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International Inlaw Issues
I am new to the boards and have poked around looking for advice on how to deal with in laws. Lots of great advice on here! I wanted to post my own unique situation and see what kind of advice I can get from you all.
I just got married 8/20/11. My Husband is from India, he has been in the states 10 years now. His parents live in India and come to visit every few years. We had dated two years before we got engaged, before I ever had the chance to meet his parents. Once we got engaged we spoke via Skype many times leading up to the wedding. I thought this would make the first in face-to-face meeting go easier, I was wrong.
They arrived three weeks before our wedding and would stay 2-4 weeks after (Dad left first, Mom followed 2 weeks after to get extra time). We had been living together for a year and half at that point and my FI had neglected to tell them that until the week before they arrived. I chose to move into my parents? house (in the same city as us) for the first week the FIL were here to allow them all sometime to get reacquainted, (and I figured I'd rather hand out with my own parents anyway). FML's first order of business was to rearrange our kitchen cabinets while I was not there to protest, I let that go. After a few days we took them around the state for some site seeing. All seemed to go fine, just very little conversation with me (they speak limited English). The day I moved back in (2 weeks before the wedding, 1 week into their trip) is where the trouble started.
I lay down on the couch (wearing by FI's longer basketball shorts he asked me to sub for my normal shorter boxer shorts) with my feet propped up on the couch. My FI came to me later that night and informed me that his father was bothered by the way I was sitting. His father has also requested I stop wearing short shorts around the family. At first I was embarrassed, then pissed. I told my FI there was no way I needed to change how I sat or dressed in my own home. There was nothing wrong it; they would have to deal with it.
From that point on I did not feel comfortable around them, they had hurt my feelings and offered no apologies for it. I stayed away from them in the weeks leading to the wedding. To avoid conflict I eat dinner with my family or friends and kept myself busy away from the house and came home mostly just to sleep. I did initiate small talk, greetings and salutations when leaving or entering the home and came to notice his father was intentionally avoiding speaking to me. I told my FI who questioned his father about which resulted in a big fight between them. Apparently his father felt disrespected by me and did not wish to speak to me. So we continued in silence.
I
was extremely nervous about how the big day would go with all the tension but
it went on with out any problems. His father even spoke to me that day, gasp!
We went back to life as usual after our wedding, no talking. His parents never
even complemented on how nice our wedding was or ever showed any appreciation
for saying in our home all this time. Is mother has practically lived in our
kitchen giving me no opportunity to cook myself or my FI a meal. They have even
commented to my FI that they don't believe do enough housework or show that I
can take care of their son adequately. (This has never been an issue for us, we both work full time and take a shared responsibility in household chores.)
There are obvious cultural issues here but also his parent's lack of respect and failure to except me for who I am or who he is now. They have even been on him for years about "staying Indian" and keeping more Indian friends, which I find ridiculous when he has many wonderful friends who are not Indian.
I LOVE my H and trust me I must or I would not be dealing with this. My concern is now that they are gone, I'm worried this problem will not go away as they are BIG naggers and priers. I don't want this to further affect our marriage.
Advice????
Re: International Inlaw Issues
She said they were men's long basketball shorts. Nothing inappropriate about wearing that at home, I don't think.
Your husband should've told them to show you some respect or get out.
Instead, he was telling YOU to conform to THEIR rules. In your own house. Don't you see that this is insane? They come from halfway around the world to YOUR house, where YOU are an adult, and suddenly they get to call the shots? And now you need to leave your own home to get some peace, rather than your husband sticking up for you?
You need to have a serious chat with your husband. You cannot come after his parents. Period. Otherwise you have a gigantic problem, and it's not your in-laws.
The shorts sound like the tip of the iceberg, though.
If it was a case of the in-laws ONLY biitching about the shorts, I'd say that she should wear something more modest during their stay and not argue. But it sounds like they're critical of her no matter what she does, and her husband just lets his folks shiit all over his wife.
There is a HUGE cultural gap between his traditional Indian parents and you. What did you do to try to bridge that gap? It sounds like both sides are in a stand off. That is not going to do anyone any good.
You should talk with your fiance and learn about the customs and traditions of his parents. Try to really understand how husband-wife relationships, weddings, hosting family, child obligations to parents, etc. work in India and how they work in his family in particular.
Your fiance should talk with his parents and help them understand how he lives his life in the United States, how your relationship works, how you hope to function as a couple and raise your family, etc.
After you have these conversations, you should apologize to your in-laws for your contribution to the awkwardness of their visit and you should work on finding ways to compromise and respect their traditions while not totally changing yourself.
This for the next visit unless her DH tells them to respect his American wife. It would be nice if both parties respected each other. Even without the cultural differences there is usually a respect for parents. You spent so much effort avoiding them it did not give you the opportunity to work things out. Your FIL is like you in the shutting down and not having a dialog. Your DH needed to step up and help you understand them and he need to step up and tell his Mom to stop messing with your home. Overall the area of your problem lies in your DH who you married.
I agree that your H definitely dropped the ball on trying to make everyone a little more comfortable.
What's he willing to do now to work on that?
I have Indian inlaws who aren't terribly traditional, but I still respect who they are and their traditions in everything I do around them. I don't wear something short when I visit or they visit me - it's just respectful. I try to get to know them by asking about their traditions and their lives in India. And my H helps me with this (luckily they speak good English, but they also live 1/2 mile from us). You need to understand that your DH went WAY into tough territory - my inlaws refused to meet me until 2 months before our wedding as they wanted my H to marry another Indian. The fact that your future ILs are as accepting of you as they are is amazing - many traditional Indians wouldn't be. So note that they are respecting you in a HUGE way just by coming to visit and accepting you as their DIL. So work with them.
And putting them in a hotel is a huge NO. Family is much tighter in India and you would NEVER put family in a hotel if you have any room at all to put them up in your house. My H's family fight over who is having us stay with them when we go to India - if we even suggested a hotel they would be horrified and feel completely disrespected.
You are marrying into another culture and you need to get to know it and understand that you will have to act a bit differently than you would if you married someone who had a family just like yours. If you can't handle that, then you ought not get married to this person. It's just different - not bad - different.
Honestly, I think the lot of you need sit down and start learning about each other's culture. DH should lead that initiative with his parents.
That said, you need to take some initiative to understand Indian culture. This is not just your ILs culture, but your husband's culture as well.
You don't have to completely change who you are around his parents, but you need to give a little as well. It's not going to kill you to wear yoga pants instead of shorts for a couple of weeks every few years.
All of this. Reading your post as an American, my initial response would be "wow, what a bunch of a$$holes". Reading your post as the DIL of fairly traditional Indian parents, I thought they were pretty tame.
H and I dated for about a year and a half before we got engaged and then we got married a little after our third anniversary. That gave us three years to figure out things with his parents. His parents were not happy that he was even dating outside of their culture, and were/are unhappy that he isn't more traditional. It took many arguments between H and his parents before they understood that he would never be traditional like they are and that he would not stand for them being rude to me. However, like I said, we had three years to all adjust to one another - you guys had three weeks.
How things go will depend mostly on your husband. If he's not willing to tell them that they need to show a basic level of respect to you and if he listens to their nagging and starts questioning your relationship, then things will never work. But I would strongly suggest that you try to compromise as well. Is it annoying that they ask that you not wear shorts around them? Of course! But if you wore some light pants while lounging around when they're there that would go a long way towards showing that you care about making them feel comfortable in your home. With my husband, he knows that I will do reasonable things like that to show them respect (because respect of your elders is huge in that culture), but that there are boundaries they can't cross. Because he knows that I do whatever I can to be respectful and to try to maintain a decent relationship with them, he never hesitates to stand up to them when they cross the line, which doesn't really happen much anymore.
You're very luck because your in-laws live in India, so you don't have to deal with them often. I would suggest sitting down with your husband and coming up with ground rules for the next trip. Anything that you feel you can compromise on you should, but anything that you feel strongly about your H needs to back you up on. Trust me, I know how you feel - they drove me crazy for a really long time. Now I've learned to just go with it, choose our battles wisely, and smile and nod to their face, while laughing later. They will have opinions about EVERYTHING that you do - how you keep your house, child rearing, working, etc. As long as you and your H are on the same page, just smile and nod as they talk, and then you guys do your own thing.
There are marriage counselors who specialize in inter-cultural marriages. I would suggest that you and DH sit down with one well before your ILS next trip (or your trip to India).
Your dh clearly needs direction in handling his parents, but you need to realize that you are his partner, and his culture is part of the package. Learn about it. Do you need to be subserviant housewife and obey his parents? No. But at the same time, it wouldn't hurt you to wear longer pants around them in appreciation for their values. Think about it - do you want a "this is my house, this is how it will be" attitude from your ILS when you visit THEIR home in THEIR country? Because unless you are selfish enough to demand that your DH never return to his native country with you (and future children), then you are going to have to be willing to let your ILS dictate what happens when you visit them.
In addition, I think that you are looking for things to be angry about. "They never said how nice the wedding is" is just nit-picking. If you look for problems, you are sure to find them.
I agree with you, my H does need direction in handling his parents. He has not been back to India in 10 years and has not been around them much in this time to be fully aware of what their cultural norms and expectations are. He did not prepare either us for each other adequatly. We have schedualed and apointment with a counselor to work on handling these issues.
I also agree with you when you said I was looking for problems. I had such high hopes for meeting my ILs and was crushed when it didn't go as planned. I have been angry as a result and have been dwelling on the small stuff. It has just been difficult living with people for over a month who have not had a single nice thing to say about me or to me, pretty demoralizing. Thank you for your comments.
Thank you, I just found it amazing that they thought it was withing their boundaries to comment and request I change the way I dress. I would NEVER imagine to do the same to them here or in India. This was a surprise to both me and my H, I honesty did not realize skin was an issue in a culture where women (even elders) wear saris with their tummies exposed.
P.S. I LOVE your non-conformist penguin!Yes, I did wear shorter shorts during the days, especially when we went to the Grand Canyon. We live in Phoenix and in August it is over 100-115 degrees every day, shorts and short sun dresses are the norm for most women in the summer. And trust me I did know to alter what I normally wear around the house while they were staying with us, or even any guest for that matter. And to be honest I did not realize how conservative they were, my own H didn't even realize it. He has not been back to India in 10 years and barely knows the cultural norms anymore. Once this issue arose I wore only long yoga pants around the house. When I went out, I wore what I wanted, because thats how I am comfortable. Trust me, I am not a scandalously girl.
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I feel that I went into this with the best intentions, I was respectful and I tried to get to know them and to try to better understand their culture. I feel like they made no effort to get to know me, just judged me. I realize that them "accepting me" is a big step for Indians but honestly what choice do they have? My H chose to marry me, there was nothing they could do about it. I refuse to honor them for merely acknowledging that their son has married me. I am VERY lucky they live in India. We were actually planning to go there this winter so his family could through us a reception, that has been canceled. But we will defiantly be laying some ground rules and boundaries for the next visit (if there ever is one) and what is acceptable over the phone. I realize it is the norm for Indians to meddle and tell you how to do everything from raising kids to keeping house but I just will not accept that. Smile and nod will be my mantra.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
I think the underlying reason why his parents acted the way they did was not entirely because of their conservative culture. It probably had a bit to do with not seeing their son in 10 years, finally being able to see him, and being dissapointed in how Americanized he had become. It would be a bit of a heartache for me to see a child assimilate into a culture that I didn't feel I could identify with and in that respect they've somewhat lost the child that they knew way back when and the adult they expected him to grow into.
It's tough for you to feel like the inlaws don't value you. I'm hoping with time that they will be more cognizant and accepting of the cultural differences, and I also hope that you will make an effort to do the same.
These are assumptions you have about Indian culture; that's not necessarily what the culture is.
Go to the library and read up on it. You're setting yourself up for failure here.
oh my, it sounds like the biggest issue is CULTURE CLASH. His parents expected one thing, and got another. your husband sounds like he is torn between respecting his parents and making his wife comfortable. in most cultures, this is not an easy decision to make. the fact that you had to leave the first week they were there and he didnt tell them you two were living together should have been a big warning flag, obviously he is comfortable with his life his non indian friends and YOU (otherwise he wouldnt have moved in with you). but when it comes to his parents, even if he is comfortable with his decisions, he seems to be nervous about losing their approval and respect.
I grew up in the US and my husband and his family, did not. So i have come to find that there are certain things that people from different cultures just don't understand about each other. its as simple as that. For example, your father in law doesnt understand why you would want to show your legs and sit on the couch that way and you dont understand what is wrong with that. you dont understand each other because you are from different worlds.
the only thing to do (since you said they only visit once every few years, count your lucky stars its not more often!) is to just let your husband know what bothers you and explain yourself in a way that is not hurtful, and try to make the best of it when they do visit. they are never going to "get it" and suddenly clap in approval of their sons nontraditional life, you might as well accept this as a culture clash and try to make the best of it.