Dear patelh,

your situation reminds me of my cousin. Her in-laws never accepted her, were telling she’s not good enough for their son, because she’s a few years older, hasn’t graduated from college, and that she’s messy and doesn’t keep order at home. Well, that may be true, but she’s a good person otherwise and was a good match for her husband. They did well and had 2 beautiful daughters together. The husband was loving in the beginning, but then started to criticize her more and more, falling under the influence of his parents. Eventually he filed for divorce, and they did get a divorce. She was devastated but she’s survived, and probably she’s better off now without the constant criticism and put-downs by her husband and in-laws.

The problem is that he was a weak man, insecure in himself, and didn’t have the guts to confront his parents and defend her. She had low self-esteem issues, and so she tolerated his criticism, and partly thought she deserved it. He was the superior one, she was inferior. She believed it.

I see a lot of similarities with your situation, because as you say, your husband doesn’t respect you and agrees with his parents and family that you’re inferior. It could be that he’s specially rude and impatient with you nowadays because you’re not working and decided not to look for a job at the moment. My cousin’s husband was similar – he didn’t like that she stayed more than one year at home after the birth of their 2nd daughter. He thought she was lazy.

My advice is to separate from your husband because it probably won’t get better. It could in theory, if you move somewhere else, where he’s further away from his family. But it’s not a guarantee because they can still influence him – and he seems very susceptible to their opinion. If he doesn’t respect you, that’s a huge and No1 problem. Another problem is if you don’t respect yourself…. You’d need to work on your self-esteem and decide that you’re good enough, there’s nothing wrong with you, and that you don’t want to tolerate this kind of attitude.

I guess if you’d like to separate, you would need to find a job, so it’s not the best timing for you now. But this situation with your husband isn’t really sustainable and will only make you miserable.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Tee.

Dear patelh,

It seems to me that your husband has low self-esteem, and that’s why it’s important for him to be accepted and not judged by his family. When they criticize you, for him it might be as if they are criticizing him – that his choice of wife wasn’t good, that he was wrong, that he’s not good enough, he’s not meeting their expectations… So probably he feels not good enough, but then immediately blames you for that – he believes it’s your fault that he feels bad about himself.  If you would only change, he would feel better about himself. At least that was what my cousin’s husband was claiming…

If you want to make things work with your husband, I think he would need to realize that his biggest enemy is himself: his lack of self-confidence and his need to get his family’s approval. If he could work on himself, he’d almost certainly become less judgemental and more respectful of you.

I am so sorry! It’s a horrible situation.  May I ask if your husband has had brain trauma/surgery in the past?  I’m asking because mine did.  Brain tumor.  It changed him completely.