The 28-year-old man is torn between his wife and parents. The fights that started after marriage over customs and gifts escalated during pregnancy. After the wife broke the relationship with her mother-in-law and father-in-law, the matter has now reached divorce.
The worst nightmare for married people is to be stuck between their wife and parents. Something similar is happening with a 28 year old man. She has told her entire story in the ‘r/InsideIndianMarriage’ community of the social media platform Reddit.
The man told that he and his 26-year-old wife met on Facebook in 2017. After being in a relationship for seven years, they got married in 2024. He told that his wife has been stubborn since childhood and does not socialize with people easily. At the same time, his father is very strict and religious, while his mother is very emotional and is very attached to her son. Financially, the man earns seven times more than his wife and the wife takes care of the household chores.
The fights started during the marriage itself.
The differences between the wife and parents started at the time of marriage. The caste and eating habits of both are different (the boy’s family is vegetarian, while the girl’s is non-vegetarian). Some incidents that happened during the marriage made the situation worse.
The boy’s family had borne the expenses of the wedding. But in the name of tradition, he asked for some gifts (like a gold ring), which seemed like dowry to the girl’s family and they got angry. After marriage, the wife wanted to keep all her jewelery with herself and had left some jewelery at her maternal home, this was not liked by the in-laws. During a festival, when the wife did not receive fruits as a gift from home, the man’s mother expressed her displeasure by crying over a video call.
Not only this, his wife was deeply hurt by comments like not putting his photograph in the house and ‘God’s abode is not visible in the house’. The wife wanted to live with her mother during pregnancy, due to which her mother-in-law felt that she was being ignored. The situation went out of control when the wife shouted at her in-laws and said, “You have no right on the child, you will not talk to me or the child.”
These fights have now reached the point of divorce. The man wrote, “Mistakes have been made on both sides. My mother has high expectations and is emotionally dependent on me, while my wife’s strict rules seem abusive. I don’t want a divorce, but I can’t leave my parents either.”
People strongly reprimanded
Instead of sympathizing with the man, Reddit users took the wife’s side and slammed him. One user wrote, “Your parents are making trouble over small matters and are emotionally blackmailing you. Your wife is not getting your support.” Another said, “A wife is not a child-bearing machine. Your parents harassed her during pregnancy. It was your responsibility to protect your wife, in which you failed.”
Many people explained, “Your wife and child are now your first family. Your parents are now ‘extended family’. First decide what is your priority.” Some users even called him “spineless” and warned that if parental interference is not curbed, the family will not survive.