My parents are old and too exhausted to search for a girl for me to marry, and for a good enough reason. When they were looking for someone to marry my older brother, we ended up with someone who entered our lives like a Tsunami and did almost everything within her power to hurt us.
She had multiple affairs with other men, registered an FIR complaint against us and I was arrested for a few days because of this too.

Looking at all of this, I decided that I wasn’t going to marry anyone. Ever.
Of course, one day, mom told me that she wanted to see me happily settled, as she’s now getting older by the day. This time, however, my family asked me to find someone for myself. They said they’d support my choice, help me when required, but it’d be my choice in the end.

Soon, I decided to register myself on a matrimonial site and within a few days, began getting a lot of proposals. My family is well-settled, we have a lovely home and I’m earning well too. I never sent out any proposals, because frankly, I was still on the edge of the fence, with my decision to get married. After a couple of proposals, I found out that I was interested and after a few days of chatting, we decided to meet.

I told her everything about my family, including about our horrid past with my Bhabhi and my arrest.
She was understanding and told me that she was aware of how one wrong person could change: make or break, a whole family.

I liked her and soon told my parents to go and meet hers. To be entirely honest, our first impression with my in-laws wasn’t all that great. But my parents agreed because they knew that I liked her. They asked me to finalize a date for our engagement and eventually our marriage.

After our engagement, my fiancé took the time out to build a strong rapport with my family and they, in turn, did everything to make this a successful and wonderful wedding. My father said yes to absolutely any of my wishes for our wedding and of course since we were against dowry from the beginning, we did not take a single penny from her.

After our wedding, I was ecstatic. I had a wonderful and caring wife and this was absolutely nothing that I thought married life would turn out to be like this.

But what about my parents? They needed a daughter too: someone who would support them and love them just as she loved and cared for her parents too. Every family has their own rituals and customs. And I asked her to spend the time to understand these and support my family when they needed it.

But unfortunately, she disagreed with this reasoning and told me that she wasn’t raised in this manner and so she couldn’t understand how and more importantly, why she had to change her values to suit our family. Now, my family is asking me for answers.

I requested her to change herself, slightly, if not for my family, but for me. But she was adamant.

We shifted to Pune, soon after our wedding, that’s where my job is. And two months later, my parents came to see my new place and spend some time with the newly-wed couple. For a few days, my mom and wife got along fabulously.  

Soon, my mom began noticing a few things about her that bothered her: she didn’t wake up early, she enjoyed ordering food from outside or going out as opposed to cooking a meal for my parents. And one day, when I came back from work, I found my mom crying because she and my wife had gotten into a heated argument, which as you can guess, did not end well.

Today, I have my mom on one side and my wife on the other: both are strongly holding their ground and can’t seem to find a way to get along.

My parents cut their visit short and decided it was best to go back home and let me talk to my wife about the incident. We all thought that in time, my wife would realize her mistake. That maybe she would call my mom and talk to her about it, or at least with me. But this did not happen.

In fact, she soon began rolling her eyes when I spoke about my family, or worse, abusing them, especially my mother. Because of all of this, I hadn’t spoken to my family in a while, and what hurt the most was that my father called me and asked me not to forget them. He began crying on the phone and this broke me.

I snapped at her, I asked her whom she was married to? Was it just me? No! It’s to me and my family: that’s what she had to accept. Why should I be the only one who adjusts to her family and their ways? How was I supposed to burden the responsibility between both the families?

Her reply, “I cook for you. I am loyal to you. I left my entire family for you. I’ve changed myself for the better!”

All I could tell her, was that she wasn’t the one who changed, I was.

I had stopped talking my family. I was a vegetarian but I allowed her to cook non-veg and eat it in our kitchen. My salary was now half, because I wanted to provide her with whatever her heart desired. My responsibilities have doubled because I have two families to take care of, as a son, to both.
Yet, she’s not convinced. She told me that she’s married to me and that I should accept this, because that’s how she is.

I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know who is right, or wrong… but it’s confusing me and I don’t know how to handle my family, my wife and now even my own mental well-being.

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