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victim to warrior
My story
13th October, 2016.
Life was good.
No, it was great.
At 27, I was married to the most eligible bachelor in town. He was the man of my dreams. The whole experience of falling in love and getting married to the one you truly love is really beautiful. I was truly blessed.
At that point of time, as I looked back at my struggles and the process of growing up, I actually felt fulfilled. Wow! My life was playing out like a fairytale. I had the kind of job that most people desire and a desirable man was mine.
But destiny clearly had other plans. My life was going to get upended just at the time I thought everything had fallen into place.
Life is about to change
Marriage, and moving in with the in-laws can never be easy. I knew that getting in. . My life was going to change for sure, that I also knew. But nothing, not even the most excessive exaggerations of saas-bahu serials, could have prepared me for the suddenness and vituperativeness of what lay ahead. .
The very next day of the wedding, I discovered that I was not liked by my mother-in-law. She was not happy about me being her daughter-in-law; and she made no efforts to hide her feelings.
Her dislike for me seeped into her words very early. Her interactions with me were laced with spite and there was a dismissiveness bordering on disgust in every communication she directed my way. .
I was not naive. I knew about the challenges of moving in with in-laws. In fact, I knew that some teething problems are expected in finding your balance with a traditional mother-in-law in an Indian/ Nepali household.
I was confident that my love for my husband, and his love for me will help us weather the adjustment period with smiles and with being in love. The celebratory mood had set in strong and in that elation, I found the confidence to negotiate my way into my new family.
I believed in my love and bonding with my husband so much that initially I barely noticed his mother’s spite. It did not matter how much she hated me because we will eventually bond. Or so I thought. .
Adjusting into a new family should not be much of a challenge for a girl like me. After all, right since early childhood, I used to be told that I was strong and bold.
I was used to challenges and overcoming them. We ladies, those who have grown up in the traditional Indian society, have more or less common experiences. Nothing is ever smooth sailing for us. We are reminded about our gender often and with those reminders come reiterations of how we should behave, what we should do and dreams and ambitions we should never harbour. Privileges which men don’t even notice they enjoy, we have to struggle for.
There were struggles in my life before, but step-by-step, challenge by challenge, I got through them all. Life had now brought a new challenge, and all I wanted was to handle it well.
Despite many efforts to improve my relationship with my new family, my situation was not getting any better. I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong or why. This situation was draining me emtionally from inside. I felt myself struggling in a quicksand. The more I struggled to balane things, the worse the situation became. At that time, I reminded myself ofter, , “No matter how long the night is, tomorrow will be a brighter day.”
@girlyouarenotalone @author_punam #shreya's transformation
To be continued......
© Author_Punam
13th October, 2016.
Life was good.
No, it was great.
At 27, I was married to the most eligible bachelor in town. He was the man of my dreams. The whole experience of falling in love and getting married to the one you truly love is really beautiful. I was truly blessed.
At that point of time, as I looked back at my struggles and the process of growing up, I actually felt fulfilled. Wow! My life was playing out like a fairytale. I had the kind of job that most people desire and a desirable man was mine.
But destiny clearly had other plans. My life was going to get upended just at the time I thought everything had fallen into place.
Life is about to change
Marriage, and moving in with the in-laws can never be easy. I knew that getting in. . My life was going to change for sure, that I also knew. But nothing, not even the most excessive exaggerations of saas-bahu serials, could have prepared me for the suddenness and vituperativeness of what lay ahead. .
The very next day of the wedding, I discovered that I was not liked by my mother-in-law. She was not happy about me being her daughter-in-law; and she made no efforts to hide her feelings.
Her dislike for me seeped into her words very early. Her interactions with me were laced with spite and there was a dismissiveness bordering on disgust in every communication she directed my way. .
I was not naive. I knew about the challenges of moving in with in-laws. In fact, I knew that some teething problems are expected in finding your balance with a traditional mother-in-law in an Indian/ Nepali household.
I was confident that my love for my husband, and his love for me will help us weather the adjustment period with smiles and with being in love. The celebratory mood had set in strong and in that elation, I found the confidence to negotiate my way into my new family.
I believed in my love and bonding with my husband so much that initially I barely noticed his mother’s spite. It did not matter how much she hated me because we will eventually bond. Or so I thought. .
Adjusting into a new family should not be much of a challenge for a girl like me. After all, right since early childhood, I used to be told that I was strong and bold.
I was used to challenges and overcoming them. We ladies, those who have grown up in the traditional Indian society, have more or less common experiences. Nothing is ever smooth sailing for us. We are reminded about our gender often and with those reminders come reiterations of how we should behave, what we should do and dreams and ambitions we should never harbour. Privileges which men don’t even notice they enjoy, we have to struggle for.
There were struggles in my life before, but step-by-step, challenge by challenge, I got through them all. Life had now brought a new challenge, and all I wanted was to handle it well.
Despite many efforts to improve my relationship with my new family, my situation was not getting any better. I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong or why. This situation was draining me emtionally from inside. I felt myself struggling in a quicksand. The more I struggled to balane things, the worse the situation became. At that time, I reminded myself ofter, , “No matter how long the night is, tomorrow will be a brighter day.”
@girlyouarenotalone @author_punam #shreya's transformation
To be continued......
© Author_Punam
