedding and housed their relatives for days was called up on a weeknight and screamed at like he was responsible for me. Like I was something that had been handed over to them and wasn't performing correctly and he needed to complain to whoever made me.

They never apologised. When my husband pushed back they rewrote the whole thing to become the poor victims of my “misconduct” . suddenly they were just two worried elderly people who had no idea where I was. The screaming became concern. My MIL's "you put me in a bad situation with my sisters" conveniently disappeared. She had “no memory” of even saying that. (thank heavens my husband was listening to the call without her knowledge) 

I decided after this I would not go back to their house until my husband was back in India. And I didn't. I went back a week after my husband shifted back to india for good. I still had to stay at their house for another 4 months because my husband kept pushing away my please to move out. Even after we found a house and had paid the rent , deposit , we didnt move out for another 2 weeks  because my husband was concerned “they would feel alone”! The husband had been abroad for 5 years before this and all that while his parents never “felt alone” or had the “extreme love” they developed ever since he married me. 

This was a while ago now. But it still haunts me. My in-laws have never once acknowledged it and my husband still finds ways to excuse it. Our couple's therapist explicitly called this a boundary violation and toxic behaviour. My husband still says I don't see things from "their perspective."

I'm not asking anyone to take sides. I just need to know  is there any world in which this is okay? Where a FIL bypasses his adult daughter-in-law entirely and calls her father to scream at him? Where the DIL is then told it was her own fault?

Because I've been gaslit about this enough times that I sometimes question my own reaction. I'm trying to heal and I just need to hear from people outside this situation that this wasn't normal.

[Part 1 here for context]-

https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianInLaws/comments/1tuimpd/my_husband_says_im_being_unreasonable_for_going/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

So after about 2 months at my in-laws place things had gotten really bad and I really needed a break. They would outright not talk to me and give me all mean girls energy. They would talk in a language I didnt know when I was around and call my husband and say I am being mean to them , drinking tea inside the bedroom , “had a swollen grumpy face all the time”, didn't open the bedroom for my fil's pooja where he wanted to go inside our bedroom when i was sleeping.. (long list) .

I got approval from my manager to work from my parents' city for a while, told my in-laws I was going to stay with my parents, and left on good terms. Kept texting them updates through the journey, my parents called them when I arrived, all civil.

I called them twice after reaching. The second call about a week in actually felt warm. I told them about a road trip I'd taken, included my FIL in the conversation even though he barely ever spoke to me. At the end I casually mentioned I might fly back on a Thursday so I could go to office the next day( fulfilling the- atleast one day wfo mandate) , and that I'd let them know once I booked my tickets.

Key thing - I said I'd tell them once I had a date. Because I didn't have one yet.

About 10 days  later, on a Thursday evening, my FIL called my father.

My father is a man who spent his entire career in a senior leadership position. Nobody speaks to him disrespectfully. He was exhausted after a workday and trying to rest.

My FIL called and started yelling at him. That I hadn't given them a return date. That I never called. That I was irresponsible. "Who does that!" "She never called once!" "She did not inform!"

My dad's phone is always on full volume. I could hear every word from across the room. And all I heard from my father's side was "yes yes it is her fault" "yes she should have" "yes you are absolutely correct" "yes I will scold her."

I was shaking so badly I could barely use my phone. While trying to call my husband I accidentally , also trying to record thinking he wont pick up his call , i could barely think straight but eventually managed to hit voice note on his WhatsApp and it ended up recording the tail end of the call. You could still hear my FIL yelling and my father apologising. Then I called my husband properly, already crying.

My own father after hanging up turned his anger on me. I think he was humiliated and I was the easiest target and was extremely furious.

My husband's response when I told him what happened was that it was “partially”  my fault for not giving them a return date.

I then called my MIL while keeping my husband on the line so he could hear everything. She immediately started screaming - not asking if I was okay, not expressing any worry about me  She started yelling  " You have put me in a bad situation with my sisters" because her sister was mocking her for not knowing when her DIL was returning.I was so overwhelmed I just said it was my fault and that it wouldn't happen again. I just needed it to stop and i was sobbing non stop at the events.

When I later pushed my husband to confront his dad, my FIL's explanation was that he called my father because he assumed I had already boarded a flight and wouldn't pick up.

So just to be clear:

• I had never given them a return date
• He invented a scenario where I was already on a plane with zero basis
• Did not text me
• Did not call me
• Went straight to calling my father
• Not to ask if I'd landed safely
• But to scream about my behaviour

My father who paid for their entire wedding and housed their relatives for days was called up on a weeknight and screamed at like he was responsible for me. Like I was something that had been handed over to them and wasn't performing correctly and he needed to complain to whoever made me.

They never apologised. When my husband pushed back they rewrote the whole thing to become the poor victims of my “misconduct” . suddenly they were just two worried elderly people who had no idea where I was. The screaming became concern. My MIL's "you put me in a bad situation with my sisters" conveniently disappeared. She had “no memory” of even saying that. (thank heavens my husband was listening to the call without her knowledge) 

I decided after this I would not go back to their house until my husband was back in India. And I didn't. I went back a week after my husband shifted back to india for good. I still had to stay at their house for another 4 months because my husband kept pushing away my please to move out. Even after we found a house and had paid the rent , deposit , we didnt move out for another 2 weeks  because my husband was concerned “they would feel alone”! The husband had been abroad for 5 years before this and all that while his parents never “felt alone” or had the “extreme love” they developed ever since he married me. 

This was a while ago now. But it still haunts me. My in-laws have never once acknowledged it and my husband still finds ways to excuse it. Our couple's therapist explicitly called this a boundary violation and toxic behaviour. My husband still says I don't see things from "their perspective."

I'm not asking anyone to take sides. I just need to know  is there any world in which this is okay? Where a FIL bypasses his adult daughter-in-law entirely and calls her father to scream at him? Where the DIL is then told it was her own fault?

Because I've been gaslit about this enough times that I sometimes question my own reaction. I'm trying to heal and I just need to hear from people outside this situation that this wasn't normal.

Before I start I want to say that this happened about 2 years back , I have since moved out of my in law's toxic circle. I am well educated and financially independent. My parents are also well educated (a bit conservative) but enough educated to call out toxic behaviour. The reason I want to put this on reddit is to get a genuine third person's perspective on these events. My husband, although not a toxic man often tries to gaslight me and tries to trivialise all these incidents and calls me toxic for going no contact with my in laws.

----

Some background, my husband and I got married in 2023, dated for 4 years before that. He was working abroad so he left a few weeks after the wedding and I had to stay back in India while his visa situation got sorted.

Before the wedding I had tried to tell him that if things didn't work out visa-wise and he had to come back, I wasn't okay with living in a joint family setup. Not because I had anything against his parents, I barely knew them. I just knew I'd feel suffocated. I'd feel the same way living with my own parents honestly. He immediately got defensive and said  "oh so you already hate my parents", "what did they do to you" etc. I tried again another time and even offered to just live next door, not asking for anything crazy. He just said "this situation won't arise because my visa will come through."

I still had my own apartment in the same city, much closer to my office, still paying rent on it. When I asked(via myhusband)  if I could just stay there(post wedding, till my husband were back/ visa is picked)   my MIL said relatives would talk. So I gave that up to protect appearances for people I'd never met.

While my husband was still around his mom was mostly fine. She always cooked everything, didn't ask me to do anything, was okay with me waking up late. She'd make the odd mean comment but I brushed it off. I really wanted a good relationship with her. I didn't have a great relationship with my own mom so I was genuinely hoping she could be that person for me.

My father had paid for and organised the entire wedding including putting all the groom's relatives up in a 5 star beachfront hotel. My in laws are not financially well off and my father knew it would come off my husband's pocket and he did not want to burden my husband (fiance then). Despite this she constantly complained about the wedding. One recurring complaint was that they don't eat non veg during a certain time of year but "had to" at our engagement. My husband pointed out there was veg food available too so that was her own choice. She just weaseled away. Another time she complained that the hotel had both veg and non veg food and they were kept in the same buffet hall and her relatives were offended (All of them are non vegetarians except a few aunties) . This was also probably the second time in her(MIL's) whole life of staying in a star hotel.

The day my husband left, on the cab ride back from the airport itself, she basically started reading out a list of complaints.

The silk saree my parents gifted her(a color she had said she liked) , she had two others in the same colour so she and my fil demanded the receipt to exchange it. The diamond earrings my mom gifted her (customary in our culture for the bride to gift jewellery to the MIL) were "too big and hurting her ears" and she'd never heard of the jewellery shop so had to add "these days you have to be very careful when buying gold and diamonds." It's a decades old reputed brand in kerala, she just needed to make some mean comment.. Then apparently some relative had told her I was calling her "aunty" and she brought this up as a complaint  but she had never told me what to call her and she herself called my FIL "uncle" when talking to me so I just went with aunty by default.

We got home and both of them sat me down for a 30 minute speech about "this is your home now" and "we are your parents now" and "tell us whatever you need."

Yeah.

After that the complaints kept coming. Our wedding wasn't as grand as some relative's wedding. Their relatives didn't get return gifts. “What would the elders have thought” . The relative (her sister’s son) wedding had a sangeet and haldi night at a 5 star (we, including my husband’s culture doesnt have a haldi /mehendi sangeet custom, so i chose to not have it) .  Meanwhile the relatives who actually attended ours came to visit and couldn't stop raving about how beautiful everything was and how they didn't want to leave the hotel. When I jokingly said to my MIL "looks like nobody will be talking about that other wedding now" she got super annoyed and angry and said "No, theirs was in a 5 star, it was on a completely different level. Theirs was grand "

The kitchen situation was also something else. She controlled everything in there and I had zero say over my own food. I eat dinner around 7, they eat at 11:30 at night. When I'd ask about eating earlier she'd just ignore me. I wasn't allowed to cook for myself. I was not even store things I bought in their fridge. She'd claim its because there was no space but she had expired stuff from early 2000s in the fridge.

They would also go inside our bedroom any time i went out and "organize" it . My mil would claim both my fil and she "LOOOOVE" to organize things and like keeping things neat. Her idea of "organizing is basically hiding everything away from vicinity. SO this often included her opening my drawers or almirahs when i was away "just to store things".

Now my FIL. He barely spoke to me or looked at me the entire time I lived there. My husband and MIL always explained it away as him being shy. It never felt like shyness to me. It felt like something else entirely.

Because of the time difference my husband and I would talk on the phone at midnight IST. My in-laws both knew I was calling my husband  there was nothing secretive about it. I'd be inside my locked bedroom, talking under a blanket. One morning my MIL came up to me and said "uncle was asking who you are talking to so late at night" and then quickly added "he's just concerned the neighbours will get disturbed."

My MIL always fell asleep right after their 11:30 dinner. So I know it wasn't her outside my door. My FIL was always still awake at that hour. And they never closed their own bedroom door.

I didn't know what to say. But I felt that uncomfortable, prickling feeling that something was off. I stayed there for about 2 months and went through a lot more shit  before I couldn't take it anymore and went to stay with my parents for a while.

What happened after that I’ll put in  Part 2 since this will become a long long post. 

[Part 2 -what my FIL did, and why I refused to go back to that house until my husband returned.]

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskIndianWomen/comments/1tujv6r/my_fil_called_up_my_father_instead_of_talking_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Before I start I want to say that this happened about 2 years back , I have since moved out of my in law's toxic circle. I am well educated and financially independent. My parents are also well educated (a bit conservative) but enough educated to call out toxic behaviour. The reason I want to put this on reddit is to get a genuine third person's perspective on these events. My husband, although not a toxic man often tries to gaslight me and tries to trivialise all these incidents and calls me toxic for going no contact with my in laws.

----

Some background, my husband and I got married in 2023, dated for 4 years before that. He was working abroad so he left a few weeks after the wedding and I had to stay back in India while his visa situation got sorted.

Before the wedding I had tried to tell him that if things didn't work out visa-wise and he had to come back, I wasn't okay with living in a joint family setup. Not because I had anything against his parents, I barely knew them. I just knew I'd feel suffocated. I'd feel the same way living with my own parents honestly. He immediately got defensive and said  "oh so you already hate my parents", "what did they do to you" etc. I tried again another time and even offered to just live next door, not asking for anything crazy. He just said "this situation won't arise because my visa will come through."

I still had my own apartment in the same city, much closer to my office, still paying rent on it. When I asked(via myhusband)  if I could just stay there(post wedding, till my husband were back/ visa is picked)   my MIL said relatives would talk. So I gave that up to protect appearances for people I'd never met.

While my husband was still around his mom was mostly fine. She always cooked everything, didn't ask me to do anything, was okay with me waking up late. She'd make the odd mean comment but I brushed it off. I really wanted a good relationship with her. I didn't have a great relationship with my own mom so I was genuinely hoping she could be that person for me.

My father had paid for and organised the entire wedding including putting all the groom's relatives up in a 5 star beachfront hotel. My in laws are not financially well off and my father knew it would come off my husband's pocket and he did not want to burden my husband (fiance then). Despite this she constantly complained about the wedding. One recurring complaint was that they don't eat non veg during a certain time of year but "had to" at our engagement. My husband pointed out there was veg food available too so that was her own choice. She just weaseled away. Another time she complained that the hotel had both veg and non veg food and they were kept in the same buffet hall and her relatives were offended (All of them are non vegetarians except a few aunties) . This was also probably the second time in her(MIL's) whole life of staying in a star hotel.

The day my husband left, on the cab ride back from the airport itself, she basically started reading out a list of complaints.

The silk saree my parents gifted her(a color she had said she liked) , she had two others in the same colour so she and my fil demanded the receipt to exchange it. The diamond earrings my mom gifted her (customary in our culture for the bride to gift jewellery to the MIL) were "too big and hurting her ears" and she'd never heard of the jewellery shop so had to add "these days you have to be very careful when buying gold and diamonds." It's a decades old reputed brand in kerala, she just needed to make some mean comment.. Then apparently some relative had told her I was calling her "aunty" and she brought this up as a complaint  but she had never told me what to call her and she herself called my FIL "uncle" when talking to me so I just went with aunty by default.

We got home and both of them sat me down for a 30 minute speech about "this is your home now" and "we are your parents now" and "tell us whatever you need."

Yeah.

After that the complaints kept coming. Our wedding wasn't as grand as some relative's wedding. Their relatives didn't get return gifts. “What would the elders have thought” . The relative (her sister’s son) wedding had a sangeet and haldi night at a 5 star (we, including my husband’s culture doesnt have a haldi /mehendi sangeet custom, so i chose to not have it) .  Meanwhile the relatives who actually attended ours came to visit and couldn't stop raving about how beautiful everything was and how they didn't want to leave the hotel. When I jokingly said to my MIL "looks like nobody will be talking about that other wedding now" she got super annoyed and angry and said "No, theirs was in a 5 star, it was on a completely different level. Theirs was grand "

The kitchen situation was also something else. She controlled everything in there and I had zero say over my own food. I eat dinner around 7, they eat at 11:30 at night. When I'd ask about eating earlier she'd just ignore me. I wasn't allowed to cook for myself. I was not even store things I bought in their fridge. She'd claim its because there was no space but she had expired stuff from early 2000s in the fridge.

They would also go inside our bedroom any time i went out and "organize" it . My mil would claim both my fil and she "LOOOOVE" to organize things and like keeping things neat. Her idea of "organizing is basically hiding everything away from vicinity. SO this often included her opening my drawers or almirahs when i was away "just to store things".

Now my FIL. He barely spoke to me or looked at me the entire time I lived there. My husband and MIL always explained it away as him being shy. It never felt like shyness to me. It felt like something else entirely.

Because of the time difference my husband and I would talk on the phone at midnight IST. My in-laws both knew I was calling my husband  there was nothing secretive about it. I'd be inside my locked bedroom, talking under a blanket. One morning my MIL came up to me and said "uncle was asking who you are talking to so late at night" and then quickly added "he's just concerned the neighbours will get disturbed."

My MIL always fell asleep right after their 11:30 dinner. So I know it wasn't her outside my door. My FIL was always still awake at that hour. And they never closed their own bedroom door.

I didn't know what to say. But I felt that uncomfortable, prickling feeling that something was off. I stayed there for about 2 months and went through a lot more shit  before I couldn't take it anymore and went to stay with my parents for a while.

What happened after that I’ll put in  Part 2 since this will become a long long post. 

[Part 2 -what my FIL did, and why I refused to go back to that house until my husband returned.] here-

https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianInLaws/comments/1tujby9/my_fil_called_up_my_father_instead_of_talking_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I genuinely need an outside perspective from women who have dealt with toxic in-laws because I feel like I’m losing my mind trying to decide what is “reasonable” anymore.

My in-laws and I have had issues for years, mostly around boundaries and interference in our marriage. Last year things escalated badly after I switched jobs and didn’t immediately inform them. Instead of treating it like a normal adult decision between me and my husband, they came over to our house to confront us and created a huge scene over it.

There was also an incident where my father was yelled at during one of these conflicts, which honestly changed the way I viewed them permanently.

After that, my husband and I genuinely believed things had improved because we had long discussions about boundaries and they acted like they understood our perspective.

Apparently not.

A few months later, my MIL invited us for lunch on a weekday for a festival. My husband politely said he couldn’t because it was a workday. I also politely explained that:

1. I had work,

2. we were celebrating privately at home too,

3. and I work from home so I still had responsibilities.

She literally responded saying “But you work from home, what work do you have?” as if WFH means sitting around doing nothing.

The conversation itself was calm and polite, so I assumed everything was fine.

The next day, my husband’s uncle (who has always been kind to me) called me privately and told me my MIL had been crying to relatives and spreading horrible things about me because I didn’t go. He basically told me to just visit them so she would stop creating drama.

So despite being upset and busy, my husband and I both went there that same day anyway.

Later I found out from multiple people that the gossiping STILL continued even after that. Apparently she kept calling relatives and saying nasty things about me behind my back. When my husband confronted his parents, both of them denied everything and were more focused on finding out WHO told us rather than addressing what they had done.

At one point our couple therapist even told my husband that I likely have PTSD symptoms from living with/being around this family dynamic and that I should not be pressured into meeting them if I don’t want to.

Around that same period my stress levels were through the roof and my TSH shot up to 68. Since cutting contact with them, my stress has reduced massively and my marriage has actually become peaceful.

Now there’s a wedding next month from my FIL’s side in Kerala. It’s an extended family event. I really do not want to go.

Part of it is emotional because I genuinely do not feel safe or comfortable around these people anymore. Part of it is physical because I currently have terrible back pain and don’t want to travel. Also if something goes wrong there, I’ll be stuck far away from home with no easy exit.

My husband keeps saying people will ask questions if I don’t attend and I think he also just doesn’t want to go alone. He is a huge people pleaser and he hates being the center of gossip himself so he keeps guilt tripping me into going with him. He says it will look bad if his wife doesn't attend his cousin's wedding. I told him to go on his own and make some excuse for me but he refuses to listen. He's not forcing in the regular sense but more in the guilt tripping sense-getting upset, avoiding conversation etc. I even told him to practice what he preached as he keeps telling me to ignore the nasty gossip my in laws spread about me but he instead gets defensive when i say that.

Honestly… after years of gossip, emotional manipulation, crying to relatives, creating scenes, disrespecting my parents, and making me feel constantly judged, I just don’t want to put myself through it anymore.

Am I wrong for not wanting to attend this wedding?

Has anyone else's husband just... completely shut down in the bedroom? Not charging on you just not physically intimate. Looking for women who can relate.

I (29F) have been married to my husband (31M) for 2.5 years, dated 5 years before that mostly long distance. He is genuinely a sweet man, caring, non-toxic, not demanding. But our intimate life has been basically nonexistent since day one of marriage and I am exhausted.

When we first moved in together, we stayed at his parents' house. His father is a very strange, boundary-less man he would constantly hover right outside our bedroom door for no reason whatsoever. I think that environment did something to my husband, or maybe it just made an existing problem worse. My FIL is also extremely controlling my husband at 32 was expected to call his parents every single day and report everything we did. If we visited a relative's house after visiting them, his father would send guilt-tripping messages at midnight. My husband has been so conditioned by this that he still cannot say no to them or disappoint anyone.

I pushed for us to move out, found the house myself, made it happen.

But even after moving out, my husband kept avoiding intimacy. I blamed myself for the longest time even went to a gynecologist, did pelvic floor physiotherapy, used dilators. Turns out I was completely fine all along.

After a lot of fights and ultimatums, we went to couple's therapy and then a sex therapist. That's when it came out my husband has erectile dysfunction rooted in years of prone m*st*rbation and a lot of mental blocks around intimacy. Medication helped for a bit and things briefly improved. But the moment things stabilised, he stopped doing everything the therapist asked. It's been four weeks since he was supposed to book a follow-up appointment. He hasn't.

Outside the bedroom he is warm and playful we have physical affection, he does small things for me, we joke around. But the moment things move towards sex, he shuts down completely.

I want to know are there other Indian women going through this? Where your husband is not a bad person but is just completely checked out when it comes to intimacy? How are you handling it? Did it ever get better?