Hi

I am quite impressed with the activity here and wanted to share my present and get to hear from others…

I am working women, married and parent of very loving child… my life went on just following the course of life since childhood.
I have quiet many aspirations and could turn few into reality and I am happy with what my life has given me to fulfill my necessities.

Yet with all these I am dealing with an emotional stress related to my marriage.

As it was arranged marriage, I wanted my marriage to takes its course to establish and did not plan much . One thing I was sure about the relation was my spouse is equally qualified as me and is a good person with ethics. I was happy till here. I haven’t thought much about in-laws and there bonding with me. All I thought was if I would meet their demands and expectations things would go fine… and I shall keep them happy.

Over the three years of marriage the demands and expectations of my in-laws kept growing, I am always taught on how I should cater to family needs…. My capabilities were always under question….For an instance one thing that I could never change from my childhood is I need some good sleep in the early hours of the day to perform well for rest of the day, in spite of communicating this I was always questioned about this, in fact it turned to be fight with my spouse. I am termed to be lazy person, branded as person without future thinking. I work almost 15 hours a day for family and at work.

My health concerns while I was pregnant and post pregnancy were pictured to be unique, for I have been told they haven’t seen such issues in family. One thing for sure is my health started deteriorating with emotional stress I carry.
In-laws and sister-in-laws would hardly communicate to me in free style always it is exchange of information.

My spouse is very aggressive in financial planning and investments, nothing but financial issue bother him. He turns a blind eye to my suffering.
He has no self-opinions and quiet driven by parent opinions. He has no friends, almost every one in the family have no trust on people outside family. Most of the their relations are with people whom they would be benefitted or rich.
I have lifetime friends, I believe investing in building relations, this way I have built many memorable relations all through my life at work, at college.

Our investments are guided by his father . I contribute equally to commitments we make and yet would have to try hard to get things on to our name instead of parents name.
I made it clear that I want our investments to be on our names, I hardly trust his parents as they have mostly communicated negative feelings to me and they want control over us which I am strongly opposing. I am driven to this decision because his investments before marriage have no clear title and in fact both of us are always reminded of their help and there significance in investments me make. In short I feel we have no financial independence.

All this went on for three years.

Recently I started answering back and resisting to the open comments of being irresponsible and having no respect for elders … I asked about the instances which lead to this impression.
I did let them know that I am being hurt by their behavior. My communication and discussion turned into fight. I realized lately that I am not heard and what ever I speak is understood wrong and overruled by their opinions.

Now they started threating of not speaking and visiting us. I surely feel bad for my husband but I do not know on how I should handle this situation.
If I am not firm I am overruled again both financially and personally. I would be left with no choice.
Challenge is how would I strike balance here with my husband and my personal urge to be independent.

I am emotionally very stressed having pictured as person with bad attitude and behavior by my in-laws. This bothers me because I want to be a good child ( I am still young at mind……….want to be a child…. Ignorant, loving, without any malice and close to god).

I am surely missing clarity ….Please write to me on what you think as I want to hear various opinions on this situation.

I want to unveil myself into balanced person…. Because my kid who is 2 years old now should get best of me, he is my dream and my soul.

I want to accept my in-laws and husband yet make thing firm about myself and our independence please help.