holding grudges

Hi,

I am new to IL and I am finding all the issues discussed here very interesting and supportive. so I am going to write about my problem with my SIL. I hope you ladies can help me with my problem.
I have been married for 5 years, mine is an intercaste love marriage.We live in the US. We had our share of problems during the time of marriage with some misunderstandings between his family and mine, both being very strong headed and opinionated. Both my husband and I were caught between these and had our share of heated arguements before and after marraige about them. 2 years back,we moved to the same city as my sil (my husband's idea). We now live about 10 minutes away from her house. My husband and his sister are very close to eachother. After we moved here, my parents and in laws were both visiting US at the same time. MY inlaws prefer to stay with their daughter because she has kids and they don't feel lonely, while I did not have any children then. My parents stayed with us and there was a lot of awkwardness between both sets of parents. This was primarily because my in laws had not got over the issues that happened at the time of marriage. After my parents left for India, my husband and I had a huge fight about this. he blamed my parents for a lot of stuff. The fight got so worse that he went and told his parents and sister about all the arguements we have had in the past. They held me reponsible for everything and got very mad at me. around this time I also found out that I was pregnant. After a very stressful time, things cooled down just a little bit. But throughout my pregnancy, my husband and I continued to have fights. He would lose temper at the slightest things and I was extremely sensitive because of the pregnancy. After a difficult time, I had a baby daughter and my parents came to my place again post delivery. at this time, a lot of things got discussed between my parents and me. I was very hurt and I told them all the things that had happened during the past year. They got very mad at my husband and said some things to him which he obviously did not like. He has now decided to hold a lifelong grudge against my parents and has declared that he would never speak to them, or go to their place or forgive them for that. These issues got known to my SIL too and she obviously took her brother's side. At that time, instead of calming him down, she fired him up even more and made things worse.
A lot of words were exchanged and after some time things did cool down a little bit after my parents left. My husband and I had a heart to heart discussion and decided to try to work things out between us. He still vows never to speak to my parents though. However, my SIL still holds grudges against me. She is extremely moody and distant at times and at other times, she seems to be fine with me. This is very strressful since we live very close and my husband wants to spend every single weekend at their place. He is the kind of person who would never even go to dinner with me alone. If he goes anywhere, he wants to have his sister and their family go along. We don't have any vacations, any outings for us without the SIL and her family present. Don't get me wrong, I want to have good relations with her. But I do feel like spending alone time with my husband and daughter some weekends, but that never happens. She is extremely dominating. When we are at her place or on an outing, she makes all the plans and everybody just follows them. Her behavior towards me makes me very stressed out since I have to see her ALL THE TIME. Now, if my husband and I have an arguement, even a silly one, he just goes to her place and comes back home late. This is besides all the weekends and holidays that he goes over to her place too. No, it does not help talking to him, we have done that and it does not change.
I feel that whenever our relationship starts to improve, my SIL's behavior or just her presence makes things worse and we grow distant again. I feel very lonely sometimes. I cannot involve my parents any more, that had ade things worse. MY MIL and SIL are of course very very close and they influence eachother a lot. I have tried to talk to my SIl about not holding grudges and trying to make things better. But it only improves for sometime and then we are back to moody and distant behavior. I am in a fix..please advise..

Hi Friend,

I understand your situation. You and your SIL stay close. So, you have to face her all the time. Moreover, your husband is childish going to her and discussing your problems there. He needs to change and right now it is not possible. It takes time. As you people once had good heart to heart discussions, I feel, that chance may come again and that may help improving the situation. But right now you need patience. One good decision you took is not to involve your parents in your matters anymore. Also, I suggest be careful when talking on phone as there will be a possibility of others listening to your conversation and also your daughter may pass the information unknowingly. Keep your matters with you only.

Now, you have to bear your SIL and MIL for some more time and that is to avoid further disturbances in your family. Keep patience and earn trust of your husband. That will really help. Dont fight with him and try to manage and sort the family issues yourself. One day he will come to your side. Till that time nothing you can do as right now their mentalities are different. Also, you cannot do any thing now as whatever you talk or do will lead to further disturbances and grudges.

Concentrate on your daughter, your job/study/house hold work, your husband, show that you maintain good relations with your SIL. Never talk bad about her. Show that you understand her and her moodiness.

Try to make friends and spend sometime with them. Spend evenings with your daughter. Your husband will join you people slowly.

About your parents, you said your husband made a vow. That happens as this is male dominated society. If you try and plan properly and make things normal, he may also change and talk to them normally.

Hello, New_Friend

I'm very sorry to hear about all the problems you're facing. You sound like you're desperate and really quite alone. I hope you are able to take solace in the friends and advice you may gain from IndusLadies.

While I agree with Sri09's comment that you should keep your problems to yourself from now on, I strongly (but respectfully) disagree with what was said about how you should solve your problem. I'm not sure that this is a male-dominated society (and no society should be dominated by one or the other sex). As such, your husband has no right to behave in such a childish and petulant manner.

From what you've said, both parties (you and your family, and him and his family) are partly to blame for all the problems that happened. Therefore, everyone should move on and start afresh. Holding grudges is really the most useless way one can choose to expend their energy. A far better use of their time would be to improve relationships with all concerned.

Your husband needs to start taking his responsibilities seriously. He is married to you, and not his sister. I can't see how it is fair for him to run to his family and complain or sulk when there is a marital problem, but he doesn't expect you to do the same. You should be talking to each other, NOT anyone else. He should be making time for you and your daughter - if you do not all spend quality time together, how will anything improve?

Above all, you must TALK to him. Every conversation does not have to end in a fight. By him hiding at his sister's house, and you spending all your time alone, you are not being a married couple. He should expect that his family treats you properly, and you should expect that your family treats him properly. As such, I can't advise you to bow down to your SIL and accept her bad treatment of you. She has no business interfering in your marriage. If you husband can get away with something as serious and ridiculous as vowing never to speak to your parents again, why should you put up with his sister's cold treatment?

I am not saying you should behave as badly as everyone else in this scenario. What I am saying is, you have to be the responsible one while all the other adults around you behave like children. You and your husband have equal rights, and both of you should make an effort to get along with each other's families (not just you). Otherwise, there's a very unhealthy power imbalance in your relationship.

I also get the feeling that you feel that the issue of your intercaste love marriage has something to do with all of this. I don't think that's the case, since all kinds of couples have these problems, no matter how they came to be married to each other. You deserve happiness, and that is what you must work towards. Talk to your husband. If he really cares, he will agree to work on a plan with you that will make both of you happy.

I wish you the best of luck.

Ansuya

Hi new_friend,

Sri09 and Anusya have given good view points and something for you to think about.

Before we begin to resolve your issues, I'd suggest you list your issues priority wise. What is it that is troubling you the most? Is it that your husband spends most of his time at his sister's place? Or is that he is close to his sister and confides everything in her? Or is it that he does not respect your parents and has vowed to not keep any relationship with the? Or is it that your sil's behavior towards you is unpredicatable? You have bundled up a lot of issues together. If you try to resolve them all at once you will not find a solution and you will keep making it worse for yourself.

So, the first thing in resolving any issue in life, be it professional or personal, is to untangle the issues from one another, realize that each one is an issue in itself and hence a project in itself. Don't make a huge bundle of problems. They will bog you down forever.

Once you have separately listed all issues in the order that they are important to you then begin to focus on resolving the most important one first and move down through the list.

In my opinion getting your husband to spend quality time with you and your kid would be the most important one. He is that matters the most to you and that impacts your life the most. Also, he is the link to the rest of his family (sil, mil etc.) So first and foremost you need to make this link strong. For this, forget about how close he is to your sil or mil or anyone else. Remember that your sil can never be a wife to him. So you have your own special place in his life. So don't feel threatened by his closeness with his sister. She cannot give him what you can so realize that and feel positive.

In every situation try to take a hawk's view of the situation rather than a hummingbird's view. While the hummingbird only looks at what is around her, the hawk looks at the view from the top (the overall view). If in any situation you try to rise above the situation and see things from a hawk's view, it will help you tremendously in looking at the big picture, in assigning proper importance to various players involved and in focussing on what is more important rather than focussing on the big but unimportant aspects of the problem.
Maintaining a hawk's view of the situation is extremely important and very crucial to resolving any issues in any sphere of our life. Most of the times our sole problem is that we get bogged down because we only see the hummingbird's view of the problem.

Coming back to getting your husband to spend more time with you.. Merely talking to him about spending more time and trying to make him understand is not working as you say. So try soft and not in-the-face methods. Rather than asking him to spend time with you create opportunites and situations that are so attractive and lucrative for him that he is "lured" in spending time with you. It will not happen on day 1 but it will surely happen. What are his interests? What activities make him happy and enthusiastic? Is there a particular hobby he likes? What are the kind of people he likes to mingle with?

Create an environment at home that fosters these interests. Plan things on the weekend that you know he will like and be enthusiastic about. Plan a surprise thing once in a while. In fact use your sil to sometimes leave your kid and go for a movie with your husband. It is your husband and your life, you have to make it right for yourself. So let no one come inbetween that. Your husband should slowly start feeling that the time he spends with you is special and fun. He must look forward to it. It will happen if you pay acute attention to what you can do to get him interested. If you question yourself on why you should do all this when he does not even care then you are wasting your time with him. After all, what you want is that your husband changes his habits so do what you can to make it happen.

The other thing is to ignore your sil's behavior. She has her place and you have your place in your husband's life. When you stop feeling threatened by her and when you feel self-assured about your place in your husband's life your behavior and the way you deal with things will change positively. Fear and insecurity are extremely detrimental to progress so shed them right away and you will see a world of a difference in yourself.

There is a lot more I could suggest but before I go into that I would like to hear from you if any of the above appeals to you.

Your issues are absolutely resolvable. So do come back with your thoughts and we can discuss more.

SS

First of all, a big Thank You too Sri09, Ansuya and SoaringSpirit for replying to my post and all the valuable advice. For sometime when I did not get any responses to my post, I had just stopped checking the website, hence the delay in responding.
It is true that I had mixed up a lot of issues in my post. yes, the one that bothers me the most is the fact that my husband spends all of his free time at his sister's place. I have tried making plans separate from them and have made suggestions to my husband several times. I have also talked to him without fighting that I do feel that once in a while one of the weekend nights we an plan something together for us, However, I have not been successful in those attempts so far. My husband just does not enjoy himself when he is just with me. He is so much more involved and talkative when we are out with his sister;s family. But when it is just us, I am one doing all the talking or showing any kind of excitement. He might like being with me, but his behavior does bring my enthusiasm down. I think that he is worried about what his sister would say or think if he goes out with me alone. But he would never accept this fact. Also he does not socialize with anyone else except his sister's family and her friends. he is never inetersted in coming for parties or events with my friends, nor does he have any friends of his own in the city where we live. So that makes it harder for me to plan anything at all.
I used to be the kind of person, who would not just accept things that I felt were wrong. I used to be very verbal about my feelings and what I wanted and expected. but I have realised that every time I did that, my husband and I had arguements. I think that with all the stuff that has happened in our life after marriage have never given us a chance to really build a good foundation for our relationship. Maybe the fears and insecurities spring from this problem. Now I just try to keep quiet about these issues and not discuss them with his at all. i never have said anything negative about his sister to him ever, but now I don't say anything at all. But since I am not used to being like this, it bothers me and affects me emotionally a lot. Not having support from any family or friends makes it worse. I have come to think like sri09 mentioned that I have to keep patience and hope that things get better as time goes by. But anxieties such as will things ever be fine? will my husband ever speak to my parents again? will he and I will ever have a normal married life? bother me a lot..

Hi new_friend,

Good to hear from you.

I can clearly see that your situation is not easy. I can understand your pain.

I agree that you need loads of patience. No doubt about it. But patience does not mean inaction. Sure be patient with expecting change or quick results. But you have to "do" some thing for things to happen.

I perfectly understand that one-sided efforts are hard to keep up. It is natural to feel that your husband should reciprocate. But this is where you have distinguish where patience plays a role and where actions plays a role. Expecting your husband to reciprocate requires patience. Give him time, be patient about expecting results. But stopping to spend one-on-one time with him because he does not reciprocate is inaction. This is what you must not do. Do what you can, how much you can and sometimes take efforts to do more than you think you can do. After all, you are making this effort to make "your" life better. So do the actions.

Similiarly, if you are a person who likes to talk and express your opinion, don't force yourself to change. As you have already noted, it bothers you a lot. So say the nice things you would normally do. Of course, refrain from passing any negative comments about anyone. Just keep those to yourself.

If he does not have a friend circle, you go out and make a few friends, invite them over, get him involved.

Do a lot of self-anaylsis and know what is and what is not a change you can live with. Forced changes that are against your inherent nature will not work and will be short-lived. So don't waste your energy and time in making those changes.

New_friend, I perfectly know that when the heart is sad one does not feel the enthusiasm do to anything even if it is for our own good. But being adults sometimes puts a responsibility on our shoulders to get up and act in spite of our bad mood and sadness. If we don't, then who will change things? Who will make things happen for you? No one my dear.

Knowing very well that things are not ideal in your life, that you have steep challenges ahead and that you will have to have a lot of patience; get up and take charge. There will be days when nothing will work and all will seem futile but if you leave things in the fear of those dark days then you will simply be wasting precious years of your life and collecting a lot of bitterness in return.

Good luck.
SS

Thank you so much soaring spirit for truly raising my spirits. I know I have tough challenges to face and you said it right that I need to keep patience, however I cannot change my basic nature, so I will still continue to express my opinions and concerns to my husband.
actually sometimes I get the feeling that unfortunately my husband suffers from a sense of sever low self esteem. Hence he prefers to always hang out with his sister and their families since they always look up to him because he is the most educated in the family. Therefore he refuses to socialise with anybody else and does not leave an opportunity to show me that I am good for nothing either. I don't think anybody has ever realised this, but living with someone with low self esteem is quite challenging. I guess in the 4 and half years of marriage I have grown very strong emotionally and I realise that some of his words or actions that used to bother me before don't bother me as much anymore. however, I cannot be treated as a doormat either since I am an educated girl from a very respectable family too. So I just pray to God to give me the wisdom to decide which issues to let go of and which issues to speak up on.
Thank you again for you comforting words. Your last post brought tears to my eyes.

Dear new_friend,

Good to hear from you.

I can understand your sadness. But like you have decided, keep on the path to improving the situation by taking action. Please do make friends of your own. They could be girls in your neighborhood or people you meet at social gatherings. These days there is Navratri celebration (dandia raas/garba) organized by many Indian organizations. You will come across many Indian girls if you go to one of these. It is not easy to make friends in this country simply because of the set-up. You do not see people walking in the market place so it is hard to come across people in general. So you will have to make a concerted effort. But do it. You need it.

I can imagine how much damage a person with low self-esteem can do to himself and more so to other's around him. They are constantly looking to feel better and to look good. And many times this comes at the cost of putting other's down or making them look bad so that in comparision they look good. That's why new_friend, you need to tap your potential and come out of the cocoon. You need to do the things that give you back the self-confidence that you are slowly loosing. So start doing the things you know you are good at and start exploring other uncharted ones.

You are young and you are in a place where opportunity is abundant. So use it to your advantage and other things will slowly fall in place. When people see a confdient, self-assured, secure and mostly happy person, they feel intimidated and threatened. So build that and you will surely see some changes on other fronts.

Good luck. I am happy that what I wrote in my previous post gave you some solace.

SS