Dear Haasini:

“I am in a constant dilemma and my heart feels very heavy and my mind feels very confused” – first thing you need to do is to relax, to have (a real or a mental) vacation, where you take time off from the dilemma. Only when you relax long enough, putting a distance between you and the dilemma, can you dispel the confusion and gain clarity.

“The source of the problems is my in-laws attitude and the fact that they impose too many restrictions on me” – a common problem in traditional settings where the married couple lives with the man’s parents is that the mother-in-law takes over, expecting to control everyone in the household.

“My husband never stands up for me and always take the side of my in-laws” – a problem as common as the above: the husband’s mother dominates and control her adult son and expects to dominate and control her adult son’s wife as well. A son dominated by his mother is not likely to challenge his mother when she doesn’t like the woman he married.

* I wonder: did his mother like you and approve of you before the marriage and then changed her mind after the marriage?

“I react with anger with my husband every time my in-laws restrict me to be myself” – (1) reacting with anger can mean all kinds of things, from silently pouting to yelling and hitting,  (2) when you say that your in-laws restricted you, that also can mean different things, from insisting that you don’t watch loud TV after  9 pm to… telling you that you are not allowed to be in the kitchen without permission (these are only examples that came to my mind).

Can you clarify what you mean in the sentence above?

“Recently, I got pregnant and when I was a few weeks pregnant, there was a big fight that exploded and my husband and in-laws stood against me and spoke very abusive words and treated me and my mother very badly” – who started the fight(who exploded?). What were the circumstances of the fight, and did you or your mother also spoke very abusive words?

Following that explosive fight, your husband blocked you in every way (I am guessing that you moved back with your mother), and because of stress, you had a miscarriage. When your husband and his parents heard about your miscarriage, they accused you of deliberately causing it. Your husband is intent on divorcing you: he hacked into your computer, looking for evidence to use against you, accused you of having a disease, etc.

“I felt very wronged and very much hurt by his behavior. He has gone to the extent of emotionally blackmailing me when I had pure intentions to reconcile with him” – did you intend to reconcile with his parents as well; did you think there was any hope that they will approve of you?

“Even still, I hope that he realize his mistakes, I hope for once he takes my side and not his parents, I hope that my marriage doesn’t end in divorce, I hope God helps me save this marriage, I hope I am happy again… I truly loved him and I am not sure what I had done to deserve this misery” – I am sorry that you are experiencing misery and I hope that soon, you will no longer be miserable! I hope to read back from you so that I can reply further in an effort to dispel that confusion and gain clarity. With clarity, you may be sad but the misery will be gone.

anita

I am almost divorced after having been married for 16 years and knowing my wife for 20 years. I recently wrote an article for another blog that talks about what authentic relationship looks like. When we are in relationship with someone else, it’s important to be our true selves. Otherwise, our ego ends up fighting the other person’s ego, hence hurt feelings and negative language. My situations is complex like many are, but what I have learned from this experience has been valuable for moving forward.

I have included the link below to the article. Please read it and let me know if any of it helps you to process your feelings and thoughts.

Newly Published Article on http://www.purposefairy.com