Story 2 : Husband and In-laws treat unfairly.

This couple is married for last 12 years and have 2 kids. Both kids are going to schools and they do very good in academics. Husband his own Academic Business and is doing great! Husband (and of course wife) lives with the parents and till now they were taken as examples for "Good Combined Familes". Wife takes care of the in-laws very nicely.

Father-in-law after retirement goes to the same college as a professor and is a very famous professor. Mother-in-law has some slight memory problem and she need to be partially watched by the daughter-in-law/wife. The wife wakes up in the morning 5.00am, does all the house hold work, makes breakfast for the father-in-law and husband so that they leave home by 7.30am. 

Recently maternal uncle of the Husband visited them for 2 days. This is the first time that these husband's side "uncle and aunt" where with them and all the previous instances that they met were in functions. During one evening, the Wife calls both the Aunt and Uncle to their backyard when no one is there and cries for her life time. This Aunt and Uncle were shocked and asked what the problem was.She then reveals the problems she was facing right from the day she was married. 

• Husband tortures her verbally - a lot.
• Husband does not treat her as a wife at all. 
• Husband goes on trips and does never speak to her over the phone. But he definitely calls his parents and talk to them.
• Whatever his parents say, thats the final work for him. Not that it is bad, but sometime people would like to have some independency. 
• For rest of the relatives and friends Husband is a great guy. But he feels that she is not the right match for him. It was definitely an arranged marriage for them and at that time, he liked her too.
• He asks few questions which no women would like to hear. like...
• Did you have affair before marriage ?
• Did you have %$^(* before marriage ?
• Do you think you are beautiful ?
• The in-law treats her like a mere maid servant. 
• There was no time that they all eat together. She always HAS to eat after everyone is done eating. 
• Wife has no freedom to even ask that we will go to a move or some picnic.
• The father-in-law scolds her all small and big things and thinks she (daughter-in-law) is a small school girl.
• In-laws behave nice with the kids but not with her. Whatever she does is wrong.
• ...and others...

After listening to many more things that the Wife explained to Aunt and Uncle, they both were shocked. They never felt that the father-in-law and Husband could be so rude daughter-in-law/wife.The Aunt explains the daughter-in-laws cry as "It made me feel dead". 

The next thing they did was to wait till the next morning and called the Husband privately. The Aunt and Uncle took the lead to explain him the situation and inquired him what his intentions were. For all that we know, he just laughs for everything and there was no real reaction. However, the Aunt and Uncle tell him that this kind of treatment is not appreciated and it will be bad for their family to treat her in that way. They tried to explain what she is undergoing with the in-laws treatment too and requested him to treat her fairly.

For now, we all hope that things are going fine and perhaps a little better for now. But there are couple of points that we need to see.

• Just because people are smiling and jovial does not mean they they are Happy. There could be a lot of devastation that we dont see in their eyes. 
• People are playing different roles (Father, Father-in-law, Husband, Uncle, teacher, etc...). Just because we know one person who is very good as a "Father" does not warrant that he is a good "Father-in-law" too. Of course inversely, if one is a good "Daughter" she may not become a good "Daughter-in-law".Before you judge, you need to consider different roles people are in.
• There is so much of pain, frustration and devastation in this women that as soon as she sees SOME relative of Husband, she breaks up. And that too, imagine explaining all your problems to someone you are meeting for 3rd or 4th time and crying for hours and hours in front of them. Can someone imagine the sleepless nights and mental agitation she underwent.
• The role of parents is not only to Guide their kids (Husband) but also in letting them live independently. After sometime,  parents should be in the passenger seat, and let the Husband/Wife (Son/Daughter-in-law) drive. Otherwise, elders should drive their own car. 

Suggestions : 

• Again, the most important thing is that she is missing lot of social network (not the Internet thingy). In this situation, it is very easy to get lost in the problem and not care about the importance of the friends and neighbors. They cant solve your problems, but they will help you walk through it. 
• Depending on the situation, it is necessary to talk to ones own parents. After all, parents are the biggest support system in these situations. It is true that the parents will definitely feel bad about such marriage. On the other hand, keeping problems to ones self, will explode sometime or the other and we don't want a bigger loss that time. 
• When people don't understand the value of fair treatment, there is no harm in talking to all related persons about the way you feel. You are not asking for someone to change, but are letting out your frustrations. Remember, you are not trying to come out of the relationship.You want to strengthen relationship by being open. Living together with differences is always difficult than separating for a simple issue.

We would like to hear your suggestions too.