Relationships  Discussion Forum

just to let you know i have a 2-year old kid and have not been working for the last 1 year as i have not been successful in finding a job in the same place as my husband's and being a doctor it becomes very difficult to do on-calls staying alone with a baby. i agree with you that all this is very materialistic, i was not bothered about this until i was earning as then i had a sense of financial security . i am very worried about the future as with no savings for ourselves we are going to be in big trouble in our old-age. again i should say may be all this is my imagination . i have decided to apply and i am applying for jobs even if it is not in the same place as my hubby's as i feel my kid is more managable now.if i am successful in finding a job i will make saving for our old-age my priority with my salary and this way i will not have to bother what my husband does with his money. my sincere thanks to you. i have an interview on the 8th jan, hope god helps me get this job. it is about 260 miles from where we live now, but that is not going to deter me from trying my best to get the job.

You are not wrong in thinking like that. With a kid, you should be even more careful about future savings (in today's age you need to make kids future secure but cant rely on them for your old age). You are totally right in everything u said.
And the thought os separation also comes to the mind of many wives like us, believe me. My case is not intense like you, but in early days when my MIL joined us, there were so many fights betn hubby and me .... we were thinking of separating. But that was before 3 yrs. Things ar fine now and we are best friends of each other.
After i had my second baby i was so interested in being with kids and staying at home, there is no need to work. But my close friends suggested me not to do the mistake of being dependant on hubby.

All the best for your interview. Keep trying and keep us posted. Keep options open for the field u want to work in, dont restrict to your educational skillset.

my situation is the similar to yours only in my case my MIL will spend all her money on her daughter. everything starting from sugar, coffee powder, vegetables are provided by MIL to my SIL'S house as though there is no shop from where my SIL can buy provisions. not only this on the pretext of getting some jewellery done for me she takes money from my husband and gets same cost of jewellery done for my SIL as well without informing us and she will only tell later that she has got some jewellery for my SIL . you won't believe it she sold the car which we had bought for them and invested in a site for her daughter.she started to complain just a few days after selling the car that she made a mistake selling the car and that she needs money to buy another one and my SIL and her husband use the car now.they have taken a loan on the only house they have in another place and bought a flat for my SIL and she forced my husband to build a house for them , in which they are living now and we pay the EMI of Rs 32,000 /month and this we will have to continue to pay for the next 15 years.also inspite of my father-in-law getting Rs 9,000 as pension we send another 10,000 / month and inspite of this my MIL keeps complaining that we don't do enough for them and that we need to send her another 10,000 for her personal expenses every month which at present we are not sending as we simply can't afford it, especially now that i have taken a career break for the last 1 year with a 2-year old baby. this career break too i had to take unwillingly as i could not find a job in the place where my husband was working and had already left my baby for 6 months in india while my husband and i were working in 2 different places. now that i don't even have a job i feel even more miserable and depressed. sometimes i wonder why do such MILs exist in this world. she doesn't have one nice word for me when we speak on phone, always complaining about one thing or the other. sorry , instead of telling you a solution i have gone on telling my story. i think saheli has given you some useful tips, hope they work.

You are right. For a hubby-wife relationship, trust and relationship are needed to go ahead.
dont think your hubby is going to talk to parents when he visits India.

I dont know your hubby's nature so i am writing what i am assuming. You are the best person to validate situation and decide.

Rajo, you are living in US with ur hubby, no botheration of inlaws, you are well-off, everything is fine from a high-level view. The problems, though valid ... are materialistic at the end of it. They are not worth bothering so much that you start thinking of separation.

Your house in India, the groceries/provisions giving... yes those people are not right.
But dear ... your hubby will never leave you without a shelter. He will never let a situation come that there is no food or grocery in house for his wife. Your problems are valid, but they are secondary. Husband is primary.

Its not easy to live alone. Its not easy to find second man. There is no gaurantee that second man will be good, or that there will be no problem with him.
If you are saying you will separate, I am assuming you dont have kids. Then why dont you do a job? I anyway believe that a person has no right on how another person is spending his money. For a dependant wife, she may have right on hubby's money till he fulfills her needs not beyond that, and then issues like yours are their and difficult to sort out. When you cn earn, why go to extremes?

And once you start earning, your mind will be away from these botherations. If you cant go out to do a job, you can work from home .. utilize the growth of technology when u r in a country like US.

I dont mean to say you should do nothing about those people.
Make ur hubby act on it, if that doesnt seem possible, make your side safer.
(because problem is your insecure future and not what in-laws are doing. Example: If you hubby owns 10 houses in India and gives 8 to parents and 1 to you, 1 to your kid, your future is safe so why should you object? You are not greedy, they are.)

Love him, build the trust, earn ur money be happy with him .... but draw your lines ... that you will work/not return to india/have how many kids/cook or how.
Tell him politely " i am earning because i need money for savings, for future, for kids etc and so dont ask me to return to India or have a kid (or more than 1 kid) ... I am not pressurizing you for anything with respect to inlaws so please respect me for finding solutions myself without fights ... and if you want me to go back to india with you in future or have kid/kids, please settle these concerns of mine first. Either you find me answers, or let me resolve them my way. And in doing so, i am not compromising on my duty of wife to you anywhere."

My FIL is no more. My MIL says

" my age is the time when you need a partner more than in young age .... young age passes busy, but this time is difficult to pass alone. And to have a good partner at this age, you need to lay the foundation early and build relation over the years. I m ready to give all my belongings my jewelry my clothes my house and be a beggar if God asks for it in return of my man" .

It takes two to clap. Try and give a sincere clap from your side first, without waiting for his hand .... and he will raise his hand too.

If he doesnt, you are thinking on right lines.

I dont remember the magzine or the edition. It was either India Today, or Business Today, or Outlook.
But this article was advertised on cover page. They had taken live examples of people earning differently and actually calculated their desired pensions. They had also given formulae to calculate your old age earnings depending on ur current earnings.
One IT corporate couple needed to hv 1 Cr pension when they retired to maintain their living stds.

Check out at some book stall/shop for older editions.

Rajo - It is perfectly fine when u write down ur story in response to someone's story instead of telling solutions.
We all are facing some or other problems and we are just trying to make our lives peaceful by some way or other. If not finding solutions, at least we can seek solace by sharing our hearts ..... I m glad to vented out yourself.

After reading stories of you all i really felt sad. All of you stand right and their seems to be a clear injustice.

MIL giving out things to SIL is simply ridiculous. You have not mentioned your hubby's thoughts ... does he know abt this?
What does he say when u tell him? Cant you talk directly politely to MIL about this refusing her to do so? Can you get a hubby's male friend talk to hubby? (who is close to your family and is on good terms with you so that u can ask him to help). Paying EMI for someone else's house is also surprising! Can u atleast get your hubby to have the house on your/his name?
What if you talk straight to hubby and say " u dont agree at all" , what will he do?
Please take actions after thinking ... i am too far to suggest right things ... pls use the suggestions at ur own discretion. I dont want to be resp to break ur family.

You people are indeed brave and possess great patience. I wd hv either broken down, or taken some extreme step. I am quite revolutionary by nature (which is not always good) :-)

I am not an expert or a great person to suggest on these cases, nor that i hv been thru a situation so intense.
I hv passed thru it, but not as much as you all.

But i hv taken some good lessons for married life by seeing the life of my mother, my 3 elder sisters, and a bunch of much much elder (female) cousins in close relatives group.

And hence I decided to marry a man of my choice though from different culture (my first revolution! My small-town relatives still look at my hubby & me as if we are aliens!! :-).



Ok getting back to my thoughts on such situations:

The ideal way for any couple with in-laws wd be that the son balances out expenditure by addressing primary requirements : food-clothing-shelter for his dependants (parents, wife, children) AND saving for old age for wife and himself.
If he is earning better, he can think of further balancing like parents' loan's EMIs, jewelry for wife and investing for children.
So on and so forth.

But ideal situations are only in movies/dreams.
If the hubby is not balancing on any of these depending on his earnings, he is not doing justice.

What can a wife IDEALLY do in such cases? Be a Nirupa Roy/Nutan !??! I wd say, react depending on situation .. analyse how ur hubby and inlaws are, how you are, and then react ...

Normally it takes some years for a hubby to settle in married life and develop that trust in wife (i m remembereing 'Job' here :-). So give some time to hubby. If he not doing justce still ..

Case 1 - You are a confident and earning person. Your hubby is not so stubborn, is understanding, and your in-laws are also not so bad (though greedy). Then talk it out to hubby and settle things. If he still doesnt listen, dictate ur words and say " aisa hi hoga" .

I fall in this category. My Hubby manages finance but he has no records where the monthly salaries are going. I used to end up paying taxes with no investments, we have no investments for children's future. My account managed by my hubby and a fat EMI for our home going from my salary, i dint know what to do.

One day i talked to a financial consultant, and went ahead with investing in a scheme for kids and recurring-deposit for myself - without telling hubby. He was upset when i told him, but he cd not do anything. And now that my incoming monthly salary has reduced, expenditure is lesser (but still out of control, everything is managed and controlled by MIL so i dont have any say).

I want to invest in mutual funds .. have told hubby 1000 times about to go for SIP (systematic investment planning), some of them need as less as 500 Rs pm ... but all fell on deaf ears. I am too busy with kids+office right now, the younger one is too small. But as soon as she grows up and I get time for myself, I am going to open a DEMAT account and invest in MF without telling him.

Case 2 - You work, but family is not so easy. You know if you go extreme, hubby might overreact BUT he wont divorce you.
a. Make him undstd why we shd save and invest, use those techniques mentioned in above post.
b. Use the age-old 'theory' to win hubby - 1)" pati ke dil ka raasta pet se ho kar jata hai" 2) " ya pet ke bhi neeche se ho kar jata hai" ;-)
c. Save secretly from ur salary and start investing secretly

Case 3 : You dont earn but hubby is v soft. You know u can revolt, he wont beat you or leave you.
So do it.

Case 4: You earn/you dont earn, but your hubby not so soft. Inlaws are v smart and cunning.
You want to revolt? Are you ready to face extreme fights?
Are u ready to go legal to demand ur rights? Do u hv proofs for logal actions if needed?
Are you ready to face separation?
Can u live alone if the situation comes?
And if u hv a kid, then remember kid will be ur responsibility.

Else, if u can use smart tricks, do it.

One more trick : I have a cousin didi who wd keep her hubby's mind so busy so busy ... she had enormous ideas ... poor fellow rarely got time to think abt old parents alone in hometown. When he wd go to office, she wd fill his tiffin with delicious items (never missed a dessert, it wd contain atleast a cookie). Back from office and my Didi had lined up items ... sometimes shopping, sometimes outing, relatives, calling/going to jijaji's friends ... she had maintained excellent relationships with jija's friends so they wd visit more often ... if not anything, she wd hv something to fix/repair for him (sometimes i doubt she wd purposely break things) .... he was a v soft person ... i think inlaws sufferred in this case!! When she had kids, their homework was hubby's resp!

So we need to think abt all these and act accordingly.

Most of us fall in the case where we dont want fights and separation ... but hubby also doesnt listen. How much can a non-earning female can do in such cases? Not all of them are smart and use tricks.

In short ..........
Seeking a golden middle and making our future safe is best we can do, we shd do.