My elder brother got married one and a half years ago. It was an arranged marriage done with his full consent. At first, we siblings and my parents were really happy he’s our only brother. We were so excited to welcome our Bhabhi. We are four siblings, two elder sisters already married. So, you can imagine, my parents are in their old age. Everything was too good at first then my brother’s wife started quarreling every time he visited home.
They had constant fights due to differences in opinions and thinking. My brother works in Assam, and my Bhabhi lives with me and my parents. The reason she stays with us is because my brother wanted her to pursue a government job and support her career, which wasn’t possible if she lived in Assam. Since it was a family arranged marriage, my brother asked our parents to talk to her parents about the ongoing issues so they could advise their daughter.
She just wasn’t trying to understand my brother. Her complaints included:
1. “You should own property.”
2. “You don’t have money because of your three sisters.”
3. “Buy me jewelry.”
4. “Every decision should be taken by me.”
5. “Give me your salary,” (even asked about my father’s pension!)
6. “I will decide where and how to spend it.”
She wasn’t happy when relatives visited even when it was our own sisters. She would just sit in her room and not even talk to them. When my parents talked to her parents, they simply said, “Our daughter is not like that.” She comes from an orthodox family. Once, she even argued about where my sisters’ husbands should sit when they visited our home. She said we shouldn’t be allowed to sit together and said, “This is a home, not a whorehouse.”
I took a stand that day and told her it’s our house first legally and emotionally. We’ve lived here for 26 years, and it’s more ours than hers. She quarreled a lot and even pushed my brother, then declared she’d leave and wasn’t a burden to her parents. That day, I saw my brother cry for the first time. When I told her that, she yelled, “Use kya kasht ho gaya?” (“What pain does he even have?”) My father called her parents. They came, and he confronted them.
He said he wouldn’t tolerate this behavior. If she wasn’t happy, she could live with her husband or even get a divorce if my brother agreed. But her parents refused. They just didn’t want to take a divorced daughter home. It was all about so called “societal respect.” She apologized and even fell at my father’s feet. We thought that was enough and didn’t push further. The next day, everyone pretended nothing happened. Later, my brother returned to work.
And this is when I saw her true colors. One day, while my mother was away for a relative’s wedding, she called her mom in front of me and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle everyone. I’m right. I know what to do.” She started crying and complained, “Why did you even marry me? I didn’t want this marriage.” I called my mom and told her everything. When my mom phoned her, bhabhi said, “I’m the one you should care about.
I’ll take care of you in old age, not your daughters. I’m more important than them and their husbands. You want to kill your son to get rid of me. This house is a whorehouse. It’s suffocating.” She spewed such venom that my mother already in her late 50s and a genuinely good person was left speechless. After my mother returned, she called Bhabhi’s father, and Bhabhi left. She didn’t contact us for three months. Neither did we.
My brother told us, “If she went on her own, she should return on her own.” We even suffered typhoid during that time she knew but didn’t ask once. Later, when my brother visited home, my father, being 66 and old school, said we should at least try to talk. So, he called her father, who said he would send her back “after managing everything in her favor.”
Then she called my mom and told her to send my brother to bring her back. My mom said, “You left on your own. If you want to come back, come. But he will not go to your house.” Then she threatened: “If your son doesn’t come to get me and apologize to my parents, it won’t be good for your family. I’ll send everyone to jail. You’re provoking him otherwise, he loves me and can’t live without me.”
My brother took the phone and told her he wouldn’t come. “If you want to come, ask your father to bring you like last time. We have self respect too.” She then said her father wouldn’t bring her because if she came on her own, she’d have to live under our “pressure.”
That’s when we realized her entire family thinks like that. My brother had already spoken to her brother and her sister’s husband same mindset. She wants control over everything in our house even decisions about me and my parents. She has even called relatives to badmouth us. Somehow, she’s made our mother the villain of the story. She plays the victim so well that we began to question ourselves: “Are we really this bad?”
We later found out something shocking: Her elder sister accused her husband’s brother of sexual assault just because his hand touched hers while serving food. Her own father told this to my father loudly, as if warning him. He even said he separated that daughter and her husband’s family for “her happiness.” I was like, really? If he was so concerned about happiness, why force this daughter into marriage?
We didn’t know she married against her will. My mom had asked her clearly before the wedding, and her mom replied, “She listens to us.” She nodded too. Please help me. How do we deal with such people and families? It’s so clear that they’re playing the woman card. Is it okay just because she’s a woman? Will Indian law blindly favor her false accusations?
I’m a woman too and I support equality, not privilege. Sorry if my English isn’t perfect. I just want advice.
Question: How should I get rid of these types of victim mindset people?
Option 1: Ignore them and leave everything to God
Option 2: Teach them in their own language
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