I had a crush on this girl when I saw her at her sister’s wedding (she’s my cousin). I told my mom to ask for her rishta, and we got engaged during my house job. I’m a doctor. I’m the kind of man who grew up watching his mother suffer and always believed a woman should be respected, helped with household chores, cared for, and loved not just forced to survive in a toxic household like so many women do in our society. But what happened next was a nightmare I never expected.
Just a month after our engagement, I was told her brothers didn’t like me. It was obvious. Every time I visited, they ignored me and made me feel like an outsider. I tolerated it because my fiancée and now wife used to stand up for me. But that didn’t last long. As time passed, due to her hectic schedule (she’s a doctor too), she became irritable and often lashed out at me. I calmly asked her to talk only when she felt like it, but she would explode, asking why I distanced myself even though I was just trying to avoid arguments.
Then one day, completely out of nowhere, her father called and started yelling at me on the phone. Without warning, he handed the phone to her mother, who blasted me with accusations and insults. That’s when I realized my wife had been spilling everything about our private life to her family. She later apologized, but the damage was done. At her brother’s nikah, the family dictated a dress code: gray pants and white shirts. I wore a kurta, and guess what? The next morning, her father stormed into our room and humiliated me and my mother over an OUTFIT.
Yes, over a damn outfit. One month before our wedding, I cleared an interview for a hospital job. They assured me the position was mine. Four days after our wedding, her father scheduled another interview for me without asking me! During a family lunch, he publicly screamed at me for not attending it. I quietly left, humiliated. Her parents continued invading our lives, questioning our decisions, insulting my mother, and treating me like I was less than human.
Her father behaves like he’s the king of our marriage, expecting his daughter to obey him above all else. Now, my wife wants to move to another city for specialization. But I can’t afford to set up a home there right now and again, it leads to arguments. She sides with her family every single time. She even guilts me into bonding with them by saying, “Ap mere liye itna nahi kar saktay?” (Can’t you do this much for me?) But how do I forget years of disrespect, humiliation, and mental torture? Her family has never changed.
They still interfere. Her brothers still act like I’m a nobody. And now, I’m emotionally disconnected from her. My mother always tells me to let it go but how do you let go of repeated trauma?
Question: What should I do? How do I heal from the years of abuse, disrespect, and manipulation?
Option 1: Should I just move on and save what’s left of me?
Option 2: How can I stop these past memories from haunting me every day?