Being married in a punjabi household

[confusedbrownwomen]

I have been married for more than 6 years and am expecting a new born soon. I am Punjabi. Our marriage has always been rocky but the last year we found a common ground and have been building with one another, visits from the in laws have been at a low so this was helpful. Our main issues were regarding my husband’s family in terms of misogynistic ways, narcissistic behavior, nonverbal cues / bad vibes, and lack of communication with both FIL and MIL. Following are some things that overwhelm me, if I bring it up with my husband, he acts like this victim, in the last 6 years the solution to the situations are just getting more and more helpless and annoying.

1)      he is unable to create healthy boundaries with his parents that help us flourish our relationship.

2)      Over the years issues that have rose are 1) both side parents live in Canada, we live in the US, visiting my parents has become an issue as I am expected to stay at in laws even when we are visiting. His parents come stay with us for months! We normally visit for 2 weeks and the visit usually causes major arguments between my husband and I because of nonverbal cues and expectations that I did not know existed in his home.

3)      My mother-in-law has 0 boundaries. If we stay with her for a few days and now its time for me to head to my parents, she’ ll come over and literally be a burden and sit at my parents’ house. We have tried to schedule days as well, but in between my visit to my parents, my in laws will plan a party or randomly show up at my parents affecting my stay. Even though I live here, both families do visit each other. But my MIL will go to my parents’ home because her son and my brother are friends and wait for my BIL to finish what every he planned so they can drive back home together. She has sat in my parents home until midnight! Waiting and showing how upset she is that my brother-in-law (her own son) isn’t back on time. This was on a day where he planned to propose to his GF, my MIL chose to tag along and wait at my parents’ home. The next day my mom had work. This has happened more than 3 times.

4)      Infront of FIL, MIL tries her best to keep her composure behind back she does not act like a good person ex, she will only help me if husband is helping me to try to medal in-between us. If my husband and I are going out, she calls hysterically. (he is almost 40 years old)

5)      She constantly brings up her daughter. One recent topic was how her daughter saves money and my wedding outfit was more expensive than hers. My parents paid for my wedding outfit, so my MIL does not need to be talking like this. She had this conversation with my mom. I told my mom why didn’t you tell her, this is not a good conversation to have, or you should have told her that we paid for the outfit. LOL I totally get my mom, she said “I didn’t know what to say, your MIL sprung that conversation out of nowhere.”

6)      Now that I am pregnant, MIL has chosen to come without any consideration of asking us, and is staying for at least 3 months. Her excuse is that she wants to help us. There is no helping going on. MY FIL stayed for a month and left MIL behind. My MIL purposely only asks if I want to eat food Infront of others, she walks around acting all to herself creating a bad environment in the home, and she constantly wants to hang out with my husband taking “our time”.

7)      I want to spend my pregnancy time with my own mom too. My mom said it politely to my MIL that tell me when you are coming back from USA so I can come, because she wants to also spend time with me, we cannot even get 5 days to ourselves. My MIL and FIL said why don’t you (to my mom) come when you can and you two (both moms) can book your flights back together. This does not let my mom and I spend any time together.
Life is so unstable and over whelming. The last 6 years of my life have been so confusing. I understand I am Punjabi as well and we are the same culture, but to be honest, I am not the same mindset as his family and surprisingly, not like my husband either. My family and I, we are not overbearing people, we are more kind and enjoy the little things in life. But I am at the point where I feel abandoned by everyone. I even asked my family to talk to them, but because we are “Punjabi” it will look bad. (LOL).

What I want is
· To be able to visit my family in Canada in peace without so many restrictions. In the last 6 years, this happened only 1 time.
· I need his family to minimize visits to us to only come once a year and that to max of 3 weeks, anything over this is really overwhelming.
· I need his family to understand boundaries, respect that, they cannot keep invading everyone’s space.

Is this too much to ask? What can I do to fix this? How can I ignore this? What am I doing wrong?