Do you think Im being selfish?

[Zenab12]

Hi so, I'm in a pretty bad place at the moment and I would just like to know if people think I'm being selfish or over reacting?
I've always suffered with mental health problems( aniexty and depression) but it was triggered quite badly after I became a mum I think. I just suffer quite badly with a low mood.
I'm married with 2 kids (5 and 3) my husband is Pakistani and I'm British. A year ago my brother in law announced he was coming over from Pakistan to go to university here ( which my husband has payed for his entire education up until now as he is the oldest son and my sister in law doesn't give anything to my mil and fil) it's only my husband and his sister here, who is married with 3 kids ( there is cousins etc but they are very jealous and don't speak to both brothers) it was decided he would work part time with my husband when he came in between uni as my husband owns his own business,there for he would live with us. So last January he came, I tried my best to welcome him, we gave him the spare. Room and made him a bedroom, my husband never specially asked me to do anything for him I just tried to look after him because. He had no one else here and I wanted him to settle in and adjust ( he's 24 now BTW) it was fine at first he would clean his own bedroom etc, take his dishes out etc. After a few months. Though he starred making me do everything for him, he stopped. Cleaning his bedroom and doing his washing, he would let me bring his food to. Him on the table and let me take his dirty plate away when he ran upstairs to his bedroom leaving all his dirty plates. On the table. He kept going into my bedroom without asking, I caught him going through my husbands draw for socks and me and my husband share a draw for underwear so he was essentially going through my underwear, I was so embarrassed as I am a Muslim woman. He starred leaving his dirty socks in my dining room for me to pick up, just put a full washing basket of dirty clothes I front of me telling me to do it all there and then. I spoke to my husband about this as I. Didn't think it was fair I was the only one doing anything, I also. Didn't appreciate. The fact that he was working and never offered a penny towards rent, bills or the food shop considering food is flying out. Of the house at the moment because he doesn't stop eating and snacking, we've never asked him for money but he hasn't even offered. Let alone contribute in other. Ways. My husband has spoke to him 3 times and he won't listen, he just keeps saying he's too comfortable now. He gets me to make all 3 of his meals every day, I'm not just talking about cereal for breakfast either, a full cooked breakfast is expected every morning and I end up not eating properly because I'm tired after making 4 other breakfasts. My husband leaves him in the house alone with. Me when he doesn't want to work and I've. Said. To. Him so many times that I'm so uncomftable being left alone with him as I feel like so much. Of my privacy has already been stripped away from me by him just being here, I feel like he's taking over the house. It's got. To the point now my husband is just siding with him and telling me to put up with it and deal with it. This morning I didn't. Make him breakfast and instead. Of getting rhe hint that I didn't want to do it for him he went upstairs to bed and waited for me to cook his breakfast and call him down. I just don't get what is so wrong with telling someone to do their own things, hes not a child he's. 24 and I'm fed up of being a slave, fed up now of sharing my house. Me and my husbands relationship is suffering because I don't feel comfortable being intimate with my husband because his brother is in the next room and keeps his door wide open at night,its like he's almost doing it. On purpose to come between us. I'm. Not allowed. To say anything because I'll be classed as a trouble maker. In the. Family because of their. Culture, but my husband. Is to scared. To say anything too and just. Keeps saying what can ido tell him to leave. I've told him unless he talks to his brother and sorts him out. Then I want him to tell his brother to go and live with. His sister,do you think Im being selfish? I'm just so exhausted I have my own 2.small kids and husband to look after and I just don't like it anymore.

@Wheresmykimchi

which my husband has payed for his entire education up until now as he is the oldest son and my sister in law doesn't give anything to my mil and fil' sorry OP can you explain that? I don't understand. Why are you two parenting him?

I get your overall point , some of it sounds OTT like the bit about being too tired to eat after making other breakfast ...but overall, why is he there?

My husband has always supported his parents since he came to the UK, he sends his mum money back to Pakistan every month for food, rent, clothing etc. I've never had a problem with that because it's his mum, and when ever having an argument I've always made a point about that as at times when we was first starting out and struggling for money, I never stopped him because I understood. From my understanding the oldest son supports the parents, his dad doesn't work. My husband has payed for all my brother in laws college fees, him even being able to go to university is all down to my husband paying for him to be put through college. That's why I get so angry about him not even offering to contribute financially as my husband has put him through his education. They come from quite a poor family but my husband put his brother through private education, payed for his student visa fees and flight ticket to get here, I don't really understand why just that my husband supports our family(me and the kids) and his family. The university fees My sister in law took out a 14 thousand pound loan from the bank to pay it in full ( under the agreement that the sister and my husband would pay it off - don't know why they never considered the brother doing it because he's working here) but the sister hasn't payed anything towards it as planned. They don't talk about much with me, everything is decided between them so I don't know how it works to be honest with you or why. When she wanted a loan off my husband when she was struggling, she actually told me that she needed to speak to my husband and borrowing money, not like she realised it is both her brother and my money that she was talking about.

I get him supporting his parents but why is he supporting his siblings child? And how on earth can he afford to put the brother through uni, fund the parents and the siblings

I honestly don't think this is solvable for you and this is either your life and you accept or you leave.

Selfish??

I think you've been a fucking SAINT!!!

I'd be off, in honesty. I won't be treated like a slave by anyone.

Time to just STOP doing things for him and if he doesn't like it he can leave!!

Your DH sounds like a wet lettuce, sorry.

The power to deal with this really is in your hands, OP. You don't have to stand for this. They can't physically make you cook, clean or pick up after anyone.

Do you have a daughter? If so, the message you're giving her right now is so damaging.

@Wheresmykimchi

I get him supporting his parents but why is he supporting his siblings child? And how on earth can he afford to put the brother through uni, fund the parents and the siblings

My husband has built his business up from nothing, and he has been successful in doing so. He earns very good money now and that is how is is able to do it, I think they take advantage of that. Anytime anyone has money problems they always go to him and he never says no

@ktp100

Selfish??

I think you've been a fucking SAINT!!!

I'd be off, in honesty. I won't be treated like a slave by anyone.

Time to just STOP doing things for him and if he doesn't like it he can leave!!

Your DH sounds like a wet lettuce, sorry.

The power to deal with this really is in your hands, OP. You don't have to stand for this. They can't physically make you cook, clean or pick up after anyone.

Do you have a daughter? If so, the message you're giving her right now is so damaging.

I know, in my heart I know I'm the only one who can do it, it just is doing it which scares me. Yes I have a 5 year old daughter, she's so amazing and lovable, she sees me getting upset and she goes and tells brother in law mummy's tired etc. She defends me so much and she shouldn't have to she's just a child, she's quite mature for her age and understands everything going on. I really don't want the same thing for her and I know that for sure.

I think the not cleaning up is a red herring here. What you have to decide is whether you want to live as bottom priority to a man who will put his family first each and every time.

like this morning when I didn't make him breakfast he just went upstairs back to bed to wait, if I don't make it he won't eat all day unless I do it.

Then he doesn't eat. Let him and his entitled arsehole ways starve. I'd be looking at some legal steps to have him removed from your home.

My god I wouldn't put up with this shit

If he doesn't eat or change bedclothes then that's his issue.

I understand your DH wanting to support his family but I don't get the lack of support he gives you

I think you need to think about whether you want to live like this where DH will always have financial responsibilities to his wider family and not just your small nuclear unit. Similarly think about how his family members perceive responsibilities for you as his wife. They seem incompatible with your own views. I completely understand that his brother seems to lack respect for you and that boundaries for his behaviour in your home are not clear and do not support you. Unless your DH puts your wants and needs above his brother's current behaviour then nothing will change. Do you want you and your DC to live like this? One of your previous posts suggests you feel that you have lost yourself. Maybe now is the time to look a few years ahead and think about what you want the future to look like for you and your children. If your marriage is recognised in UK law then you will have more financial security if you were to leave and end the marriage. Would your own family be able to help IRL? Best of luck. Hope you manage to make some positive changes as your life sounds joyless and unappreciated.

You said in your OP that you were offended when your BIL went through your underwear drawer as a "Muslim" woman.

I assume you didn't mean to imply that non Muslim women wouldn't mind?

You seem to be making a lot of excuses for these men in the name of "culture".

Only you can decide if it's worth putting up with it. But most wouldn't and that includes the Muslim women in my own family.

Easier said than done but, OP, you need to stop fetching him food, doing his laundry, etc, but only you can build up the strength to say no and stick to it.
It may cause problems in your marriage though but you cannot live like this man's personal servant and if your husband cannot support you...can you go to your mother?

It's not right that your DD feels she needs to protect you. You have to protect you.

Think it through. If you don't make him breakfast, what happens? Anything terrible? Not really. So let him feel the consequences.

You can't change him. It doesn't look likely that you'll be rid of him any time soon. So the only thing to do is change yourself.

Decide what you will and won't do and stick with it. You've said you don't mind making dinner - great! Stop making him any other meals! And don't worry about what he'll do - he's an adult. You've said you don't think you should clean up after him - well, stop doing it then!

At the moment, you know what you want to do and what you want not to do, but you do it all. You'll go mad that way. Stick to your principles, girl!

Oh just stop doing it for starters 🙄 grow a backbone and stand up for yourself. Its your home!

If he doesn't eat thats on him and he is using that to emotionally blackmail you.

Don't wahs his clothes or put his dishes away leave it and when husband asks tell him to ask his brother and thats it.

If your husband isn't going tocsupport you then wtf, I'd be leaving if that carried on.

I'm Asian and its time these old akool cultural views on women waiting on men are kicked to the past where they belong.
And its not just men feom Pakistan who have these, plenty of British asian men hold these outdated views as they are passed down. Its disgusting none of the religions teach this if anything they teach equality.

Its society that keeps these cultures going.

I couldn't live the way you do OP so good luck.

OP - you say he used to stay with his sister for 2 nights a week. Ring her and say that you are struggling mentally and he needs to go and stay with her for a week.

When he is gone, send the stuff from his room to the sister and change the locks to your house. Don't let him back, tell the sister he has made you feel uncomfortable and doesn't respect you in your own home and won't listen your husband. Threaten to call the police if he tries to get back in.

If you want this situation to change you will have to do it yourself. Your husband is not going to help you.

And I agree with the above poster ALL WOMEN would feel embarrassed and disgusted to catch their BIL rifling through their personal belongings.

Good luck OP

@THisbackwithavengeance

You said in your OP that you were offended when your BIL went through your underwear drawer as a "Muslim" woman.

I assume you didn't mean to imply that non Muslim women wouldn't mind?

You seem to be making a lot of excuses for these men in the name of "culture".

Only you can decide if it's worth putting up with it. But most wouldn't and that includes the Muslim women in my own family.

I said in a previous post again that I can imagine a non Muslim woman would be embarrassed too, I just think it is more worse as a Muslim woman because personally I wear a hijab and an abaya, I can't really be myself outside the home and the only place I can dress as I want etc is inside my home, the only place I can be free basically and do as I want but even that's been taken away from me as I can't even wear jeans or leggings in the home anymore ( it's not that my husband has said I can't, I just feel uncpmftable walking around in front of him like that) I'm supposed to wear my hijab in front of my brother in law but I can't do it anymore because it was hurting my head and I shouldn't have to wear it inside the home, I've explained to my husband that Islamic ally it's not right for me to live with his brother in law too. I think because I try so hard and make so many sacrifices to cover myself is what humiliated me so much about him going through my underwear and it is seen as really bad for something like this to happen ( at one point my husband blamed me for leaving my under wear in my own draw saying I should put it somewhere else) maybe I've let other things go but it hurt me so much. It's like they want me to hide all my personal belongings in my own bedroom.

I spoke to my husband last night about it again, I sat down and had a proper talk with him. My husband said he actually spoke with his mum about the whole situation yesterday ( the first time ever) I was prepared for him to tell me to stop being selfish but he actually told me his mum has told his brother many, many times to stop being lazy and to help out in the house, not just that but his sister has too. I think it hurt me more knowing he's been told but he's ignored it. I didn't know up until today that the mum and the sister had been telling him for ages to help and to do his own things, I felt I couldn't even go and talk to them because I would be judged but it seems to not be the case here. I'm happy that they agree with me but now it's not a cultural thing, I have realised it is just pure selfishness going on here. My husband has told him 3 times before, my mother in law said she's told him alot of times and even the sister, so he is clearly just ignoring everyone. I'm slo angry about it. I told my husband last night that he has to start doing his own washing, bedroom clean, breakfast and take his dishes from the table once he's finished and wash the other things otherwise he has to be told to leave. My husband has said he thinks that is fair and has told me to tell my brother in law myself as its better coming from me and he might listen, I asked my husband to be their when I do it because I am shy and can't make conversations easily. I feel like something is finally being sorted but I have a feeling he isn't going to change. I've told my husband I don't want it to get to the point where we have to ask him to leave after all I have sacrificed my own happiness for so long to try and make this work, if he really wants to stay here now he has to listen otherwise he has to go and I realise it now truly.

grow a backbone and stand up for yourself

^ That. I want to say it kindly. It sounds like lack of self-assertiveness is probably hindering OP's entire life. Lot bigger problem than one lazy BIL. Consider the BIL a testing ground to developing these skills. Your children will thank you for modelling to them how to be assertive.

About Asian vs. white British: MIL is an old-fashioned very white English woman: her home is her kingdom & no one else is allowed to do much there. Maybe some cleaning (strictly only MIL's ways of cleaning allowed) but absolutely zero cooking. From what I can tell how fussy some MNers are (about everything), they'd be like my MIL too; easiest to just assume that any help will inevitably be done 'wrong' and therefore unwelcome.

I've told my husband I don't want it to get to the point where we have to ask him to leave
Seriously him leaving would be the absolute best outcome, the lazy entitled shit. You could have your home again. He shapes up or he’s out and hallelujah to that. Good luck to the lazy bum finding some other house where he can treat everyone else like a slave amd live for free.

Sorry but your husband is wrong it should be both of you telling him. Why on earth should you have to do it? Your DH is not being supportive of you in this even now when you both agree on what should happen he's leaving it to you to sort. If one of my siblings disrespected my husband I would pull them up on it I wouldn't expect my husband to have to do it.

@TheListeners

Sorry but your husband is wrong it should be both of you telling him. Why on earth should you have to do it? Your DH is not being supportive of you in this even now when you both agree on what should happen he's leaving it to you to sort. If one of my siblings disrespected my husband I would pull them up on it I wouldn't expect my husband to have to do it.

Yeah, he knows what I'm like when we got married I couldn't even ask for help in a shop let alone talk to family members, over the years I've come out of my shell so much but I don't feel comfortable starting a conversation like that it gives me aniexty. I've told him if I have to talk then it should be together, at the end of the day it's his brother not mine and he's my husband I should matter to him, the way I keep thinking is how would my brother in law feel if my husband treated his wife like this. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like it so I don't know how he feels comfortable enough doing it to his brothers wife. I've been nothing but kind to him and that's what I get. The funny thing is, there is loads of cousins here etc and he came a year ago and not one of them have even text him or been to see him. I'm the only one who ever bothered and tried to make him feel comfortable here so it hurts so much as to why he is doing it. Quite frankly I don't care where he comes from, or if he is too comfortable here am I supposed to be proud of it.

Honestly, I hope he has to leave because he sounds like a total creep.

Op, the reason none of the family have bothered is probably because they don't like him.

@timeisnotaline

I've told my husband I don't want it to get to the point where we have to ask him to leave Seriously him leaving would be the absolute best outcome, the lazy entitled shit. You could have your home again. He shapes up or he’s out and hallelujah to that. Good luck to the lazy bum finding some other house where he can treat everyone else like a slave amd live for free.

That's the thing, I've said to my husband so many times, no other woman would put up with this ( expecially it being a sibling) I can tell my own husband to stop being lazy and to help but I shouldn't have to tell his 24 year old brother to stop acting like he's my child or husband ( I'm 24 too by the way we are exactly the same age) He seems to just follow what the kids to and my husband, my husband puts his dirty socks on the floor so he obviously sees that and does it too ( I have cried over this many times thinking am I just here and good enough to be picking dirty socks of the floor) my kids throw the toothpaste in the sink after brushing their teeth and they don't put their toothpaste back in its place which he's does too, I know it's a little thing but it's the little things which are angering me too, like why can't you put the toothpaste back in the pot why do you need to throw it at the side of the sink. It seems he's just trying to justify it by doing what the children do and my husband. Thing is I don't mind cooking and cleaning for my husband, I've always. Done it, and obviously my children are my world and my babies. He needs to realise he is not my priority and that I have my own seperate life. Before lockdown I was making him and husband breakfast and the kids, myself, getting the kids ready for school, making both of them lunch and then dropping the kids of at school, by the time I was getting home I was to tired to do house work. One time he put a bag of work clothes to wash by the dining room door( because that is the place for it is t it) told me to wash it, I said I would when I have time but I didn't wash it I just left it there because I had other priorities, when he came home that day I was in the kitchen cooking HIS food, he saw the bag still their and snuck in the kitchen and put the bag of washing behind me, as if the say this needs to be washed now. I went upstairs and cried, the thing is, I absolutely feel like shouting in his face and telling him to get lost and stop treating me like that, I just don't have the confidence too.

You either accept the culture you have bought into (nothing to do with religion of course) and accept that culturally Pakistani women have a duty to serve the men in their extended family, or reject the whole pile of shit and give your husband an ultimatum that the brother goes or you do. You have the protection of a UK marriage.

You are not bound by this 'honour' crap and you have had the upbringing we all have. This situation will not be solved by your husband. It will not be solved by your family apparently. It will not be solved by a bunch of strangers on the internet. I can only be solved by you. See a solicitor and know your rights.