Aibu or am I just being a bad person?

[Zaina89]

So every year my mother in law and father in law come from Pakistan. They arrived here on Wednesday for 3 months. They go between 3 houses, ours my sil and bil house. But they mostly stay with me and my husband at our house.
I have 3 children, the youngest who is 2 and a half.
i dread them coming every year, I’m constantly in the kitchen, people always coming around my house, always meet ups, constantly cleaning.
the summer holidays are ruined every year, I don’t have a big enough car so I can’t take the kids out and I don’t like leaving them in my house alone.

im constantly told how big my legs and hips are and that I need to do things to slim down. Im really not feeling well for the past couple of years, a lot of it is anxiety and panic attacks and stress, but I think I may have lipodema, I also have reticular veins appearing all over my thighs and I’m only 28. I feel fatigued all the time, racing heart, my blood tests always come back clear, my most recent one was last month and no reason why I should be feeling fatigued medically. I always wake up tired.

they arrived on Wednesday and every single day since then my in laws (19 of us in total) have been around every single day. Some times till 2am, sometimes till 11/12 and they won’t leave. I’m constantly cleaning up and in the kitchen because they want things.
i asked my sister in law( husbands sister) on the day they arrived that I don’t feel well and if we’re going to meet up we should start doing one dish party’s from now on and she looked at me with a weird face and said “ we help each other anyway”.

im so exhausted, last night they was here till 12 and my husbands brothers wife told me they’ve made a plan to come around today as well. Not sure about my husbands sister.
ive been in tears since last night, chest pains, panic attacks. I’m not sleeping waking up during the night with a fast heartbeat.
im supposed to be going out today with the kids and now I feel like it’s yet another thing I should cancel because they have told me they are turning up.
I can’t live like this for 3 months. My husband says he feels bad but “what can I do”.

Im absolutely exhausted, I feel ill and it’s only day 5. I just always get made to be out the bad person who can’t open the house up to people

It's not racist to point out something factual about a specific culture.

Literally, other people from the same culture come out and say this is how it is. I've read so many accounts, threads and books about this very subject, saying the same thing.

We’ve just moved and spent thousands on our renovation, only been living here 5 months ( my husbands a builder) we’ve just gone through a year off that and spent so much money on our house. I don’t like his mum doing anything, she doesn’t put the fan on whilst cooking anything, scratches the marble worktop by putting dishes all over it, when she’s in the bathroom she manages to put water everywhere, brings shoes onto the carpet and in the house when we’ve asked her not to. I don’t feel comfortable leaving her in the house alone, we’ve spent so much on this renovation and built our dream house and already within a few days she’s managed to scratch a lot of the worktop, she was frying something yesterday and I told her not to and I’d do it because I know what she’s like, as expected she managed to get oil all over the cooker. Literally everywhere in puddles and then just leaves it like that. His entire family are careless like this. Maybe I’m just being ocd but I take a lot of care into keeping things nice as we are still struggling and not back to what we was financially yet after doing all these renovations so all the more reason to look after what we’ve done after spending so much money. My husband just lets her get away with it all.

I’m not Pakistani, im English and a revert to islam. Maybe I was naive but I genuinely didn’t know what I was getting into culturally and I never signed up for any of this!

This is awful; I’m so sorry Op! Parenting three small children is hard enough without hosting guests until midnight for almost 12 wks! It sounds horrendous!

You are definitely not a horrible person Op, they are taking advantage of your kindness!

I bet the reason why you are doing the most hosting is that your bil and sil are putting firmer boundaries in place.

I suspect a lot of your symptoms come from stress and feeling unsupported by your dh and feeling like you don’t have a voice! (Not that your symptom are not real; I am not saying that, but stress can cause really horrendous physical symptoms. )

It’s probably a bit late for this year, so I would muddle through as best you can. Leave the older dc for your dh and relatives to handle and take your youngest and go and stay with your family or with a friend? Or just go away for a few days. Is that feasible? You don’t need anyone’s permission to remove yourself from this situation if your boundaries are not being respected.

And next year, before any arrangements are made, or flights are booked, talk to your husband and put limits in place and firm up that it is one week at yours only, or you will walk out again.

Stop letting them just invite themselves to stay & definitely stop all the other relatives just turning up every day to see them. They sound incredible rude & inconsiderate.
Tell them to arrange to meet at another relatives house or go out for the day so you get a break. There's no way I'd tolerate this sort of behaviour. Why isn't your husband intervening if it's his parents?

Were you very young when you married?

Pakistan is one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to gender equality.

Because it's Pakistani culture. To him, it's normal. To the parents, it's normal. OP has married into a culture and religion where she is expected to be submissive and to basically put up and shut up.

If she rebels, she is at risk of having her children taken back to Pakistan.

Stop giving her this useless advice. She either can’t or won’t take it.

Exactly. It's still taboo to talk about it and people who do will be called racist or bigoted or ignorant but it's a known thing for a reason. This is a culture that still practises honor killings, ffs.

If she rebels against his family she is genuinely risking her kids lives (and even her own life). Women have been killed for less.

And cousin marriages.

If she's "brave and says no" it could genuinely get her killed.

Well, nothing is going to change just because OP posts on here.

OP, can you PLEASE answer some of the questions you have been asked, particularly about the status of your marriage?

Yes, I know.

I'm just saying that most of these responses are from Western women who have never lived in a culture like that of Pakistan. OP can't just say "no."

I think you should take your children out today as planned and let your husband entertain his family. I have a family member who lives abroad and over-stays. Not as bad as what you describe. But this most recent time I just lived my life as normal and felt much better about the situation.

Your only options are put up with it or leave. I know that’s a horrible decision but it is it. The culture won’t change, only you can.

Sorry to hear this OP

have you got any of your own family you could go to or support you

I assume you never saw this, OP.

Someone asked a marriage counsellor about your situation last year:

www.boredpanda.com/husband-inlaws-used-wife-unfair/

I had neighbours who were from East Asia and I often had to remind them that "we don.t do that here" or its "not the British way". This was things like knocking on my door after the 9 pm curfew or knocking on a sunday. They also snitched to my landlord a few times about petty things until he hung up on them and blocked their number.

Can you just retire to bed and say you are ill? Let your husband and all his female relatives take care of the kids of that's what they enjoy doing. And shut down the personal remarks about your body shape. Tell them this is not India and if they are going to come to this country and stay they need to behave in a civilised way.

And??

If he gave a shit about his wife being run ragged, he'd just continue to wash up in his own home like any decent man would do.

Culture and tradition are all too often used as an excuse to continue inequality in marriages.

Perhaps the OP should have chosen a more culturally familiar forum to post on?

I know you mean well but a move like that is really not going to go down well in Pakistani culture.

But in this case, it is culture. He is never going to start washing up and doing childcare just like I'm never going to grow a third arm or walk on the moon.

Pakistan is a country that kills women who are too westernised. Where others have acid thrown in their faces, and where forced cousin marriages are still very much the norm. Of course it's not acceptable but OP is not going to get her DH to change his ways just by putting her foot down.

But in this case, it is culture. He is never going to start washing up and doing childcare just like I'm never going to grow a third arm or walk on the moon.

Oh stop making excuses 🙄

He can change this any time he wants to, just as plenty of couples have moved away from archaic traditions in their families.

The truth is he probably doesn't want to because this unfair setup suits HIM just fine.