PIL want us to live with them

[Rosesaredead]

In their house. Where they live. With GrandPIL too. In India.

DH and I live in the UK where I am from and where we met while he was studying here. We are happy here. We both have jobs here. We have two children who are settled here. We simply don't want to move to India.

But it is the traditional for the son to live with his parents and they are increasingly putting pressure on us to move in. We have repeatedly told them no and at first it will seem like they've taken it on board, until the next phone call when they change their mind again and bring it up again.

We just don't understand how they don't understand! Uprooting 2 children, 2 dogs, leaving our jobs, and going to live with 4 other adults (and very often SIL and her DD who stay over at least every other week for the full week - so often there'd literally be 10 of us under one roof).

They think we should be desperate to live there because MIL and grandMIL would basically take on responsibility for our children (traditionally) and they think that this is great for us as we won't have to pay for childcare. But I LOVE looking after my kids, and I don't WANT someone else to cook for them, feed them, dress them, wash them, decide when and where they go etc. When we go and visit I have to demand to spend time with the DC and it makes me miss them so much and that's only for a few weeks! So I couldn't imagine living like that.

In India MIL spends all day working hard around the house and grandMIL does literally ALL the cooking. If they'd also insist on taking care of my kids I would have nothing to do all day. I couldn't legally work for the first year, and even when I could legally work, I've looked at jobs for mine and DHs fields and if I worked full time I'd earn around £200 a month. DH would earn around £400. As the son, my husband and I would be expected to pay for everything - food, clothes, medicine, everything - for everyone in the house too. So supporting 10 people on £600 a month -even in India this isn't a lot of money. We would never be able to go on holiday again. Our children's education would suffer. We couldn't eat out or go on fun days out or have treats like we can now. It would be really rude if we didn't treat SILs DD as our own, apparently, so we'd never be able to buy anything for our children without buying the same for hers, never be able to take them on days our without taking her DD too. I love spending time with DN and treating her when we visit, but this is just another thing we couldn't afford.

I can't drive in India. The roads are really dangerous and really scary. So I can't go out without DH. As a woman I don't feel respected. If I go to a restaurant, for example, the waiter greets my DH but won't even look at me - he will look at my DH to order for all of us, I won't be acknowledged. I know things like this arent terribly important in the grand scheme of things, but they do upset me.

Oh I don't even know why I'm explaining all of this as I'm sure you all see that the idea of quitting good jobs and uprooting an entire family to go and live on the other side of the world where our quality of life would be much lower, is ridiculous! But my PIL can't. DH is really upset a lot of the time because he keeps having arguments with them about it, or they just emotionally blackmail him and make him feel awful about it. PIL at actually lovely other than this, and in a way it's nice that they're so desperate for us to be close to them. But their constant pressuring is causing so much tension. We have explained time and time again that we won't be moving and they just won't take no for an answer! The other day MIL acted like she understood and we thought all was well, and then the next day she phoned crying that we wouldn't fly back to India for a small local festival that they're having soon. She also phones us upset every time SIL goes home with her DD and tells us how empty the house is and how sad she is.

WWYD about this? This has to stop because it's really making DH sad and making me uncomfortable, but nothing we have said so far has stopped them bringing it up.

[gamesanddaisychains]

Unless you have your own company or are self employed, you are fortunate (or not!)) that you can take all your annual leave in one go. One of my friends 9 years ago had to resign her job so that she could visit her mother for 4 weeks in one year only, she had been working at the company for years. But that's not the point.. I would refuse to discuss it further with your PILs, I would also make it clear to your DH that when you married him he assured you that he wanted to make a life in the UK and you are not going to change your mind. He needs to make this clear to his parents. Something about the way you express yourself makes me wonder if you will be caught up in all this guilt and end up moving to their home where you will be very unhappy and have no say in your own children's upbringing or even your own life. I would be disappointed if my husband took me to a country for weeks, where I couldnt understand the language, and then left me to get on with it while he was mostly out with his family. While he is there it seems he is confirming that he still follows the culture and you come second best.. If you have any doubts at all, and if he does visit his family alone in the future do not allow him to take the children. How does your own family feel about this?

[gamesanddaisychains]

@DingDongDenny

I agree, that's what I would do too.

[jinglet]

So they want to give their own lives a new meaning by taking on new roles- looking after the DC, etc. by getting you and your DH to lose yours?! No bloody way. And I say that as an Asian person with family in that part of the world. Asian parents, sadly, use their sons as retirement plans. Even though your ILs are fabulously wealthy, they'd sit on that fortune to spite their neighbours/relatives and get you and your DH to fund them. Don't do it. Be firm when the topic next arises and follow up on your threats so they know you're serious and won't cave to emotional blackmail- something Asian parents are very good at.

[BrightYellowDaffodil]

@Rosesaredead in your original posts you put a great deal of detail into why you don't want to move to India. You don't need to explain - you don't want to go and that is enough.

That said, I can see why you're trying to explain to your your PILs why your lives are different to the life the PILs had envisaged for their child. There sounds like an awful lot of keeping up with the Joneses, and wanting to show off their child to their acquaintances, and demanding that their children dance to their tune.

And, much as I think India is an amazing country, I can absolutely understand why you're saying you don't want to live there.

Is writing your PILs a letter an option? Set it all out in clear and unemotional language, acknowledge their point of view but explain why it isn't for you (but don't stray into apologising for your standpoint). Make it clear that this is your last communication on the matter and you don't want it discussed, raised or alluded to again.

[WiddlinDiddlin]

I think its pretty hard being the one that breaks tradition, but your DH needs to be the one who makes it crystal clear it is NOT happening.

I get it, and I have a little sympathy for the family in India too as its not just MIL/FIL saying 'oh come and live here' it will be all the distant relations and friends saying 'ooh but why doesn't your son live here and look after you' and all that social pressure to stick with tradition and do what is expected.

Not everyone has the strength to buck the trend, nor wants to..

But they really SHOULD listen to their son when he says it isn't happening.

[oblada]

I just have to say that whilst it is cultural they also are a bit bonkers. DH is from India and no way would my MIL subject us to this. Yes in an ideal world she would have expected him to stay living with her and bring up his family there but she understands it's not going to happen. We visit every 2 yrs and MIL comes every year for 2months at the moment. It works for us. I couldn't be using all my annual leave for a trip to India thats madness! I sympathise OP but you and your DH need to start living for yourselves, not his family!

[sunshinemode]

I don’t understand why people keep talking about the PIL wanting money, this shows a complete lack of cultural awareness.
Of course you don’t have to go and live with them in India but of course they will continue to ask. They want their house full of grand children. That’s the way. Again as for the idea of family that is just how it is. We can’t imagine living with all those people but they can’t imagine us all living alone in our separate houses. They are being polite not leaving you alone.
It’s just the same with my in laws when I visit Bangladesh

[Holidayshopping]

I would book a long holiday on the beach this summer-just for you!

[PragmaticWench]

Mincing's suggestions could help you twofold. Firstly in making your visits more bearable. Secondly these arrangements, and you paying for them, would give your PIL something to boast about to their friends and wider family, it would show people how well your DH is doing financially.

[Mincingfuckdragon]

OP, I know this isn't the main issue you have but you mentioned the rigmarole of driving all over the place to visit people and how exhausting it is. I am in a very similar situation and after spending 15 hours on a plane then 6 consecutive 12 to 15 hour days visiting everyone with my then-10 week old child I put my foot down. Now every time we go we throw a big party (catered food, buy in lots of drinks and mixers) at the parents house and invite all and sundry for the evening. They are well fed and watered and we see everyone at once so we don't have to rush around so much. We do still visit anyone who is elderly or infirm. Then when the inevitable "oh, come for dinner while you're here" demands/invitations come in, we use visiting the elderly/infirm as an excuse for having no time so we look extra dutiful (and people seem to respect this as a reason for not being able to visit them). We also usually do an afternoon at one of the big hotels which has a pool and everyone brings their kids and swims.
We order snacks and drinks and do nothing other than pay the bill. Might something like this work for you?

[DaiStation]

Ah shit. My husband is from a similar culture, sucks balls doesn't it. I feel guilty when they bring up us living there all the time too. But you are doing the right thing to say no, I think. The UK isn't perfect by a long stretch but aside from the issues you mention which are all clearly valid, living in India as a woman is not fun. If you have daughters it'd also limit their freedoms and yoy'd be worrying about their safety, and if you have sons it'd be an uphill struggle against them internalising toxic masculinity. This is the main thing that stops us moving tbh. Is there any way you could split the time you spend with the family so you have a relaxing holiday somewhere else in India as well? We do this to break up concentrated family time

[coffeeforone]

Also OP, I do sympathise as I can totally relate to your situation re holidays, culture, expectations etc. DH is from India, and PIL live there (although spend large chunks of the year with us in the UK helping out as you describe). Reading your post, I can't believe how lucky I am that DH just so happens to have a male sibling living in India that can take this on and we are not under the immense pressure to relocate.

[coffeeforone]

YANBU at all!! The 'In India' bit of the first line is the big no no for me.

Would they be willing to travel to the UK for longer periods at a time?

[SugarNyx]

This reminds me of an episode of black books where Fran meets her Romanian family. There was some pretty sound ways of dealing with it on there. Failing that, you just have to keep saying no and maybe tell them that if they continue with the emotional blackmail, you’ll reduce contact because it’s causing you stress and upset.

[marylou1977]

I got these words of wisdom from another site. Don’t JADE. Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain. Every time you converse about this subject you give them the opportunity to try and change your mind. Tell them once the discussion is off the table. When it’s brought up you hang up. Put them in a time out. Each time it’s brought up you hang up and stay out of contact for a longer period of time. This is a kindness to them; they need to know it will never ever happen and to purge them of false hope. Good luck.

[UmBankroll]

I feel for you, OP. You and your DH have to stand firm and put up a sort of deflector shield any time the subject is broached.

My MIL is Indian, FIL was Arab (passed away), DH is Arab but spent many a summer in India with MIL’s side of the family while growing up. He sounds similar to your DH in that he disagreed with and rejected a lot of the cultural norms/expectations early on, always made it clear that he wouldn’t accept an arranged marriage, refused to follow their expected career path etc etc... Hence why he married me (a Brit) and has embraced a more open-minded way of life without the restrictions of (often oppressive) societal expectations in both cultures he was born into.

In our case my DH is one of 6, and isn’t the eldest son, however he is the highest earning, so all the pressure from both MIL’s side of the family and FIL’s side falls on him. Neither side is happy with us because we don’t live in India and we don’t live in the Gulf-based hometown where the rest of his Arab side of the family live. So he has essentially ‘broken away’ from both sides of very tight-knit cultures and family setups. We are viewed as the bank by both sides though (I also have a higher earning job than any of DH’s siblings) and they try to use the fact that we don’t live with them to guilt trip us into paying for things; often unnecessary things.

On top of all that we are Muslim, (DH from birth, whereas I converted), so he has always been raised with the belief that ‘heaven lies at the feet of the mother’ and MIL started taking advantage of this; making wildly unreasonable requests and then trying to guilt-trip him ‘in the name of religion’ that he MUST do whatever she wants or he will go to hell, basically. This prompted DH to move out of the family home and to a different city in his early 20s, while still unmarried, which is virtually unheard of in both cultures.

DH put his foot down even further when we got married. We still provide monthly financial support but he made it very clear to everyone that he now had a responsibility to provide for his wife and our future children and that he would not be entertaining anything beyond the monthly financial support. Any time there is even a hint of putting pressure on us in a conversation - whether about our lifestyle, where we live, money, or whatever it may be - we shut down the conversation immediately and back right off. We don’t make contact again (even via WhatsApp) until they initiate it and ‘carry on as normal’. It works for the most part, but honestly the issues will never totally be put to rest, and every so often MIL in particular will try to raise the idea of us living with her, or building a house on the plot next to hers, or leaving our son with her so she can raise him... We just have to put our blinkers up and ignore ignore ignore, and I suggest you do the same. Good luck!

[numberoneson]

From what you've said, I think moving in with the PIL would gradually destroy your marriage - and cause untold problems re custody of the kids. If you think on that it might be easier to follow others' advice and just hang up on them each time they start asking again.

[manicmij]

Change your phone number. Seriously relations need to accept their son has made a different life for himself though surely he must have anticipated this would happen. You both need to be determined. If financial support is needed in India could you afford to send some funds to them.

[Scabetty]

I work in a Hindu faith school in the UK. This is what is discussed most among the female staff. Such pressure

[Ilfie]

Life is obviously very different over there and having a son means he will be there to look after you in your old age / financially and spiritually. Unfortunately times and the world have changed since your in laws grew up. Looking after your children and doing all the cooking etc is all they can offer and is a generous offer - and they would have been happy with that in their youth.You need to gently thank them but remind them that you are in a different world/life and would be prepared to (perhaps) send them some money if possible from time to time to help them and visit when you can. You need to have control over your own life, especially for the sake of your children.

[choli]

A lot of my colleagues are south Asian and this kind of pressure is common. Every December we have the great exodus as they all go home on holidays. It's a long way from Boston to India so all their vacation is used up on a not very enjoyable trip to listen to their parents nag them to move back. I feel for you.

[OVienna]

@Atthebottomofthegarden has got it.

[Mamacute]

This !!!!

[Vivianebrezilletbrooks]

It is a cultural thing, but you need to be firm and just say a firm "NO!" or put down the phone as soon as its mentioned and they'll soon get the message.