Domestic issues because of sister-in-law
This is regarding a domestic problem at home. I am speaking on behalf of my parents. I am married and stay with my wife and parents. I have an younger brother and he is married and stays with us.
My brother has a 2 year old child. All of us stay together.
Problems:
1. Ever since my brother got married there has been a lot of issues because of his wife (my sister-in-law). She is quite out spoken and blunt. Her words are quite disrespectful and demeaning. We have tried to explain to her and she never agrees to her mistakes and it ends up in big bad fight.
2. As a daughter-in-law she should respect and obey my parents. But if my parents give her any advise or suggestion, she purposely goes against it - be it in cooking or in maintaining her room or house etc... This stubbornness is very disrespectful. She never takes part in house hold activities -
it is as if she comes to her office, works and goes back to her room. There is no emotional connect at all. Again, every time we point her mistake out, her ego gets hurt and it ends up in a big fight.
3. Moreover, she complains about us to her mother and tells her the wrong story. It appears as if we are troubling her, but that is false, instead we are tolerating her. Her parents have blamed my parents and accused them of harassing her daughter. we have had multiple arguments with her parents and no compromise happened. I believe her parents have spoilt her and have not educated her properly on such matters. They support her and here she is not learning and growing as family member.
4. I am worried that my parents are getting harassed as they dont want any legal or social issues, so they try to tolerate what ever she says, but i am against it. Because of this my brother and i have fought and my wife & his wife have fought. and it is a very toxic relationship now.
5. Now, recently she has accused my parents of not taking care of the child properly and that they think the child is a burden on them and threatened us that she will take the child and go off to her Mother's house. My brother is in a consultant job and he is traveling most of the time. He is also ignorant of her behavior in his absence. however, he is aware of the toxicity..
5. My parents dont want us to separate and we cant live together also. If only my sister-in-law can change her attitude, life will be different and better. But we dont have any evidences to prove this. What is right and what is wrong? whose mistake it is? we dont want to file any complaint as it will only make it worse.
What can i do to solve this once for all? I dont want her to take any step against us - as i am sure she will be favored in this case. Can i arrange for an legal arbitrator to intervene and arrange for a discussion? what if she lies and denies everything? my parents are old and they dont want all this, but it is unavoidable cos of my sister-in-laws attitude - I want to fight this and find a permanent solution.
Asked 7 years ago in Family Law
Religion: Hindu
My sister-in-law's background - her parents lost their younger child, a son when he was 15 yrs.. he committed suicide. There are 2 separate reasons for this: (don't know if it is true)
1. due to pressure from his parents to score good marks.
2. my sister-in-law during their childhood constantly criticized him and he committed suicide. this could be due to sibling rivalry due to distributed attention from parents (assuming that parents gave more attention to son than daughter - as 'son' in Indian society is like god)
This has had adverse effects on them and due to this reason they have brought their daughter up very cautiously in order to not loose her. in fact they haven't really taught her enough and attempted any kind of negative or punishing act due to the fear that she might do something to herself. She and her parents are very emotionally attached.
Between my brother and SIL's engagement and marriage she behaved very differently, she was very friendly and quite involving and spent a lot of time with my wife, but after marriage her behavior slightly changed due to which we started to complain to her parents to which they retaliated badly and now we are not in talking terms with her parents as well. she started to get completely disengaged with our family and always looked forward to go back to her mother's house. Even when she is in our house, she is always in her room and does not interact with anyone.
My brother and she have also had fights, but those are common among any husband wife, so that should not matter. After they had a child, things was a slightly good.
I guessing, just a thought scary thought- Somehow i feel her intention is to take the baby and go back to her mother's house or keep the baby away from us as the baby is too attached to my parents. Either she is jealous, or in secured about this. That's is why she accused my parents of torturing the baby for a mere scratch on the knee while playing ball. I don't know if she and her parents are planning something - as this child seems to be a come back of their son who died- there is something mysterious.
She and her parents filing a dowry case to accuse us is unlikely in this case, however they can create rift between her and my family so that she can move out and then they can have a closer life with their daughter and the grandchild which is not happening now.
For my parents she and the child are part of our family and according to them as per the usual customs, she should be more dedicated to our family, which she is not. This disturbs my mother and in turn disturbs everybody and there is absolutely no happiness. Everyday is the same plot - silence or fight.
My mother is worried about my brother too, she doesn't want him to live separately, but cos of my SIL he has to.
Will a family counselor still work in this case? I Know legally i cant bound anybody to truly accept a family.
If she is disinterested then what can be done?
Asked 7 years ago
