“She won’t be able to fit in our family! She is too rude to your sister! She has no respect for your father! She is so selfish that she doesn’t think about the family at all! She is immature! She won’t like that you give us importance! She doesn’t wear clothes as a daughter-in-law should! She controls you and you let her control you! You are a weak man!”
I was constantly told much worse things about my wife that made me wonder if she made the mistake of getting married to me!
We had a love marriage and sadly, even after giving her 200% to my family, she was always subjected to unfair and constant criticism. Her fault wasn’t that she wasn’t loving or caring or adjusting – her fault was that she married to me, who has an overbearing family!
While I really loved my wife for being opinionated and having her own voice, my family just couldn’t accept her for being who she was!
The things that I loved about her – her sense of style, her independence, her modern views – were the biggest problems for my family. With the constant nagging and manipulation, they tried hard to make me see my wife with the same lens they do! Sadly, for a short period, I did start seeing her from my family’s broken lens.
Her cuteness became stupidity; Her independence became selfishness; Her care was seen as her act to control my life! Her open-mindedness became manipulation!
With every passing moment, I started growing apart from her! I stopped giving her time, love and care that I always used to give! I didn’t know that my every step was damaging my marriage and hurting my wife! Happiness in our marriage was gone! I felt empty and lonely! I felt helpless and I didn’t know how to fix it. And, I would blame my wife for it.
But, sadly the truth was that it wasn’t my wife who had changed; it was me! It wasn’t my wife who set us apart; it was me! It wasn’t my wife’s fault, it was mine! It took me a year to realize, that I wasn’t manipulated by my wife but by my own family! I wasn’t exploited by her, but by my own family!
After a year, I understood how my family’s lack of acceptance of my wife took away happiness and love from my marriage! My parent’s insecurities and my sister’s involvement ruined my marriage. And, what is even more disappointing is the fact that I let them! I let their insecurities dominate and cloud how I looked at my relationship with my wife.
It is heartbreaking how my family members, for their own sake, were ready to control me and my marriage! They didn’t even think how their manipulation can destroy my relationship with my wife!
Dear Indian Men,
Please stop listening to your family when it comes to your wife. Remember that it is you who married to her; not your family members! If you are happy in your marriage; don’t let others ruin it for the sake of their own insecurities.
Your relationship with your wife is independent of how your parents or your family perceives her! You just can’t let others dominate your feelings for your wife. You can’t view your wife through someone else’s lens, even if that’s your own family!
Please remember, marriage is for you and your wife! It isn’t for your parents or your sister or your brother! So, stop listening to others blindly when it comes to your wife! She deserves better and you can do better!
