insecurities indian woman indian husband unhappy marriage

What He Hid From Me Before Our Marriage Has Ruined My Life Beyond Repair

( words)
*For representational purpose only.

I live in Mumbai and I was naïve despite being an urban girl. I have a brother who became successful at a very young age. He is an NRI now.

Both of us are self-made people. I have never asked him for any help so far.

My dad passed away when I was in college. But overall, I think I was lucky enough to come from a financially sound family. My parents had eloped in order to get married and their respective families had disowned them. So I did not have any cousins to play with during my growing up years.

I worked hard. I was very career oriented and dedicated all my time to my work.

My office was on the town side of Mumbai and I was the only girl who came to the office from a far away suburb.I would always report to work at 7 a.m. sharp. I was willing to work at odd hours and on shifts too. I did not mind staying back in the office till my work got done.

When I turned 27, I was told that I should get married because nobody would marry a woman after she became old. So I logged onto a matrimonial site and found myself a guy.

He earned well. That was the first thing that he had mentioned in big letters in his profile.

We met and fell in love. He had done his engineering and had also done his MBA from a reputed college. We got engaged within 4 months. He belonged to North India but worked in Mumbai.

He did not give me too many details about his family. I too did not bother too much about it because I knew I would continue to live in Mumbai even after I got married.

When I went to his hometown after getting married I was shocked. I was taken to a slum where garbage was strewn all over the place. The entire place was stinking. He did not seem too bothered about it but I felt that someone had pulled the ground from under my feet when I saw the shabby state of his house. It was as if I had got a heart attack.

I had never seen so much poverty in my entire life.

The living conditions were really unhygienic. They lacked civic sense. My in-laws expected me to cover my head at all times. They wanted me to bathe in the open. My father in law roamed around in his underwear and they wanted me to touch their feet. I did all this quietly.

We spent the first 15 days there and then returned to Mumbai. My mother-in-law soon moved in with us so that she could ‘help’ me. I was made to do all the work in the kitchen after I returned from office. There was hardly anything left over by the time I finally got to eat my dinner.

Often I ended up eating only the rotis that I had made.

My mother-in-law then started asking me very sensitive and private sex-related questions. Things started worsening with time. I wasn't informed about the major decisions that were taken. I was not allowed to sit in the front seat of the car with my husband. I was always told that the family was facing financial issues.

For the first 5 years, I did not even ask them for a single penny. In fact, I gave away 90% of my entire work life savings for the house that we bought.

After delivering my first kid, I was made to do all the household chores despite spending several long sleepless nights with my kid. My husband’s sister and kids came over every year for a full 2 months all expenses paid vacation and were always given expensive gifts worth 2- 3 lakhs.

Sometimes I would be asked to shell out money to buy gifts for her despite having just a small sum of money that I had saved a long while back. My husband did not like it when I questioned him about his spending habits.

The only answer that I always got was “I have no say in these matters!” When I asked him to save for our kids, he would turn around and ask me if I had no money!

To add to this, he got into the habit of watching porn. Then he started expecting me to do the same things with him when we had sex.

He then started drinking heavily every single day and physically assaulted me whenever I questioned him about his sudden change in behaviour.

Today, when I sit down and try to analyze my married life, I realize that his family had always led a hand to mouth existence. They did not even have the most basic amenities in their house. His relatives had all been peons or clerks in government offices. In their community, it was quite normal for women as young as 18 to get married. They then ended up becoming lifelong unpaid maids who served them under the garb of seva. The women were beaten black and blue when they made a small mistake while cooking.

All these facts had been concealed from me before we got married.
My husband does earn well, but he only squanders all his money in buying useless stuff.

He gifts expensive jewellery to his mother and sister. He doesn’t care too much about saving for our future or for his own daughters. He is the kind of person who will willingly donate a kidney so that he can buy a BMW with the money. 

My biggest mistake was that I did not bother to check his background. I should have at least visited his house in his hometown. Now I have also been sucked into this kind of life where I have to worry about financial insecurity constantly.  

I cannot turn to anyone for help. My brother had sensed something fishy when I got married but I did not have the guts to take any action at that time. Now he too has washed his hands off me. My mom is ailing and leads a dependent life. I have no other family member who can understand my plight. Divorce will just not work in my case because he spoils my daughters silly and they always want him around. I feel stuck.

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